2917: AI and IDPs: Harness's Blueprint for Next-Gen Software Development

[00:00:00] In a world where software delivery is rapidly evolving, how can developers keep pace with

[00:00:07] the rising complexities of cloud-native pipelines while also delivering consistent value?

[00:00:14] Well, my guest today is Martin Reynolds. He's the field CTO at Harness, and he believes

[00:00:21] that the Platform Engineering and Internal Developer Portals, or IDPs, he believes they

[00:00:27] hold the key to accelerating digital innovation. So I've invited him on the podcast today

[00:00:33] to talk about that and also explain how IDPs provide developers with this centralised single

[00:00:39] pane of glass so they can access all tools and the infrastructure that they need, but

[00:00:46] also how this approach minimises the time spent on things like repetitive non-coding

[00:00:51] tasks and how it allows developers to focus on what they do best, building and delivering

[00:00:58] impactful solutions. So buckle up and hold on tight, so I can beam your ears all the

[00:01:04] way to London where Martin is going to talk about how these innovations are not just helping

[00:01:09] to reduce toil, but are also set to disrupt the developer experience and drive transformation

[00:01:19] in 2024. So a massive warm welcome to the show, Martin. Can you tell everyone listening

[00:01:26] a little about who you are and what you do? My name is Martin Reynolds. I am the field

[00:01:31] CTO at Harness. Prior to that, I have had 30 years of engineering experience, you know,

[00:01:38] hands-on coder through engineering manager. And then, you know, most recently in my previous

[00:01:44] role, I was director of DevOps at a company called One Advanced before joining Harness

[00:01:53] late last year to kind of, you know, be front and centre talking about the tools and challenges

[00:02:01] that we help solve. And for anyone listening outside of the industry, hearing about Harness

[00:02:07] for the first time, how would you describe it to non-techies listening? To non-techies?

[00:02:15] I would say that, you know, Harness is a set of tools that help software developers build and

[00:02:24] publish their software out to their customers and do that in a way that delivers it, you know,

[00:02:31] safely, securely, you know, and reliably. And one of the reasons I invited you on the

[00:02:37] podcast today is I always try and demystify a different topic every day. And I want to talk

[00:02:42] a little today about the need for platform engineering. So just to set the scene, can you

[00:02:47] explain the concept of platform engineering and why it's becoming increasingly important for

[00:02:52] developers, especially in the current climate of rising costs, tightened budgets in this

[00:02:57] economic climate that we find ourselves? Absolutely. And that kind of costing is one

[00:03:02] of the real drivers, right? You know, generally software teams, engineering teams, they're trying

[00:03:07] to, you know, move into public cloud. They want to deliver more value to their customers and the

[00:03:14] challenges, you know, traditionally that takes a lot of toil. I, you know, and when I say toil,

[00:03:19] I mean stuff that isn't developing the software, but all the stuff around it that helps teams do

[00:03:24] that. Platform engineering, you know, really is something that helps solve some of those problems

[00:03:31] and takes away some of those challenges. And it does that really by providing, you know,

[00:03:37] a development platform where engineers and software developers can actually,

[00:03:43] you know, have a reliable tool chain and set of workflows and pipelines that allow them to

[00:03:49] deliver to that platform quickly and take away, you know, some of those tasks that they used to

[00:03:55] do by automating them and allowing them to kind of deliver reliably on a secure platform.

[00:04:03] And another topic I'd love to bring into the audience here is internal developer portals or

[00:04:08] IDPs because they play a crucial role in enabling developers to build at scale. But can you

[00:04:14] just delve into how IDPs function as a single pane of glass for developers and also the specific

[00:04:20] problems that they solve in software delivery as well, just to keep everyone on board here?

[00:04:26] Sure. So internal developer portal is really, what's the best way to describe it? It's like a

[00:04:31] gateway into the tools and the platform and the tasks that developers need to use to allow them to,

[00:04:41] you know, essentially do their job. And in fact, one of our customers described an IDP as like an

[00:04:48] orchestrator of orchestrators. And I think what they meant by that is it provides this single

[00:04:53] view, one place where developers can go to do all the tasks that they need to do. So, you know,

[00:05:00] whether that is, you know, getting access to the latest tooling, say they want to have, you know,

[00:05:06] a generative AI code assistant, maybe they can request access via their developer portal.

[00:05:11] Maybe they're building a new service and they need the infrastructure in place and be able to deploy

[00:05:17] that. And the developer portal will provide them, you know, kind of out of the box pipeline ready to

[00:05:23] go that accelerates that delivery and allows them to just write code. You know, it provides

[00:05:31] visibility on the things that an organization already has. So the services and applications

[00:05:35] that they have, how well they're running, you know, are they meeting all their security

[00:05:40] requirements? How regularly are they updated? How do you interface with them to make sure that

[00:05:45] you deliver, you know, software, you know, reliably and take advantage of what's already

[00:05:51] there. There's no point in reinventing the wheel, you know, and ultimately the IDP is really putting

[00:05:57] kind of a wrap around all of those things, whether that's the tool chain, the infrastructure they

[00:06:03] need to deploy to, you know, and what you want is that the, you know, the engineers can do the

[00:06:08] thing that they enjoy most. And I say that as somebody who spent many years hocked in code,

[00:06:13] you know, it's solving problems and writing the code and delivering that, you know, those solutions

[00:06:19] is generally what engineers enjoy. And, you know, solving some of those problems around that

[00:06:26] by, you know, using a developer portal to kind of automate and facilitate and allow self-service of

[00:06:32] those things really helps, you know, the developers do the thing that they enjoy most.

[00:06:38] So if we were to compare IDPs against traditional development environments,

[00:06:43] how do IDPs represent this almost evolution from traditional development environments, particularly

[00:06:49] in terms of things like simplifying complexities involved in cloud native software delivery? And

[00:06:55] if you can share around that, just help people listening, understand the old versus new way of

[00:06:59] doing things. Sure. You know, traditionally, you know, development environments tended to focus

[00:07:05] around kind of, you know, bigger releases and longer release cycles, lots of moving parts.

[00:07:10] And often, you know, if a company had, I know, say 20 services that made up their application,

[00:07:19] then they might have 20 ways of delivering it. Right. And every team that was working on it

[00:07:24] needed to know all the 20 ways. Right. So that it became, you know, it's difficult. It takes time

[00:07:30] to do that instead of just delivering the software. And this is where, you know,

[00:07:34] IDP and platform engineering really kind of breaks that model and allows kind of development

[00:07:41] to happen in smaller chunks, delivering to a consistent platform in a, you know,

[00:07:47] in a consistent, reliable way, you know, not 20 different ways of doing it, but, you know,

[00:07:53] one, two or three ways of doing it using a, if you like a golden pathway that allows them to deliver

[00:07:58] that. And, you know, especially when you're talking about cloud native software delivery, where,

[00:08:04] you know, the cloud itself is amazing and full of wonderful opportunities of things to build.

[00:08:10] It's also super complex and there's a lot to learn, you know, and kind of abstracting that away and

[00:08:17] saying, this is how we deliver to our cloud native solutions. And here's a pipeline that

[00:08:23] lets your software get deployed there automatically. And it does all the right security checks and

[00:08:28] governance. Then that's great. You know, just allows that kind of more agile, rapid approach

[00:08:36] to getting, you know, those features and value out to customers of organizations.

[00:08:43] And we've already mentioned budget restraints, businesses being challenged to do more with less.

[00:08:47] And it feels like almost every tech project is increasingly under pressure to deliver

[00:08:52] business value, prove ROI on that project, et cetera. So in your view, how do IDPs affect

[00:08:58] developer productivity and the capacity for innovation within organizations? Are you able

[00:09:04] to share any examples where the adoption of an IDP has marked improved development processes?

[00:09:10] Appreciate you probably can't mention any names, but any examples spring to mind?

[00:09:15] Sure. Absolutely. And you're absolutely right. You know, people are generally under pressure to do,

[00:09:21] you know, more with the same, you know, and IDPs and platform engineering together actually

[00:09:28] help provide that, you know, they enable engineering teams to move quickly, you know,

[00:09:33] and certainly we have actually, we have multiple customers where, you know, we've seen this really

[00:09:40] work. There's a particular FinTech firm that I have in mind, you know, and they adopted platform

[00:09:47] engineering and IDP, you know, and it was really to kind of empower the engineers with kind of

[00:09:54] the knowledge and the insights of all the stages of that software delivery life cycle. So they could

[00:09:58] see all the services they were delivering. They could see how they were performing. They could see

[00:10:03] if they were cost effective, right? Being able to do that, you know, enabled the developers to make

[00:10:09] better decisions and make them faster, you know, and really kind of, you know,

[00:10:16] be comfortable that they're doing the right things and that their code meets all the required,

[00:10:22] you know, quality gates when it's being deployed because it's built into that single pipeline.

[00:10:27] I mean, the other one I would also, you know, really mention is we've had, you know,

[00:10:35] actually multiple large banks who've been working with, you know, kind of IDPs and,

[00:10:39] you know, that kind of developer onboarding, we've recruited somebody new. You know, we see that often,

[00:10:47] you know, that takes time to onboard them into teams and actually developer portals really help

[00:10:51] solve that problem. And we've seen, you know, things go from, you know, weeks to hours in terms

[00:10:57] of, you know, onboarding and getting those engineers being effective and working and involved with those

[00:11:02] products really, really quickly instead of kind of a long, slow onboarding process. So, you know,

[00:11:09] developer portal can really help drive successful organizations.

[00:11:14] And for any organization that's maybe looking to implement IDPs or maybe we've awakened their

[00:11:20] curiosity around them today, what are the key considerations that they should be keeping in

[00:11:25] mind to ensure that smooth transition and maximal benefit from these platforms and avoid making

[00:11:31] some of the mistakes that you've probably seen a few people make time and time again?

[00:11:34] Absolutely. So I think one of the most common ways to successfully deliver a developer portal

[00:11:42] is actually understanding who the customer is of the developer portal, if that makes sense. So those

[00:11:49] platform engineering teams and, you know, DevOps teams that are building out the kind of IDP in

[00:11:54] the platform, they need to be aware that, you know, they are servicing, you know, many developers in

[00:12:02] their organization. You know, maybe that could be hundreds or it could be thousands depending on the

[00:12:07] size of the organization. And those engineers have very high expectations. You know, they have tools

[00:12:13] that they're used to using and they have ways of working that they're used to doing. And so

[00:12:18] understanding their needs and then building the IDP to service those needs and make their lives

[00:12:26] easier is definitely a way to drive the choices that you make around that, you know, actually

[00:12:34] understanding and talking to them and treating them like a customer. In fact, we had somebody

[00:12:40] from a very large bank in the US who was, you know, he equated directly kind of that developer

[00:12:48] happiness, that developer experience that the engineers have to his customers' success and

[00:12:59] happiness because he felt that when the engineers were happy and they had the tools that they needed

[00:13:03] and their job was easy, they did better work. And that actually reflected in the customers getting

[00:13:09] better software that they enjoyed using more, you know. And so kind of embracing that and embracing

[00:13:18] the fact and treating the engineers as customers when you do that is really how you drive success

[00:13:23] and help them, you know, understand the value of using the IDP so that they truly adopt it

[00:13:29] and embrace it. Of course, implementing any new system will come with a unique set of challenges

[00:13:35] and there'll be a lot of hurdles that companies face when adopting IDPs. Any of those that you

[00:13:41] can share as well and how, of course, you're helping business leaders overcome some of these

[00:13:46] hurdles? Yeah, I mean one of the biggest issues is, you know, that there's a lot of tools out there

[00:13:54] that engineers use in their software delivery, you know, life cycle, you know, whether that's

[00:14:00] security testing tools or the code editor that they use or, you know, the multiple different cloud

[00:14:05] environments or the, you know, the unit or the testing software that they use, you know. And

[00:14:10] honestly any IDP that, you know, that somebody is implementing needs to, you know, really be able

[00:14:17] to integrate with all of those tools, integrate with the existing infrastructure and provide a

[00:14:22] way to rapidly provide those to the customers. And that's something that we, you know, we very

[00:14:28] much focus on is being able to integrate with all the tools that people use to facilitate that so

[00:14:34] that you're actually, again, kind of looping back to the previous question where we're making sure

[00:14:40] that, you know, the engineers are getting the experience that they want that helps them

[00:14:46] adopt it. And that's really how you, you know, part of how you can really drive that forward,

[00:14:52] you know, because you just need to keep it, make using those tools simple for developers so that,

[00:14:59] you know, they don't have to learn something new. They just can take away some of the

[00:15:04] toil and the effort and the labor around using the tools that they're familiar with.

[00:15:08] And I'm curious as you look ahead, how do you see the role of platform engineering and

[00:15:13] IDPs evolving? Are there any trends or technological advancements that you think

[00:15:17] will further shape that development? I think AI is an obvious one, but what are you seeing here?

[00:15:22] Yeah, so I was going to say, you can't answer that question without talking about

[00:15:27] AI, you know, and it's really impacting. I mean, it's very interesting because, you know,

[00:15:34] and I think this is an approach that we at Arnis take across the board. We have a, you know, an

[00:15:40] AI assistant called Ada. But one of the things that we're really trying to do with that is we

[00:15:45] don't want it to get in the way. We don't want it to replace what the developers do.

[00:15:48] What we want to do is make it an assistant, you know, truly an assistant. And I think the best

[00:15:54] AI tools that are out there and generative AI tools that are out there, you know, help developers

[00:16:00] do their job better. And, you know, whether that is, you know, accessing, you know, acting as a

[00:16:05] co-pilot for generating code or maybe, you know, telling them how to resolve a security issue in

[00:16:12] their code, maybe, you know, helping them identify the right pipeline to use to deploy their code.

[00:16:19] You know, these are all things that generative AI can help with and take away some of those

[00:16:25] toil steps. And I think we're going to see more and more and more of that, you know, through the

[00:16:31] process. Certainly, you know, that's where we're looking with the generative AI that we do. We

[00:16:38] already do some of that like security resolution stuff. We do summarizing a pull request, you know,

[00:16:43] when a developer makes a change, you know, filling in and kind of looking at the change that they

[00:16:49] made and writing a human readable description of that change, you know, that they can then spend

[00:16:54] less time doing. They can then just review that and accept it and modify it. Again, helping them

[00:16:58] do their job rather than replacing their job. In terms of an IDP, it's something that I ultimately

[00:17:03] think will end up being embedded in the IDP to kind of help them deliver because, you know,

[00:17:09] being able to, instead of browsing the IDP, just ask the IDP where to go. I think that's

[00:17:14] long-term where I think it's going to be. And one of the things that stood out

[00:17:18] for me around Harness's IDP is how it's built for developers and crafted by platform engineers. So,

[00:17:25] what advice would you give to any developers and organizations to best prepare for the changes and

[00:17:31] opportunities that platform and IDPs present in the future? Anything that excites you here or any

[00:17:37] advice that you would give to anyone listening? Because I suspect you get asked a lot of the same

[00:17:42] questions again and again. So maybe we can put some of those to rest today. Sure, sure. So,

[00:17:48] one of the things that we often talk about is this kind of embracing shift left. But I often think

[00:17:57] that if the left is interpreted the wrong way, I think we've done engineers a disservice by

[00:18:03] the implication that shift left means shifting the work left. I don't think that that's the case. I

[00:18:10] think really what shift left is, it's about shifting the information left so that the

[00:18:15] developers have the right information at the right time in context when they're working on

[00:18:22] something. Not, you know, I built this thing and five days later somebody's done a security test

[00:18:28] and I've already built three more things since then and I don't really remember what it did,

[00:18:32] right? And they have the context switch. No, they should absolutely have that kind of

[00:18:37] smart working and shifting that information left because they really do need those insights and

[00:18:43] it helps them deliver more faster. It helps them innovate if they've got the right information at

[00:18:48] the right time, you know, looping back to that previous example that I gave where they can,

[00:18:53] you know, they've got all the right information and it's in context and they can make smart

[00:18:57] decisions to build great software. Another question I've got to ask you because I think there's a

[00:19:03] lot of pressure on everybody in every industry to be in a state of almost continuous learning.

[00:19:08] I was reading before you came on the podcast today how developer skills are evolving with

[00:19:13] AI as a co-pilot of sorts. So there's different levels of skills required there but I've got to

[00:19:19] ask, how or where do you self-educate to keep up to speed with some of these changes because

[00:19:24] it's moving so fast right now? It is moving incredibly fast and I will prefix my answer

[00:19:31] to this with the fact that, you know, one of the things I loved about working in software delivery

[00:19:36] over the past 30 years is that like rate of innovation and change makes it very exciting.

[00:19:43] You know, because there's always something new around the corner. You know, where do I get my

[00:19:47] information from? Where do I see what the trends are? Well actually it comes from multiple places.

[00:19:51] Spend a lot of time talking with our customers, getting their feedback, understanding their goals,

[00:19:57] you know, and the things that they see coming that they need to deliver on. But also, you know,

[00:20:03] I read a lot of industry news, I listen to podcasts like this one and others, you know,

[00:20:09] I read a lot of blogs and articles from within the different communities. It's something that

[00:20:17] you have to make time for, you know. I think if you're going to work in engineering and you're

[00:20:22] going to work in software, you know, wherever you are in that tool chain, I think it is a,

[00:20:28] it's kind of required to make time to learn and to see what's coming and, you know,

[00:20:34] you don't have to be an expert in it but you do need to, you know, at least understand it so that

[00:20:38] you can then, you know, dive deeper if you need to, you know. If that's what your job requires

[00:20:44] then definitely doing that and, you know, keeping that broad understanding and then

[00:20:49] diving in when you need to really, you know, is really kind of essential to kind of that

[00:20:55] moving forwards constantly which appears to be the world of working in software engineering.

[00:21:02] Constantly moving forwards, constantly improving, constantly iterating.

[00:21:05] Fantastic advice and if anyone listening would like to explore this world of IDPs further,

[00:21:11] whether it be connecting with you or your team or just having a look at

[00:21:14] the work that you're doing at Harness there, where would you like to point everyone listening?

[00:21:19] I would absolutely like to point them at harness.io which is our website which has our blogs,

[00:21:25] it has customer case studies, you can sign up to a free tier on there. I would also call out,

[00:21:32] we regularly run kind of hands-on labs for people, CICD days which essentially,

[00:21:39] you know, lets them come on, use the tool, build something and deploy something, you know,

[00:21:44] all within an hour, an hour and a half. So I would definitely point people at those too

[00:21:48] and you can find the information about those events, you know, on our website.

[00:21:53] Awesome, well I'll add links to everything so people can find you nice and easy and

[00:21:57] cannot thank you enough for coming on today. We've covered a lot there from the rise of

[00:22:01] platform engineering as developers look for ways to accelerate digital innovation against this

[00:22:07] backdrop of rising costs and tightened budgets and also why IDPs are becoming crucial to ensuring

[00:22:13] developers can build at scale without facing an increasing toil owing to the rising complexity

[00:22:20] of software delivery pipelines right now in this AI and cloud native era that we find ourselves

[00:22:26] and also for showing how this growing trend is going to further disrupt the developer experience

[00:22:31] and accelerate transformation, not just here in 2024 but beyond too. But just thank you

[00:22:38] Martin for demystifying that space and sharing your insights with me today. Appreciate your time.

[00:22:43] Thank you very much and thank you for having me, it's been a pleasure.

[00:22:45] So a big thank you to Martin for sharing his insights into the transformative power of

[00:22:51] platform engineering and internal developer portals. And I think he provided a clear picture

[00:22:57] of how these innovations empower developers to navigate cloud native complexities, streamline

[00:23:03] workflows and unlock rapid software delivery. And to everybody listening, how do you see platform

[00:23:09] engineering and IDPs impacting your organisations? I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences

[00:23:15] and join this crucial conversation and you can do all that by simply emailing me

[00:23:21] on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, just at Neil C Hughes. But I'm afraid we've reached the end

[00:23:26] of this episode. I've taken up far too much of your time today, especially because I want to invite

[00:23:32] you to join me again tomorrow. So I'm going to let myself out and I cordially invite you to join

[00:23:37] me again tomorrow. But thanks as always for listening and until next time, don't be a stranger.