DevOps Speakeasy with Jonathan Schneider @jon_k_schneider at #Devnexus 2023

hey y’all this is Lori I’m at devnexis

and the devops be easy and I’m here with

Jonathan Schneider of modern so Jonathan

how are you doing doing well how are you

Lori I’m good it’s a little bit loud

because it’s the last break before all

the free stuff happens absolutely

everybody’s ready to go

already so okay so tell us a little bit

about what

we’re doing automated code remediation

so this is sounds kind of crazy but

think about big framework migrations

like uh Java 8 to 17 spring boot one two

to three J unit four to five those are

things that we’re riding the actual code

recipes that automatically transform the

code and allow you to mass commit it

across hundreds of millions of lines of

code

so why is this important

well I could go back to the where this

started I was working for uh for Netflix

on the engineering tools team there are

only two of us and we had about 700

engineers at the time and we were really

trying to move people forward trying to

move Java six to seven to eight trying

to move like internal you know framework

versions forward

and the special thing about Netflix was

you couldn’t impose any constraints on

what product Engineers did

so we spent a lot of time reporting

trying to like surface problems to them

and it yielded approximately zero action

you know people would say and so I would

say you know what could I do to help you

move forward and they would say like you

know sarcastically like um well if you

just do it for me I’m happy to make the

change otherwise like I got other

priorities I got other things to do and

so I think you heard it heard enough

like do it for me do it for me do it for

me we started to think like I think we

need to literally find ways to automate

the code itself

and then you fast forward several years

we were working with the bank my

co-founder Olga and I were working with

the bank years like three or four years

ago they had seven thousand apps built

on top of spring boots

today they have 23 000 apps built on top

of spring boots so you know every time

there’s a breaking change in Spring I

mean that’s 23 000 apps you got to go

update

it’s kind of reaching a Breaking Point

so then that is how modern was built

absolutely yeah it’s taking that same

you know problem that seemed internal to

Netflix and as we were touring different

Enterprises we were seeing the same

problem over and over again

that’s kind of cool we see now the the

software industrial revolution has

arrived we assemble apps we don’t build

them from scratch

um and because we’re all really like

where all our code bases are connected

by this common substrate of Open Source

and third-party components

that evolve at their own pace by the way

we um the problem is really repeatable

you know a breaking change in Spring

that affects that One Bank also affects

a tiny insurance company it affects you

know a travel company because we’re all

really building on the same component so

wherever there’s you know a large enough

scale problem and there’s a degree of

repeatability It kind of leads you to

think automation has to be possible

somewhere here so Sean talked this

morning about people thinking that

software developers are going to all get

laid off and then fix all this automated

intelligence stuff and they’re going to

get hired on again as contractors what

are your thoughts on that I think I

called this like the law of conservation

of developer resources for every step

function increase in developer

productivity there’s an equal and

opposite increase in requirements from

the business to deliver more

functionality

so I mean I remember you go back a ways

and like you know to even test a local

change in in an app I had to start

websphere locally

and it took 45 minutes to boot and you

know you change any method decoration

and you restart and wait 45 minutes and

when we went from web sphere 45 minutes

to Tomcat 45 seconds locally that was

like Earth shattering right and you

could have made the argument then like

oh you can build so much faster that

bike we only need a tenth of the

developers we used to have

and yet that same organization at that

time they had 40 repositories and 70

Engineers today they have 1200

repositories and 70 Engineers so they’ve

just built more functionality with the

same resources and I think that’s the

same thing with this generative AI yeah

yeah are you worried about security

I worry about security all the time I

think you know but the thing that I

worry about the most I think is that

you know vulnerability management right

now like they’re they’re certain

security organizations that feel like

their job is to be at lighthouse to

really just like shine a light on where

all the problems are

and I think honestly like the shift left

movement has been kind of destructive in

that way because it’s it’s actually

diffused the responsibility for fixing

something to every product engineer

but the unit economics of that are

really backwards like why like you know

we’re asking every product engineer to

fix the same problem in the same way

and I think a really forward-looking

security organization right now is

looking for opportunities to as they

disclose a problem also provide the

automation that helps those Engineers

fix it quickly that’s where we get the

unit economics back like back you know

aligned I think to the to the real

uh requirement

it’s awesome is there anything else

you’d like to leave the audience with

today

gosh I think we’ve talked about a lot

you’ve had a lot a long day of

interviews so I appreciate you having me

here okay so but again your tool tool

creates

developer

call it the mess yeah

we’re automatically crafting that change

that you would otherwise kind of have to

tediously go through and do by hand

freeing the developer to do really the

creative task of development which is

really what we all got into the business

for in the first place

AI isn’t going to take over the world

it’s just going to help enhancement

that’s right awesome it’s our partner

our co-pilot there

okay well thank you so much for being

with us today yep bye