The pandemic forced most of us to work remotely. For the majority, it came with a combination of pros and cons. More focus time (unless you had kids at home) but less interaction with colleagues. The biggest void, according to many, was the lack of natural exchange of ideas and help as you ran into coworkers in the office. Instead, you had to find who could answer and actively ask for their help over a digital medium. For experienced engineers, the consequence would be more interruptions when not convenient (e.g. constant alerts on Slack). For new engineers ramping up or system integrators working on large projects, where knowledge is more tribal than documented, it could be detrimental to the efficiency and outcome, as well as the integration into a new team.
Not surprisingly, a variety of collaboration tools started to skyrocket in the market - e.g. Zoom, Teams, Slack et al. They became key to keep the information and knowledge-flow going. At the same time, organizations increased their investments in SaaS offloading, to “streamline in a remote world.” The pandemic is viewed as having accelerated digital transformation by 5x.
As a side effect, however, is that most workers' daily workflow experience has become scattered and context-broken. I can count 20 different SaaS tools touched in a day, in addition to the organizational HR and accounts payable ones. For a developer in particular, this comes with a high context-switch tax!
Fast forward to today: in a hybrid world, has the workforce slowed down? At the same time, have we gotten more digitally stressed? Are we more delayed due to constant search and wait for information - or access to information and tools? Personally, I’ve noticed a significant increase in tool context switching for engineering teams, and it can’t be good for time to market of new innovation. We are, in my view, experiencing the beginnings of a SaaS hangover.
The glass-half-full view of the big tech layoffs is that it’s given the opportunity for a lot of bright minds to spend time thinking on how to fix these workflow pains that they have just lived through. The result: a new wave of engineering tool innovation on the rise. Over the last six months there has been an influx in innovative ways of tying a distributed engineering organization and workflows with other stakeholders’ together. Entrepreneurs in this space are focusing on how engineers will work more efficiently in a remote world. It seems like a good opportunity at first, as enterprises are suddenly desperate to spend on dev tooling. Unusual, but true. The large organizations are experiencing the aftermath of the layoffs. As a result, spending desire for devtools to cover for the fall behind and lack of people has gone up. Usually, devtools are really not something high up the budget list. If you make it though, you make it big! It seems though as if 99% of the time devtools stay open source and at an at-will usage - i.e. no revenue generating machine. So a tough space to win in. I do think there is an opportunity here, yes. However, I’m wondering for how long, before the momentary spend eagerness subsides to normal again?
The future path for devtools is now also challenged by another parallel idea: are we heading towards “engineeringless” (with emphasis on less)? Considering generative AI, there is in theory only need for instructions (or so called prompts), and “the AI” will build it for you. We have just leapfrogged forward in the automation evolution, so is it wise to still focus on engineering tooling for today’s engineers? Wouldn’t it be wiser to aim for engineeringlessTM devtools? I am intrigued by the opportunity and amazing timing with enterprises devtool spend willingness, but I predict the window of time will be short. It is however time to rethink devtooling completely and overhaul what’s been!
Last but not least, I am an engineer myself and proud of it. If I have learned one thing, it is that you have to adapt. Instead of worrying about what is going away or the current pain points in the workflow, it would perhaps be smarter to ideate and design for what the new normal for engineering will come to look like. I congratulate the one of the dozen I’ve seen so far that have dared to re-imagine the future of engineering entirely! More of that please, especially when you have signs that developers love what you are building… :)
👋🏼 @Eva! Love this post. Adapting in today's very volatile and ever-shifting world is not that easy of course. Being mentally tough, developing one's curiosity, and doing what others aren't doing are the first steps in the process of overcoming adversity via innovation. Would love to know which companies these are, "the one of the dozen I’ve seen so far that have dared to re-imagine the future of engineering entirely!