IT visibility gap threatens job satisfaction, research reveals

New research by Cisco reveals IT professionals worldwide lack insight into essential applications and their supporting IT infrastructure. This significant visibility gap strains developers, over 75% of whom say it is impacting their ability to do their job, as Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) and IT operations do not possess the necessary knowledge to manage IT performance effectively.

Developers prefer to work on innovative projects and develop new applications rather than spend time in stressful war room meetings and debugging applications. As such, morale has taken a notable hit. 82% of surveyed developers admit they feel frustrated and demotivated, with 54% considering leaving their current post.

IT departments face increasing pressure to deliver secure and smooth digital experiences. However, the survey results suggest that 67% of developers believe their organisations lack the right tools and visibility to understand and effectively resolve application issues. Consequently, over half (57%) are calling for more regular collaboration between developers and IT teams, identifying AI (39%) as a mechanism to automate application issue detection and resolution.

In the modern era, software developers play a critical role in building, launching and maintaining critical applications and digital services. But the surveyed developers report spending over 57% of their time addressing application performance issues, mostly in war room meetings. This shift takes them away from their primary role: creating new and innovative software applications. The survey shows that a whopping 85% are under greater pressure to speed up releases, with 77% feeling the heat to deliver flawless and secure digital experiences.

The root issue lies with organisations lacking the necessary tools and visibility to understand and rectify application issues. Developers fear that this could lead to downtime and disrupt business-critical applications, with 75% pointing out that lack of visibility into IT performance is increasing the likelihood of these problems occurring. This situation is affecting morale amongst developers to the extent where 54% are increasingly inclined to leave their job.

Shannon McFarland, Vice President at Cisco DevNet, points out that while IT departments have various monitoring tools across different areas, they fall short, leaving technologists unable to create a complete, unified view of applications and their supporting IT stack. This problem makes it incredibly challenging to identify the root cause of problems swiftly, often resulting in war room situations, drawing developers into solving issues.

Despite the challenges developers face, they are hopeful for the future, with 91% believing they should have a bigger role in deciding on the solutions required within their organisations. Developers consider full-stack observability as a potential game-changer, granting SREs and IT operations teams unified visibility across applications and their supporting infrastructure in both cloud-native and on-premises environments.

While developers might not be the primary users of full-stack observability, 78% believe its implementation would be beneficial. This tool offers unified visibility across the IT estate and helps operations teams quickly identify and rectify any issues. This capability would mean fewer technologists are required in war room situations, freeing them to focus on their primary duties. This point is reflected in the 76% of developers who say it is "becoming impossible" for them to do their jobs without the necessary insights for SREs and IT operations. This viewpoint explains why 94% see full-stack observability as the one thing that would most assist them in escaping war rooms, allowing them to focus on innovation.

Besides full-stack observability, 39% of developers believe their organisations would benefit from deploying AI to automate application issue detection and resolution. This technology could enable IT teams to cut through high volumes of application data to identify serious issues and apply fixes in real-time. Developers are also open to embracing new methodologies within the IT department to manage application performance more efficiently. Over half (57%) agree there needs to be more collaboration between developers and IT teams.

"At a time when developer talent is in high demand, organisations must do everything they can to empower their teams with the tools they need to perform to their full potential and maximise their impact", states McFarland. She emphasises the increasing importance of full-stack observability, saying, "without it, IT teams simply cannot deliver the levels of digital experience that consumers now demand."