The value of automating operational tasks for your software engineers

Today, it’s hard to talk about technology without someone bringing up AI. Whether it’s for streamlining marketing efforts, responding to customers faster, or reducing administrative burden, companies are using automation and machine learning for a wide range of activities. 

This is also true for engineering teams. From developers using ChatGPT to draft code and tests, to engineering leads investing in AI tooling that makes their teams more efficient, the technology is already embedded into every day activities. From my perspective, the teams that are really going to succeed in leveraging automation and AI are the ones that take the time to understand their potential value and use them to take their teams to the next level. 

By introducing automation in the right places, teams can collectively focus on more strategic work, magnifying the impact that each individual contributor can have on getting new products and features to market. Automation introduces efficiency, reduces overall costs, and ultimately better positions teams to be more innovative and productive. In a time where many engineering teams are being asked to operate with fewer resources, automating repetitive manual tasks is not only a smart move, it’s a vital one. 

Let’s explore some of the key benefits of automation for product developers, platform engineers, and the broader engineering organization. 

Automation empowers your product developers to do more

For product developers, introducing automation helps make them more agile. With automation, developers spend less time on repetitive, administrative tasks and focus more on strategic work. This makes them better problem solvers, enabling them to push the art of the possible and explore new ideas. Plus, by spending more time on their core competencies, they can be more effective in their roles and help get products to market faster. 

Product developers also benefit when platform engineers automate some of their tasks. Instead of having to wait for platform engineers to respond to tickets and set up environments for them, they can take more direct action, faster. As such, automation ultimately helps reduce the common barriers product developers face in getting their work done.

Lastly, automation can be a significant driver when it comes to improving the developer experience. At the end of the day, when developers get to work on challenges that are more aligned with their role and interest, they’re likely to be happier and more motivated. As we heard recently on the Level Up podcast from Elliot Graebert, advisor at Coder, if you can align your developer experience initiatives with the needs of the business (e.g., attracting top talent and delivering products faster), then you can do more to prove the value of your organization. 

Automation makes your platform engineers more effective

Teams that have introduced a platform engineering function already understand the value of empowering their product developers to do more strategic work. However, that’s just a first step that can be further optimized through the adoption of automated features. 

Consider this: without automation, the core function of platform engineers is to conduct repetitive service or environment setup work, often being at the beck and call of product developers that want to get moving on their own work. As teams continue to grow, this approach becomes increasingly inefficient, making platform engineering more of a barrier than an enabler for product developers. By automating key features within a clear set of parameters, platform engineers can allow product developers to self-serve on a variety of capabilities, including service creation. This frees them up to focus on innovative and strategic initiatives that ultimately make the team more effective, gives them time to learn about industry best practices, and allows them to support developers with more important needs. 

As a result, platform engineers can play a more collaborative role with product developers, ultimately improving the relationship between these two teams. And with both key functions operating more strategically thanks to automation, they can each help take the engineering organization to the next level.

Automation supports the overall performance of your engineering team

While I’ve separated out the benefits of automation for product developers and platform engineers, the truth is that automation can help the engineering team do more to help the business meet its overarching goals. With automation, for instance, developers can scale features faster, making them better equipped to help the business respond to increased customer demands. 

From a business perspective, automating manual operational tasks translates to cost savings. Developers are expensive, and when they’re spending time on repetitive, manual admin tasks, that means you’re spending a lot of money on activities that are necessary, but don’t bring a lot of value. For instance, OpsLevel customers have reported saving over 11 hours per developer per month by streamlining developers’ workflows.

Automation also reduces risk exposure by reducing the potential for human error. In a time where customer trust is inherently tied to key technology metrics of security, reliability, and availability, reducing risk is an imperative. In addition, teams that use the best practices for automation—and improve the developer experience as a result—are more likely to attract the best talent. Today’s software engineering talent is more likely to hold out for roles that inspire them and give them the chance to do the work they want to do, so investing in creating an appealing organization is valuable.

To sum up, automation leads to more engaged teams and a more efficient—and impactful—engineering organization. 

An IDP can help establish a culture of automation

One central way that engineering teams can introduce automation is by adopting an internal developer platform (IDP). An IDP can be essential in automating key actions and templating service creation, empowering product developers to self-serve and dive right into the work without having to wait for platform engineers to set things up for them. This increases autonomy and accountability for developers—and reduces cognitive load—and gives platform engineers the opportunity to play a more strategic role within the organization. 

Through templates and a robust service catalog, an IDP can also ensure that teams are consistent in the tools and services they use. This standardization can ultimately make products and features more reliable, and easier to manage. 

Recently, OpsLevel conducted a survey of some of our customers to get a clearer understanding of how teams benefit from our automation features. We learned that 77% of customers are leveraging our IDP to improve the overall developer experience, and 74% have experienced a reduction in administrative burden. Plus, customers saw as much as 60% growth in efficiency.

While an IDP isn’t the only tool that can help introduce automation for developers, this is a good indicator for the potential value teams can experience when they automate manual processes.

Moving forward with automation

Over the next few years—maybe even the next few months—I expect to see a growing focus on automation in engineering teams. With the upswing of tools that leverage AI, there will be even more potential for product developers and platform engineers to relinquish certain manual tasks and focus their brain power on more satisfying strategic work. Leaders will have an opportunity to harness that capability and better support their teams. 

Engineering teams are always in flux, whether they’re introducing new best practices or adopting new technologies—and it’s usually for the better. The incorporation of automation and AI-enabled tools is no different, and it’s bound to (re)shape how teams operate over the next few years. 

Curious to learn more about how OpsLevel helps engineering teams become more agile and effective? Read about our action templates in our recent blog. 

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