“Knowledge Gap” and Talent Shortage Hamper Cloud Native Development – ​​Virtualization Review

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Survey: “Knowledge Gap” and Talent Shortage Hinder Cloud Native Development

Assessing the benefits and challenges of cloud-native development, OutSystems found that most respondents in a survey knew little about the approach, even though analysts predict it will represent little nearly all application development in a few years.

This discovery is taken from a report published last week by the low-code specialist entitled “Cloud-Native Development: Ready or Not? What IT Executives and Developers Say”.

Basically what they’re saying is that most aren’t really familiar with cloud-native development – although they expect it to be used for most of their applications soon – and organizations are still hampered by a shortage of talent, as well as unexpected challenges.

The company summarized the above in three highlights:

• Knowledge gap: While 72% of respondents expect the majority of their apps to be built using cloud-native development by 2023, only 47% know much about it.
• Unexpected challenges: Cloud-native leaders say selecting the right tools/platforms (52%) and architectural complexity (51%) are the top two challenges of cloud-native development, while cloud-native laggards rank them significantly higher low.
• Talent needs: Cloud native leaders and laggards agree that growing the engineering team is a necessity — and a struggle. Respondents share the need for talent in 13 different roles, from back-end, full-stack and mobile developers to enterprise architects and designers, with cloud architects standing out as a critical role to fill.

This last point about the lack of hard-to-find skills is a common refrain we’ve seen over the past few years in various tech sectors, which, for whatever reason, show no signs of slowing down. The ongoing trend is echoed in recent articles like:

It seems that OutSystems is also well aware of the trend.

“It’s no surprise that IT leaders feel the need for more talent – ​​and 77% more specialized – to drive their cloud-native strategies,” the report said. “Leaders and laggards agree that growing the engineering team is both necessary and difficult. Respondents shared the need for talent in 13 different roles, from back-end, full-stack and mobile developers to architects and enterprise designers, with cloud architects on their feet The good news is that at a time when most companies are struggling to hire and retain technical talent, cloud-native leaders see technology as a potential advantage for staff engagement – native development creates “interesting” work that emphasizes innovation rather than boredom.”

Among the top challenges, “Finding and hiring people with the right skills” and “Keeping experienced staff” rank in the top seven, as this chart shows:

When it comes to the list of roles they are looking for talent for, eight of them include the word “developer” or “architect”.

This aligns with a recent report on cloud-native skills in demand for 2022, which shows that “cloud-native developers” are the #4 skill that organizations plan to hire for this year:

For the record, OutSystems defines cloud-native development as “applications designed from the ground up to take advantage of the benefits of a cloud computing infrastructure: flexibility, scalability, resiliency, and elasticity.”

This is apparently instructive for many respondents, despite high expectations for the program among analysts (“analysts expect almost all applications to be built using cloud-native development of ‘by the end of 2025’) and even respondents (“72% of respondents expect the majority of their applications will be built using cloud-native development by 2023”).

“However, while the growth of cloud-native development is universally expected, 53% of all respondents say they are still, at best, ‘somewhat familiar’ with the topic,” the report said. “This lack of knowledge is likely at the root of the lack of action. When it comes to cloud native laggards, just over one in three (34%) have formally evaluated the technology. Half (50% ) performed only informal analysis, and 15 percent of laggards paid no attention.”

“Cloud-native technology opens up new possibilities for speed, reliability, and massive application scale – if done right,” OutSystems CTO Patrick Jean said in a press release. “Many companies display a delta between their desired future state and their current knowledge and expertise. Our research reveals that most companies don’t know enough about the challenges of cloud native and don’t have the staff to implement it successfully.

Both in the press release and in the report based on the survey, the low-code specialist indicated that low-code tools can help.

Explaining the methodology behind the report, the company said it was based on a survey of 505 IT decision makers and developers spanning enterprises, trading companies and small businesses around the world, the company’s research technology Lucid (a Cint Group company) conducting an online survey in February 2022 in the United States, Europe, Australia, Latin America, Canada and Singapore.