Ever tried dictating a blog post while running? Let me tell you, it’s an experience—somewhere between deep thinking and gasping for air. But hey, here we are, about 4 miles into my 9 mile run into work!
The Struggle of Context Switching
I spend most of my day working with cloud infrastructure, DevOps pipelines, and automation, but I often find myself wondering: where does development end and cloud engineering begin? There’s a growing trend where developers are expected to handle infrastructure, which is great in theory—until things start to scale.
See, I firmly believe developers should be laser-focused on delivering business value. Whether it’s crafting intuitive user interfaces, writing sophisticated APIs, or implementing business logic, their primary job is building products. Infrastructure, deployments, and configurations? Those should support developers, not become their burden.
Infrastructure as Code: A Necessary Evil?
Cloud engineers exist for a reason. Managing infrastructure at scale isn’t as simple as spinning up a few VMs or containers. Tools like Terraform, Pulumi, and Bicep give us a way to define infrastructure as code, but when you’re juggling multiple environments and constantly troubleshooting cloud configurations, it can get frustrating—fast.
And let’s be honest, how often do we see developers wrestling with infrastructure when they’d rather be coding? That’s where DevOps should step in. A good DevOps setup makes infrastructure management nearly invisible to developers. They should be able to deploy their applications without worrying about networking, storage, or security policies.
DevOps is a Developer’s Best Friend
If developers are struggling with deployments, something has gone wrong. DevOps should empower them, not slow them down. We should be building tools and automation that let them push code with confidence, knowing the infrastructure will just work.
The goal isn’t to stop developers from touching infrastructure altogether—it’s to abstract away the complexity so they can focus on what they do best. Whether through CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration, or managed cloud services, the best DevOps practices remove roadblocks, not create them.
Final Thought: DevOps as the Backstage Crew
DevOps engineers aren’t the main act—we’re the backstage crew. We’re the lighting, sound, and electrical engineers at a rock concert, making sure everything runs flawlessly so the band can focus on delivering an outstanding performance. The audience doesn’t see us, and they don’t need to.
A great developer shouldn’t have to worry about deployments, networking, or infrastructure—they should be hyper-focused on writing code that delivers direct business value. DevOps exists to supercharge developers, removing friction and enabling them to build, test, and ship with confidence. No context switching, no fighting with environments—just delivering value at full speed.
Because at the end of the day, the success of the show isn’t about the amps or the stage setup. It’s about the performance. And great DevOps ensures developers can put on the best show possible.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to catch my breath.
