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> Is the "cloud" with armies of above-average developers, SREs/ sysadmins/ systems engineers and security specialists really the solution or is the solution Al

> Is the "cloud" with armies of above-average developers, SREs/ sysadmins/ systems engineers and security specialists really the solution or is the solution Also, at some point the cloud provider may figure out that they can increase profitability by hiring more and more below-average people and just market them as world-class.

acdha 6y ago
This is true but every IT outsourcing company is decades ahead of them. Doing that will hurt the cloud provider’s business while most other F500 CIOs will get a bonus for saving money as long as they leave before an incident too blatant to blame on anything else.
- tablespoon 6y ago
  Those outsourcing companies have a reputation for providing cheap low skill workers. What I described is a situation of basically converting reputation into cash. Once you're known for having "armies of above-average developers" and then cut back on employee quality, it's going to take a long time for the market to figure it out (and you can probably extend that time significantly with slick marketing). In the mean time, you profit margins are increased.
  - cmckn 6y ago
    Interesting idea, but I don’t think that’s a gamble any of the current clouds would make. The business is by nature a long game, so a few years of increased profit followed by <danger> doesn’t seem like it’d be enticing to a cloud. Besides, it’s not really true today that clouds only employ “above average” developers. I mean hell, they employed me!
  - acdha 6y ago
    Again, I’m not saying it’s impossible — only that, say, AWS or GCP have a lot more at risk cutting into a core market pitch and failing to deliver a promised service – and that’s entirely on them to deliver. In part, this is the different service model: if I go to AWS and buy, say, S3 they have a very clear responsibility not to lose your data and to serve it quickly. If my CIO picks one of the bargain basement outsourcers and the centralized storage service fails badly, each different group will be saying that the failure wasn’t due to them but the company management, outsourced project management, the contractors who set it up/operate/monitor/secure, vendor products, vendor professional staff, Microsoft, etc. Since truckloads of cash will have been spent by then, many of those parties only care if it’ll reach the point of a lawsuit and everyone in the approval chain who didn’t say it was troubled before has an incentive to say the failure was unforeseeable and the solution is not to hold anyone accountable.
  - kaliszad 6y ago
    It is already happening. If the most productive and smart people at your company are hindered by processes designed to basically hold them back, they are going to leave no matter how much you pay them.

acdha 6y ago

This is true but every IT outsourcing company is decades ahead of them. Doing that will hurt the cloud provider’s business while most other F500 CIOs will get a bonus for saving money as long as they leave before an incident too blatant to blame on anything else.

tablespoon 6y ago
Those outsourcing companies have a reputation for providing cheap low skill workers. What I described is a situation of basically converting reputation into cash. Once you're known for having "armies of above-average developers" and then cut back on employee quality, it's going to take a long time for the market to figure it out (and you can probably extend that time significantly with slick marketing). In the mean time, you profit margins are increased.
- cmckn 6y ago
  Interesting idea, but I don’t think that’s a gamble any of the current clouds would make. The business is by nature a long game, so a few years of increased profit followed by <danger> doesn’t seem like it’d be enticing to a cloud. Besides, it’s not really true today that clouds only employ “above average” developers. I mean hell, they employed me!
- acdha 6y ago
  Again, I’m not saying it’s impossible — only that, say, AWS or GCP have a lot more at risk cutting into a core market pitch and failing to deliver a promised service – and that’s entirely on them to deliver. In part, this is the different service model: if I go to AWS and buy, say, S3 they have a very clear responsibility not to lose your data and to serve it quickly. If my CIO picks one of the bargain basement outsourcers and the centralized storage service fails badly, each different group will be saying that the failure wasn’t due to them but the company management, outsourced project management, the contractors who set it up/operate/monitor/secure, vendor products, vendor professional staff, Microsoft, etc. Since truckloads of cash will have been spent by then, many of those parties only care if it’ll reach the point of a lawsuit and everyone in the approval chain who didn’t say it was troubled before has an incentive to say the failure was unforeseeable and the solution is not to hold anyone accountable.
- kaliszad 6y ago
  It is already happening. If the most productive and smart people at your company are hindered by processes designed to basically hold them back, they are going to leave no matter how much you pay them.