Paving The Road To Production - Why You Need An Internal Tools Team

Speaker Bio:
Matt Reynolds is a Staff Engineer on Ibotta's DevTools team who has had a long and varied career in software development working on projects as diverse as embedded safety critical software for subway trains, air traffic control systems and various aspects of eCommerce. He's an expat from England who likes good beer and a nice cup of tea.

Abstract:
This talk will cover how an internal tools team, working closely with operations and the development organization, can help ensure that what "works on my machine" in development will also function effectively in production.

The exact tools developed will be custom to the organization but the type and principles involved can be generalized. We'll go over several real world examples and cover the benefits they provide.

We'll also discuss potential pitfalls and how to avoid them - how to get started, how to keep going and how to ensure all this hard work is put to good use.

By having a team responsible for tooling across groups we can make sure things work throughout the lifecycle, benefit all constituents and leverage the standardization decisions provided by earlier tools. A "paved road" provides an easier path for mainline projects and helps steer the architectural direction without being too prescriptive.