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Diving Into Kubernetes: The Developer’s First Steps with New Relic
3 Plays3 days ago
Join Bhavin Shah and Ryan Wallner as they speak with Jemiah Sius, Senior Director of Developer Relations at New Relic to talk about how to get started with learning about Kubernetes. They hosts and Jemiah explore how this has changed within the last 10 years as well as explore what are some good resources for learning and diving in.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to Kubernetes Bytes, a podcast bringing you the latest from the world of cloud native data management. My name is Ryan Wallner and I'm joined by Babin Shah coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts.
00:00:14
Speaker
We'll be sharing our thoughts on recent cloud native news and talking to industry experts about their experiences and challenges managing the wealth of data in today's cloud native ecosystem.
00:00:31
Speaker
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, wherever you are. We're coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts. Today is March 21st, 2025.
Listener Feedback Discussion
00:00:40
Speaker
Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.
00:00:43
Speaker
Bhavan, what's going on, man? You went into like a radio jockey mode, RJ mode. Listen, I've been doing this long enough where... I'm not sure how it didn't happen earlier, you know? that True. No, I'm doing good, man. Just, yeah, staying busy heads down. But one interesting piece of feedback. I know we spent last episode talking a lot about Italy, right? And we were talking about pizza. I did get like a correction that, hey, it was not built that way. Like we, one of our listeners did reach out to us on LinkedIn. That's awesome. It was LinkedIn? Yeah.
00:01:18
Speaker
like Guys, it's not built that way. Like something happened to the ground again. I again forgot what he said, but it it was after the fact that it actually tilted. So connection from from the last time. You know, I'm glad people are listening and able to correct us. We definitely are not confident in that answer. I'm pretty sure I said I'm probably wrong.
00:01:37
Speaker
Yeah. But thank you.
Trail Maintenance Experience
00:01:39
Speaker
Thank you for the correction. Now I will always know. Yeah, it wasn't built that way. Although it would be kind of cool if it was just built. I don't just.
00:01:50
Speaker
so but yeah good How are you doing? today I'm good. I'm good. I've been getting back outside doing more mountain biking again, doing more trail work and volunteering. ah Did some trail work.
00:02:01
Speaker
ah What was Monday? Tuesday? went I forget. I did Wednesday. I think it was Wednesday. Fixed some stuff we did last year. and this Tomorrow, this weekend, we're working a whole bunch of new trails near me. and and It gets me all riled up and excited for the ah good weather. Technically, I'm in a race this Sunday. on mountain but Okay.
00:02:23
Speaker
Good luck. ah huh Yeah. We'll you know we'll see I'm not... um I did it for fun. I'm not sure how competitive I'll actually be, but as long as I don't come back injured, i think that's a win. That's a win. Yeah.
00:02:40
Speaker
So when when you say trail maintenance, what does that what does that mean? Like, are you uprooting trees, or removing roots? um So we try to um affect the you know nature as little as possible.
00:02:54
Speaker
Okay. So we we only cut down trees if they fall. um and if if there's like uh parks that we've worked on so uh in uxbridge there's we built a pump track out of dirt last year for like kids and adults alike and dirt pump tracks unlike um pavement ones need maintenance every year ah because you know tires will go over it and create little ruts and stuff like that or We build jump lines and they need to be fixed up every year and just freshened up so people don't you know get hurt on them. Well, I mean they can anyway, but in more than they need to be.
00:03:32
Speaker
Gotcha. And there's general leak blowing or directionals or trail signage. Trail maps, yeah. oh Yeah. Mostly it's a lot of deadfall and trees after the winter. Gotcha. Okay.
00:03:44
Speaker
Okay. No, that's good, right? Because I had a teammate ah way back when, and like maybe seven years back at this point, who went from North Carolina to ah Rocky Mountain National Park.
00:03:54
Speaker
And he took like volunteer time off and he spent like a week doing trail maintenance. Yeah. And i was like, what does that even mean? So I never asked him that question. It depends on what organization you're part of too. Like some hiking trails, you'll do a lot more like rock.
00:04:09
Speaker
work yeah um ah we do rock work too sometimes it's on a slope where you do specifically um lay rocks in the ground so that it drains and and you're not and you're and you're preventing erosion um okay is the idea right because sloped dirt washes away if there's a trail on it um so a lot of hiking trails will do maintenance like that and and whatnot but also just keeping them usable right is yeah like the main first thing um So do you have like an expert who tells you that, hey, put a rock here because this will erode? Or you guys are just people who love mountain biking. are Like, yeah, this looks like a place where we should put rocks. No, you know, it's funny you ask, but they do trail ah building classes every year. um Oh, wow. I try to go once a year. so you
00:04:52
Speaker
you learn the sort of best techniques to improve trails, do rock work, do drainage, uh, with, you know, minimally affecting wow ecosystem around it.
00:05:03
Speaker
Um, so we do get trained on it. And then there's beyond that, there's like specific training for individuals who like use the chainsaws and stuff. Cause you're part of an organization. So they don't you want you out there without PPE and a chainsaw going nuts or whatever, but, yeah but yeah, no, there is training and usually it's, uh,
00:05:20
Speaker
You know, that's like once a year you have an opportunity to do that. But otherwise it's mentorship. So like I didn't know what I was doing with the pump track, but I learned from someone who built one before. So. OK. Yeah. Not so much different from technology, I guess. You know, a lot of mentorship and people who know a lot around you. So, yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
No, that's awesome, man. Thank you for expanding on on what trail maintenance means. You come help me one weekend. How about that? 8 a.m. tomorrow. Come on out. No, yeah I saw that. Like, I saw on Instagram.
00:05:47
Speaker
It's like, ooh, Saturday morning 8 a.m. I can make that. like so I was literally thinking about it. Come on over. I've got plenty to do. Yeah. Anyway, all right. Enough about trail maintenance and mountain bikes, even though i could probably just have a whole nother podcast on that, to be honest. And noodles. So it's I have two more podcasts I want to make, apparently. Yeah.
00:06:07
Speaker
I think you'll need a different co-host because, yeah. You could be on the noodle one, though. For sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Exploring Kubefleet Project
00:06:15
Speaker
All right. So we do have an awesome guest. We'll introduce him in just a minute, but we do want to get into the news ah before we do that. So, bavan why don't you start us off on and cloud native news that we've missed this week?
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So ah this week I wanted to talk about two new projects that came across my RSS feeds, I guess. One is Kubefleet. ah So Kubefleet is supposed to be a cloud native multi-cluster, multi-cloud solution designed to facilitate deployment management and scaling of applications.
00:06:47
Speaker
Again, this is super cool because it's not just a UI for multiple Kubernetes cluster. Like it wouldn't have been impressive if it's just a UI like, hey, you can view things from one single pane of glass.
00:06:58
Speaker
But this actually helps you with application deployment. So it has ah intelligence built into it that if you have, similar to how we do topology awareness, and Kubernetes does that ah on a Kubernetes worker node basis, right?
00:07:10
Speaker
um Kube Fleet does that across multiple clusters. So you can specify cluster affinity rules, you can specify topology spread, you can ah specify preferred versus required rules, and you can customize how applications get deployed.
00:07:23
Speaker
They also have a section, again, this is based on what I've read. I haven't tested it out yet, so maybe somebody can test it out and let me know if all of these things are true. But the second is metrics-based scheduling. So it will look for the best cluster that's managed in inside Kube Fleet for provisioning decisions. So it will look at GPU, CPU, memory and ah storage resources, come back and then help with the deployment decision. So I think because of these ah additional features that that it talks about, I think I like Kubefleet and something that I definitely want to try it out on a couple of clusters at least.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, I'd be interested in how well it worked across like various orchestration yeah types, you know like EKS, OpenShift.
00:08:06
Speaker
What a weird picture for the blog, though. I know. They're lengthen. It's just a bunch of cows. Especially when we live in an AI ego ecosystem where you can generate images. The new stack. feel like you dropped the ball on this one.
00:08:21
Speaker
I'm just going to say. ah But hey, you know... alright It is hard to find oh proprie sorry open source images that you can use in blogs. I remember i still remember when I i published blogs for Portworx, right?
00:08:35
Speaker
Pixabay and Pexels were the two sites. I would go and type containers. And after a point, I ran out of container images that I could have used. for I mean, I think I get it. Like the guy on the horse is like wrangling up the cattle yeah who represent maybe multiple clusters and Q5.
Security Concerns and Acquisitions
00:08:50
Speaker
maybe Maybe. It's a stretch. It's just a strange It is, man. Hey, let's focus on the technology, not on... yeah it's Friday. I get a little weird on Friday. right, well I'll go next then. Okay.
00:09:06
Speaker
You may have not known about this supply chain attack that recently happened on TJ Actions Changed Files. So it's a GitHub Action. Basically, um a ah vulnerability in the way...
00:09:23
Speaker
personal access tokens were being used on the repository that manages ah this GitHub action, was exposed, therefore allowing malicious actor to ah run commits to change the GitHub action and how it's used in public repos.
00:09:40
Speaker
And basically what it would do is it changed it so that when you ran it, it would use this malicious version um and it would dump what would look for all secrets and dump them to the public log file and then be exfiltrated from there.
00:09:54
Speaker
um Not a fun one. Definitely not a fun one. GitHub Actions are super popular. I don't know exactly how like how many secrets have been exposed or anything like that, but there's a bunch of good articles on it.
00:10:07
Speaker
um and And it just kind of shows you ah you know security. We've talked about a lot on this podcast. and the article i'm um I'm posting is from Wiz. We've had them on the show.
00:10:19
Speaker
um You know, it's not just about your Kubernetes cluster and and everything. It's about where your software comes from and how it's being built, right, in that supply chain. And, you know, rotating access keys for actual ah cloud resources is not just only, you know, it's where development happens. um So, yeah, I mean, this is an interesting one. Hopefully we'll do some more. i know we have...
00:10:44
Speaker
um Chain Guard coming up then in a future episode. hopefully we can talk to them a bit more about this. But yeah, that's a fun one. No, and talking about Wiz, right? you You brought up that this article was from Wiz.
00:10:59
Speaker
They just did like a... They got acquired by Google Cloud. Okay, that to do to lay it out there up front. But man, the the number, like $32 billion dollars was the acquisition price.
00:11:11
Speaker
ah That just... It used to be in security, my friend. Background for this, right? So last year, Google Cloud had tried to acquire Wiz for $23 billion. dollars And we had covered it during one of the news section.
00:11:25
Speaker
And the Wiz founders had said, nope, no, thank you. We will keep doing our thing. those numbers around. We got a deal. Yeah. So they waited like nine months and they added $9 billion dollars to the acquisition amount.
00:11:38
Speaker
Man, kudos. Like I remember saying back then that... hey if if this was me i would have just taken the money and made it home appreciation yep i know no so congrats to everybody at biz this is definitely a a big investment right like this is bigger than ah like obviously we are in different times like 2025 we can't compare it with like acquisitions that google made over the last decade but this is bigger in terms of a amount in terms of ah the YouTube acquisition, the Maps acquisition, all of those. So like this is definitely a substantial amount of money and I'm excited to see how things evolve and what Google Cloud security means now. So ah exciting acquisition for sure.
00:12:19
Speaker
Fun stuff, fun stuff. And then ah one final thing that I had, um I don't have a lot of details for it, but we are trying to get a guest to talk about it. But solo.io have a new um like new tool or in the AI ecosystem called K-agent or K-agent. It's a new open source framework that's ah designed to help users build and run AI agents on top of Kubernetes.
00:12:43
Speaker
So again, and Not a lot of details that I could glean from the Newstack articles, but yeah, we have already started reaching out to people, our friends at Solo, and maybe we'll get somebody to talk about it on the podcast in detail.
00:12:56
Speaker
And I know we haven't had a lot of ah um a lot of content around AI agents, but get used to the word. It's another buzzword. It's another thing. Agentic AI. In the ecosystem that's going to be talked about a lot.
Interview with Jamiah Syas
00:13:09
Speaker
um Basically, there's models inside that can perform... to ask questions, those kinds of things that a user would otherwise have to do, but obviously using AI. So we are excited to maybe have a, I guess talk about that.
00:13:25
Speaker
And I feel like Cajun sounds like Cajun and it needs a play on some Cajun food or something. Yeah. It also just made me hungry.
00:13:35
Speaker
Nice. Hey, the cat is back. Like the kitten is back in your background, man. Come on. Oh yeah. They are back. They must hear me. you know Talk about Cajun food and maybe that that they makes them hungry too. All right, let's introduce our guest. um We have Jamiah Syas on. He's the Director of Developer Relations over at New Relic.
00:13:57
Speaker
um So he's going to join us to talk all things sort of like ah how do you get started in in the Kubernetes space we're going as a developer specifically. So we're we're going to kind of take a step back from a lot of these very specific episodes on on solutions and technology and kind of go back to you know, here's where we've been in the last 10 years. and And if you're coming into the ecosystem now versus some time ago, how it differ? So yeah, let's get Jemaya on the show.
00:14:25
Speaker
All right. Welcome to Kubernetes Bytes. Jemaya, nice to have you here. Why don't you give our listeners a quick introduction of who you are and what you do? Awesome. ah Hey everybody, I am Jemai Asayas. I'm a senior director at New Relic.
00:14:38
Speaker
um I lead our developer relations and technical marketing org. right So my team um thinks about our customers needs with adopting observability practices and works with them as a part of that journey um in various capacities.
00:14:54
Speaker
But that's what I've been doing. I've been at New Relic for about six years. um And so Ryan, Bob, and thanks for having me. I'm excited to join you all today. Awesome. Hey, Jamai, you said you are at neural New Relic for six years. How long have you been part of the Kubernetes ecosystem?
00:15:11
Speaker
um I really started learning about three or so years ago. and ah Before I was a little intimidated and I would start and I'd stop, ah you know, um but about three or so years ago, one of my teams, we,
00:15:31
Speaker
Kind of operate as customer zero for the company. And so we're building out this new application that was needed and we were going to be ah using Kubernetes ah for infrastructure. And i was like, all right, so if I want to understand, you know, what is actually going on, I really got into it and just started leaning in a little bit more.
00:15:50
Speaker
No, that's awesome. I think I want, because i know in in our discussion that we had earlier, right, um ah I wanted to get your thoughts on, hey, Kubernetes now is like more than 10 years old. You have been involved with it actively for three plus years.
00:16:03
Speaker
I want to get your perspective on like how have how has like the developers view changed when deciding when to get started learning or how to get started learning with Kubernetes and then how can they do that? So ah like I want to see how you got started and then how can people who are just getting in in 2025, how can they get us ah get get started in this ecosystem?
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I think a lot of people are approaching it similar to how I did, right? You hear about this technology that's supposed to be kind of like this magical tool for helping you deal with infrastructure. higher industry was going from, you know, monolithic apps into container based apps and needing a way to deal with that.
00:16:43
Speaker
And so you just kind of like start exploring. can remember when first hearing about Kubernetes, right, um I haven't been using it for the entire 10 years, but I can think back and it was really like a ah mixture of like, oh, this is exciting and should I trust it you know? Yeah.
00:17:02
Speaker
Versus um now it's kind of really like a respected, you know, elder technology in this cloud native ecosystem. Like it's well known. Folks are no longer thinking about like, should I trust this? And it's really shifting into having ah better understanding, right? So it's no more kind of like trying to decipher things um because Kubernetes has a steep learning curve. And I just know resources were scarce. Like that was, it was a bit of a challenge for me in the start.
00:17:33
Speaker
And now you think about 10 years later um and massive community have been built around Kubernetes. It's much more accessible. ah It's a wealth of documentation. I think the community is probably the biggest resource.
00:17:46
Speaker
um And so I really think that now it's more of an ally or more ah viewed as like a real tool for folks that are looking to build these kind of like scalable or reliant applications ah in in large enterprise organizations and smaller, you know, um apps so where folks are just getting started and trying to get things out fast.
00:18:07
Speaker
That's right. yeah Yeah, no, I think I agree with you, right? I think personally, i six or seven years back is when I so like started diving into Kubernetes. ah Even before that, like it just felt like, hey, it is like you need to be super technical. You need to know Go as a programming language. You need to know what the code looks like. And then that's when you can actually truly call yourself a Kubernetes expert or a user.
00:18:30
Speaker
Now, at least from what I've seen in my experience, right like it is easier. like You don't have to go and know all the internal details. of how etcd works or how kubernetes api server works there are so many different things in and around the ecosystem of kubernetes that yeah i think it it has definitely become easier for sure yeah absolutely agree 100 percent Yeah, so that i mean that begs the question, right? Which is, where do people actually start? And and it's funny because this this answer has has evolved over the the lifespan of of Kubernetes.
00:19:04
Speaker
to To your point, Bhavan and Jamiya, I remember starting off, like If you wanted to deep dive, it was Kubernetes the hard way, you know, Kelsey to Hightower's project. Dive right in and get get your hands on.
00:19:17
Speaker
That's completely changed. So, you know, ah what's your sort of take on um where do people start? Do they dive in learning the internals or can they start somewhere else? No, I think it's really the fundamentals that we're folks are starting at. Like I can tell you YouTube University, right? It's ah it' a big one for me and lots of others out there.
00:19:36
Speaker
But also when I was starting, um i leveraged um like the AWS workshops kind of like, right? And just... allowing and kind of like this managed process of deploying and getting in there in a guided way. And that was like incredibly helpful. It removed some of the fear of like having to know it all in the beginning.
00:19:54
Speaker
So I'd say it's definitely a journey, right? um And so when you're new coming into Kubernetes, I really think that it's most important to focus on the foundational, you know, parts of it. So getting an understanding of pod services, deployments, I think namespaces is a really big one.
00:20:14
Speaker
And then um i think over time you will become curious and it's like, okay, like now I understand the foundations. Maybe I want to get into the technicals and start really learning the internals, thinking about the API server, the scheduler, things like that.
00:20:30
Speaker
But i think it can be beneficial and in growing your career as an expert. Like if you really want to have kind of like a, um if you really want to be specialized within your organization.
00:20:43
Speaker
But I think for the most part, a solid grasp of just those basic, ah the like the fundamental parts of Kubernetes and some hands-on experience is what you'll really rely on on a day-to-day basis.
00:20:57
Speaker
I'm curious your take right on starting with the fundamentals of Kubernetes, which is um which Kubernetes itself builds on other
Learning Kubernetes and Beyond
00:21:07
Speaker
fundamentals. right So is it worth kind of even taking a step back to learn container technology before you even dive into what an API server is?
00:21:16
Speaker
um Yeah, i was I was actually going to say that, right? Like, I think having a strong understanding of just containers and containerization, what that process looks like is a massive help, right, before you start to move into Kubernetes.
00:21:33
Speaker
And so um as I got into it, I would step back and just do more work with containers, take courses. Like i'm an avid ah I'm an avid Udemy customer. So anytime they have a sale, I'll go and buy 20, 30 courses at one time. And I'll probably get all of these, right?
00:21:51
Speaker
But it's like all the bits and pieces that you want to know. So I definitely think that if you understand containers, that's going to be kind of like a superpower at adopting Kubernetes later. Yeah, for sure.
00:22:03
Speaker
Gotcha. So apart from like Udemy courses, right, I wanted to see how can people um set themselves apart? Like I know in in like the surveys that are done in our ecosystem, organizations are always kind of complaining about lack of Kubernetes knowledge.
00:22:18
Speaker
That's one side of the story for sure. and But then there's also a place where, hey, there are so many CKA, CKAD, CKAD, certified people that how do you set yourself apart? Like, how can you go that extra mile or what does that even mean? Like, where should you focus on if you want to set yourself apart from from the rest of the ecosystem?
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah. the Let me think of this from a management standpoint, right? Because ah where I sit at, I'm a manager of managers and have engineers that are a few levels under me.
00:22:46
Speaker
and And it is like, okay, you know what do you look for when you're hiring a great person on one of your teams? And as we mentioned, um I think understanding containers is incredibly important.
00:22:58
Speaker
And then there's some other technical areas around that, just thinking about the way that we use Kubernetes on my team. and so i think having an understanding of like those core DevOps practices ah will be absolutely helpful.
00:23:11
Speaker
um You know, being able to work with CICD pipelines or, you know, using Terraform or having some understanding of infrastructure as code is going to be kind of like a massive help.
00:23:23
Speaker
um And then I think you get into other areas of like you know, having some focus on security, there's always going to be security thing that you have to learn how to deal with. and um and And not only because I work at New Relic, I'm just going to be clear, I do.
00:23:39
Speaker
But I think observability is is really another thing that will set you apart. Like if you can say, hey, not only can I deploy this application in Kubernetes, I also understand the the concept of like getting the data needed so we can make decisions based off of its performance. I think that that's a key as well. And whether it's New Relic or any other tool, it doesn't matter, but that's a big one.
00:24:03
Speaker
And then I think um it outside of the technical things, there's still a few things, right? Like, um I do a lot of speaking and and recording and things like that for for the company, but um I'm inherently introverted, right? And so I think, and and that's true for a lot of engineers, but communication is so important as well. So if you work on that kind of like who communication and collaboration, because Kubernetes is really managed across different parts of an organization,
00:24:34
Speaker
I think those things, like you you add the technical skill set with those kind of like soft skills and being able to work with different ah parts of your org or people that are are, you know, have different disciplines, that'll be like, okay, yeah, this right here is is is a star person that we need to really be looking at.
00:24:52
Speaker
Gotcha. So one follow-up there, right? Like, are you, in this approach that you mentioned, ah participating in the community, not through not by just talking about it, but also if they are submitting PRs or or contributing back to the project.
00:25:06
Speaker
like Do you value that more? Like, hey, if I have two resumes, I'm looking for somebody who has actually contributed code to Kubernetes or somebody who who comes from that sysadmin background, infrastructure background, who has now reskilled to learn about Kubernetes and how to manage that.
00:25:22
Speaker
like What would that look like? Do you need to be a contributor or no? if If you have good enough background with Kubernetes skills. I don't think that you would need to be a contributor, but I okay absolutely think that it's like a big gold star, right? yeah If you're active in the community, you contribute it to the project or you're just engaged. And I think a a lot of cloud native is, you know, organizations kind of like leveraging the technology to scale or increase velocity, but also have those same companies to give back, right? And dedicate resources back.
00:25:58
Speaker
And so that's one of the things that we did do internally. If like we had an entire team that was just focused on contributing out to open telemetry because it was so important. And I've had folks on my team that, you know, are becoming maintainers of certain projects and just highly active in the community. So I think it's a benefit, like absolute benefit if you're you're active within the community.
00:26:19
Speaker
But if you are a sysadmin, you've done the work, you have the skill set, I'm never really going to count you out either. But a part of our quarterly planning can be like, okay, well, let's get you engaged and let's see how, if we find something, let's make sure we contribute to the docs or we do something to where we're also working in the community as well.
AI's Role in Kubernetes
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, I know contributing is a tough one for some some individuals at some companies. like It's tougher to get things through legal and all that stuff. I've been in both scenarios. So yeah, I mean, like there you could have someone who's just like constantly working on a project internally and just hasn't had the chance to either. So ah Totally get that. And I know, you know, Kubernetes in and its own right has been building on a whole bunch of certifications. Obviously, CKA has been around for a while, but even in the last QCon, there was brand new ones announced for, you know, new projects and things like that. So, um you know.
00:27:16
Speaker
They only get so far, right? You could have someone who knows Kubernetes in and out, I feel like, and not have a single certification. it start to But to your point, Jumaya, it sure does help, right, to yeah have those things on your and on and your resume, so to speak. So I do want to have one follow-up on sort of this sort of how do you learn concept, right?
00:27:38
Speaker
We're now in this new age of I have AI to talk to. I have ChatGPT. I have other models where in my daily workflow, when I'm learning about something, I can use that as a tool.
00:27:53
Speaker
So um you know as someone who's asked ChatGPT about a kubectl command that I forgot, and it works really well, um I want to get your take on sort of where you think the role of AI plays in this ecosystem, especially with someone's sort of learning capability or ramp up time?
00:28:13
Speaker
Yeah, um I think you called it out. I've done it myself as well, right? you You definitely leverage AI these days to kind of like fill in some of those gaps or I forgot a thing and it's just, it's always there for you.
00:28:26
Speaker
And so I think AI is absolutely going to be a game changer for Kubernetes and the cloud native ecosystem, but also just software development as a whole. Sure, yeah. ah to where it'll lower that barrier to entry. When we get into a space to where we feel confident about accepting AI-generated code, we'll see that even but ah even more.
00:28:47
Speaker
But I do think these days, leveraging AI is going to expedite kind of like you onboarding into a project, learning the technology. It's starting to fill in some of those gaps. and And I think there are other areas as well, right? So...
00:29:01
Speaker
I think as it gets better, we'll see that you you not not only use it for like onboarding the Kubernetes, but starting to help you automate like complex tasks or help drive your decisions.
00:29:13
Speaker
But we have to build that trust. um And then so I think initially it's going to reduce the ramp up time and then eventually to help you drive decisions, ah help you manage your infrastructure.
00:29:24
Speaker
But um I also think that we should be looking at it as a tool that helps kind of like the humans that's working on the project, not not as a replacement.
00:29:35
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And i like any tool, if you don't have some background knowledge, a tool can get you in trouble, right? Yeah, I don't know why a chainsaw just came up. Maybe because we were talking about them earlier. But like like any tool, if you're generating code from ai or you know ah you're asking, well, how do I do this? It's going to spit something out at you. It may not be 100% accurate. And if you have absolutely no background knowledge, which is um you haven't taken the time to learn something yourself that's where i think maybe we're in this weird gap where like we can't you know someone who doesn't have any of that background can't fully trust and i love that word that you use because it's not only important to us using new tools it's important to us as a community right and you probably know this really well that if you don't have trust within the community or a new tool it's hard to really succeed i guess in many ways
00:30:23
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me, that that that's why I say observability is going to be such a big part of it, not just around Kubernetes, but with everything that's happening with AI.
00:30:35
Speaker
As we're generating code, it's going to increase velocity of the things we ship into production, the infrastructure that we use to manage it's going to become much more important. But we don't have that inherent knowledge, right? We didn't. and you know, ah sit and write the lines of code and build the packages ourselves like we would traditionally do.
00:30:53
Speaker
And so like now having an understanding of it is is just so much more. We're having a tool that helps you understand it's going to be so much more important. um And so I think that that's what we'll see in the near future.
00:31:05
Speaker
Nice. Well, maybe we'll have to have you back on to talk entirely about observability and AI because that's a whole other podcast, I would think. But it's a good one.
00:31:20
Speaker
Okay, I do have one follow-up on on Ryan's question, right, around the usage of AI for ramping up. Like, okay, weve we spoke about how it can help you learn things faster, but you still can't rely on it completely. But do you need to go into all sorts of details? Because maybe in a year or two years, we'll have AI agents embedded into the tools that you're using that can help you do things. So you only need maybe 100 level and ah expertise and then the tool, the AI chat agent or chatbot can give go into like the 500 level detail and then do those complex things for you. where Where do you think like, is it even worth going to the level 500 if I know in a couple of years I might not need it?
00:31:58
Speaker
I think so, right? And and I agree. I think we're we're getting in that direction to where what we what a software engineer looks like will will shift because of it. But I don't think that, ah and I personally don't feel like being able to go deep will ever be a problem, right? you know, Definitely going to be some some like, okay, I don't have to think about this too much. I can push off the tasks that I don't want to focus on to kind of like my AI tooling, but I'm still going to, you know, I want to do these parts, right? Or these are where we really need to have like that human skillset and AI working together.
00:32:37
Speaker
And the deeper your knowledge is, or the deeper your toolkit is, it's going to better prepare you for that. So I'd say... I could see um developers wanting to work more in the like, you know, 300 level and allow AI to do all of the higher 100 level stuff that they don't really want to do anyway. Writing documentation or tests and things like that, right, that we're already pushing off there.
Challenges in Kubernetes Education
00:33:02
Speaker
No, I agree. Right. I think even even even as part of my day job um right now as a PM, I don't need to know all the frameworks like the back of my hand. I can just like, hey, this is what I'm working on. Can you give me a template for a business case?
00:33:15
Speaker
Like I need to build this. can i Can you help me do that? So I don't need to be an expert all the way down, but it's good to know the basics and maybe something extra in in a specific field. So I agree with you there.
00:33:26
Speaker
oh I think one follow up I have there is, hey, given everything in the ecosystem today, where do you see the gaps exist? Like, where are the gaps? Like, oh there are learning resources, but are they enough?
00:33:37
Speaker
ah Like YouTube videos, are how are people consuming those? Or do you need more of those labs that you were talking about that and AWS has? Like, where are the gaps that we need to fill as a community? Yeah, I think there's a few places. I mentioned earlier, right, security is always going to be ah thing that we have to think about. as I think, and as we've gone through these 10 years, we've matured what we've done with Kubernetes as well. as like multi-cluster, multi-cloud.
00:34:04
Speaker
ah You know, it's like, the configuration of what what what an environment looks like is just completely different. And and so I think that thinking about those more mature solutions, how to deal with security in them, how to deal with stateful applications, you know, when leveraging Kubernetes is a big part of it.
00:34:21
Speaker
And then, I think as far as like resources and community, things have absolutely improved over the last 10 years, but there's always more room, right? We can always try to make onboarding easier. We can always look for more training resources.
00:34:36
Speaker
And I think those are really the the things that would stand out as like some gaps. But the good part about it is, is that you have, you know, hundreds of thousands of people that are all focused on, you know, kind of closing those gaps. um So it's it's great to see.
00:34:53
Speaker
You know, Ryan, the thing that pisses me off right now is Jamai is not giving the podcast format, like let alone Kubernetes Bytes as a podcast. Any credit for helping people. ram that Come on.
00:35:04
Speaker
That would be too nice, too nice. No, it's it's a good point. There's a lot. and it's hard for me to remember because a lot of the people that I've sort of dealt with and hired on, they have experience. But I remember also ah long time ago coming into the OpenStack community out of my undergrad and feeling so intimidated, right?
00:35:27
Speaker
so intimidated because at that point it was like a mature Kubernetes ecosystem. I was like, where do I even go? Right. But it was a very similar a point where that ecosystem was huge and there's hundreds of thousands of people and developers, but like just like getting off the ground can be a really intimidating uh uh factor and you know i was introverted too i've kind of made this sort of chameleon uh version of myself doing podcasts and whatnot so i'm curious right like just off the the back of your hand jamiah like if if someone's coming out of their out of school for instance it has no skill set yeah is it best for them to go to a community or is it best for them to go to a learning resources
00:36:13
Speaker
I think it has to be both. Right. I would say starting with the official documentation. Right. Like that. That's the first place that I always go for anything that I want to learn. um And then what I would normally do after I've spent some time in the docs is just try to get an example project up and running, something that I truly don't care about, per se, but I can spend a weekend in kind of like getting hands on with it. That's just the way that I consume information.
00:36:37
Speaker
And then, as I mentioned before, I just buy a bunch of courses. So you'd be looking for those learning tools. And what I do sometimes is just I'll buy the course and look for the chapters of like the thing that I really need to learn in this moment.
00:36:53
Speaker
And so I think those resources help. But always leaning into the community, ah like the CNCF Slack channel and things like that. You know, you have a bunch of people that are passionate about the same ah technology. It's a resource to you.
00:37:07
Speaker
Got it. And, and you know, i think let's take the example also of you're at your existing job, right? um Are there particular resources that can have a better impact? Like you mentioned Udemy, you mentioned YouTube, you mentioned various other ones.
00:37:25
Speaker
I mean, there's also just like a colleague who knows a lot more than there's always a lot of people who know a lot more than than I do. Right. So I'm curious at an exist existing job, right?
00:37:35
Speaker
Which areas do you kind of, go after to make a bigger impact? um in In regards to like at work or? Yeah. So if you have an existing position to learn, you have to kind of level up Kubernetes in this case instead of get started, right? Yeah.
00:37:54
Speaker
I guess to to add to his example, right like I'm a VMware admin and now companies are moving to OpenShift virtualization, which is what we keep hearing about. How do I upscale for that scenario so I can i can have a bigger impact?
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think um ah a part of what I would do is look for that internal subject matter expert, right? And try to build ah a bridge there, understand kind of like what they're working on, what they think a great getting started point would look like. We have like these concept of wizards internally. And so just kind of like leaning into yeah channels, right? um I think that that could be awesome.
Fostering Learning Culture
00:38:30
Speaker
And then- I, um what I would do before is ah try to volunteer onto like a project of like, let me shadow, let me, you know, some real world experience. And I think that that normally helps.
00:38:43
Speaker
um Outside of that, if you're, let's say, um if you're like a network admin or someone that's trying to, you know, shift, I think that may be when like even looking at some of those certifications could be helpful, Sure, sure.
00:39:00
Speaker
So Jamai, I think in the first half of the but episode, right you said you are a manager of managers. How do you implement such a culture in in like for people that want to? like You said you learned Kubernetes while at New Relic. As a leader, how do you set a culture where, hey, it is okay that like your KPIs are KPIs, but then we want you to grow as an individual. How do you set that inside an organization?
00:39:23
Speaker
Yeah. um So because of where I sit at, I think it's it's incredibly important that I vocalize that. And then so I do it with each one of my team members. Right. So it's not just let's talk about your projects, but let's also talk about your career and what you should be learning to get you where you want to go.
00:39:41
Speaker
um And then so I have individuals that are express what they want to do. and I'm like all right, well, you know, i'm going to sponsor this course for you. And then as a part of your quarterly plans, let's talk about, you know, your progress through it all.
00:39:53
Speaker
And so I do that with every member of my team ah for the developer relations or that reported to me, um I'd say 20 percent of your your work time is actually learning.
00:40:04
Speaker
Right. Because in order for you to work in the community and share insight, you got to get hands on with it. You have to kind of like out of it. So it's just carving out that time, understanding that there's a lot of learning to be done. And and that's a ah part of growth. So kind of like tracking and and buying into it, I think, is is what I prefer to do.
00:40:26
Speaker
Okay. And one more question on this, right? Because I've been part of organizations where, hey, they would give me my 20% time, but I need to prove that at the end of the quarter, I can pass a specific certification.
00:40:38
Speaker
Do you think that's an important milestone or, hey, as long as you feel that you are an expert, that's good. And I don't need to show you, show me a proof that, yeah, you are now certified and you know, now a community is expert.
00:40:50
Speaker
Where do you draw the line? Yeah. It's in ah in a gray area, right? Like as a manager, like I want to make sure my developers or my team is being productive. Right. But it's all like, is the is the certification the proof of that? Like I could have just crammed and passed the test.
00:41:06
Speaker
um I don't think that the certification is the answer. But I do think as you're on this journey with your employee, plan for deliverables and ways that they can implement So sometimes it's like, OK, well, let's learn this and then see how we can get you a win with it. Like how you apply for your projects.
00:41:24
Speaker
You know, how do we build this into demoing some of the work that the team's doing? Right. And so you you make it where the the learning time useful. And then another thing that I do randomly is like, OK, this quarter, we're going to do a one week hackathon and you all work whatever you want as a part of this. Like we're going to tie it to quarterly goals and we present what we did at the end of that week. And some of it scales into, you know, large scale projects.
00:41:51
Speaker
So I try to find interesting ways that say, OK, you know, I can see the work that you've done versus no just you. I love that answer, man. like I love that answer. like Thank you. like i didn't i I don't want to measure everyone on just a certification. It's the impact, like driving hackathon projects. I think that's ah that's a neat approach.
Future of Kubernetes Skills
00:42:08
Speaker
So, okay, let's say i'm um' I've been in the Kubernetes ecosystem for a year and I know the basics. Where do you see the bigger areas of growth are for Kubernetes going forward? Like what skills like security is one route, observability, open telemetry is another route, AI on Kubernetes is another route.
00:42:24
Speaker
Where should I invest my time to make sure that three years down the line, these skills are still relevant and and I'm not looking out for ah looking for a new job I think you mentioned a lot of it, right? I'd say you definitely want to keep ai in mind. ah and Everyone's talking about it. Every company's focused on it. i think 70% of all enterprise companies are looking to adopt AI right now in some capacity.
00:42:49
Speaker
And so... Some folks feel like it's just a buzzword and it's kind of like an AI wash that's happening. I think it's at the level that you have to pay attention and the better that you can understand it, the easier it is ah for you.
00:43:01
Speaker
ah You know, I just add that to your your your tool belt. um And then I think that we'll see things around like edge computing become even more important as, you know, time goes on.
00:43:13
Speaker
um And so you want to have some focus there, just kind of like track what's happening. um Serverless architecture is incredibly important. And I think that's only going to grow as well. um And so i think if you focus on those areas, then you'll keep yourself relevant and just always stay curious. Right. Always.
00:43:32
Speaker
be adaptable as like the landscape shifts. um You know, even me, I'm i'm a bit older. i don't get to write code as much as I used to have to, but it's like, I still want to know what's going on. I still want to take her on it. I may never deploy a thing into production again, and that's okay, but I'm still going to try to learn and get hands-on with it just so I can be aware of what's happening in the industry.
00:43:56
Speaker
No, that's a good point. Sorry, go ahead. No, that's a great point. I think the idea of always being willing to learn, right, is a really strong one. And I've always thought that, which, you know, ah kind of brings me to a separate point, which is um sort of introspective in a way, maybe towards you, Jumaya, which is if you did it over again with the way you learned from three years ago, would you do anything different?
00:44:23
Speaker
um I would, honestly. First, I wouldn't, because i start I would start and I'd stop. It's just like just being a little intimidated, right? So I'd power through that.
00:44:34
Speaker
um I would have leaned into the community a bit more in the beginning, right? And I think that there was so much excitement about it that that was really a miss a missss on my part. um I kind of waited until it's like, oh, this is absolutely necessary. I need to know exactly what's happening and kind of and use it.
00:44:50
Speaker
And so I wouldn't say my approach was was the right one, but it it worked out in and in in ah my situation. but those are two of the things that I would have done.
00:45:01
Speaker
And then now um I'm like, I consider Kelsey to be a friend, right? And so I would have been friends with him a bit earlier. Yeah. What is this and and and how do I actually you know use it? I think that that's probably what I would have done.
00:45:20
Speaker
Well, that's awesome. And so, you know, your role at New Relic, um you know, I'm curious, you know, what sort of things you're up to there? Where can people go to learn more specifically about what you're doing there um or even just get in contact with you?
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah. um So getting in contact with me, feel free. Like LinkedIn is probably the best place. I got off of most socials. I still have a Twitter. I'm not i'm not active on there at all. so Pretty rare for developer relations.
00:45:50
Speaker
link LinkedIn is is a pretty good one to to connect with me on. And just always feel free to connect, reach out, ask questions. and I try to be welcoming people. um And then you can catch me or my team, especially the developer relations team all over the place. Like they're speaking at all the conferences and doing the talks.
00:46:09
Speaker
Right now we're having a road show, I think in like 17 cities. So just any of that New Relic stuff you'll normally find some of my team members at. And then for for absolute connection, I'd say LinkedIn.
Closing Reflections and Advice
00:46:21
Speaker
Awesome, awesome. Well, I mean, i think we could talk all day about community and sort of where the Kubernetes community is going, but we'll probably wrap it up here. Is there anything else you want to bring to our listeners and and for those learning about Kubernetes before we get settled up here?
00:46:38
Speaker
um I just reiterate really reiterate my point, right? You know, stay curious, adapt to what's happening in industry and tinker. Like get to for me, getting hands on with it is is the most important part.
00:46:51
Speaker
And so just kind of like those tidbits, it's a fun journey. Awesome. Well, thank you, Jemaya, for joining Kubernetes Bytes and we'll hopefully have you on again sometime in the future.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'd love to join. Thank you guys. All right, Bhavan, that was a good conversation with Jamiya. I know we've been excited for that conversation. We always like, you know you can hear my cats again, playing with toys.
00:47:14
Speaker
um Sorry, I will unblur next time, okay? Yes, thank you. cats Yeah, it would be fun to look at somebody else than just you. It's true, the cats are way more interesting than me. So let's be honest.
00:47:27
Speaker
Anyway, ah so Jamiya, I was really good to get back to sort of the roots of of you know how you get started in ecosystem. and where you go to learn. My big takeaway is that, you know, there's a bountiful amount of places you can go to learn and, you know, places like YouTube and Udemy and stuff like that are still awesome resources for getting started in the ecosystem. I specifically like when Udemy has a sale, he buys like yeah a bunch of of content and then kind of pick and chooses out of that library that he's built for himself rather than saying like, oh, I want to learn about this. Let me just wait and do that one thing. Let's just buy it all. So I have it.
00:48:07
Speaker
So I have my own library, right? which ist Which is a fun way to do it. But it it just shows you that you can get your hands on a lot of really ah useful things sort of content and and not to not to mention the open communities and and things that are that are out there for you to communicate with other people, ah with like-minded people, I should say.
00:48:30
Speaker
Oh yeah, no, agreed. Right. I think ah in addition to the sale that Udemy runs every year, I think they should, at this point, they should sponsor us, but keeping that aside, even the Linux foundation runs discounts during Black Friday, I think for sure they they run it multiple times a year, but the the the certification training, certification exams, all of those are on discount as well. So if you are new to this ecosystem,
00:48:53
Speaker
Don't worry, that like you're not late. like the Kubernetes is still evolving. It's not that this technology is done and now we all of us are moving to something else. this is This is a technology stack that's here to stay.
00:49:04
Speaker
If you're new, i loved how Jamaya basically helped us set set a vision or set a standard for leaders right in the organization that want to drive ah growth from their employee on on the on their employees' behalf. Like, hey, how can I set a ah set set a culture in place where people feel comfortable, dedicated to at least 20% of their time in learning new skills,
00:49:26
Speaker
ah Even if I especially like when he didn't tie to a certification, but maybe even a hackathon project, but bringing that that those new skills into use in in what you're doing on a day-to-day basis. I think all of those things are are super important, especially when you have support of your leadership team. So ah that's great. And one thing I want to add is, hey, it is fun to learn in public.
00:49:46
Speaker
Like ah people will judge you, but not really. Like if we we'll make fun of you if you find if we we personally find you doing something that's not not correct. But hey, this is the journey. like guys and That's just rude, Bob. And you're gonna make fun of somebody. I mean, like, that's literally what they don't want.
00:50:02
Speaker
No, no. But again, don't worry. Like, we don't mean any harm. But like, we that's how we learned these things, right? you You really feel we haven't grown when since we started doing this podcast like four and half years back.
00:50:14
Speaker
There's so many new things we learned. And we were wrong. And we... get an opportunity to talk to experts. So I think, yeah, I think it's okay. Like, don't worry about it Just yeah leave those inhibitions aside. Just start start putting things on LinkedIn. This is what I learned. Start tagging us if you want. We be if we can do whatever we can to help you guys.
00:50:31
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, know I'll even say, we'll put the offer out. If you're just getting started in this ecosystem, feel free to reach out to Bhavan and i We can even have an episode with like, you know, you on it and we can talk about the questions you have.
00:50:45
Speaker
yep or even join our Slack or whatever. We're open to it. And I think that's just like the mindset a lot of us have. Not every single one, but a lot of us, right? So we but we're mostly harmless, except for Baba.
00:50:58
Speaker
but When I got started, I was like, as I mentioned to Jamai, right? Like it felt... that, oh, if you only if you are a contributor, only if you are writing code and so committing PRs or submitting PRs, that's that's how you are part of the community and that's how you feel included, but not really, right? Like this is our way of helping us out. You find your own way of learning and helping out the community. It's just give and take like, okay, this this is what this community is about. Like it's an awesome place to be. So don't worry about, don't looking stupid for half an hour, but then learning over a year. So all good.
00:51:32
Speaker
I think Babin's off his soap. Well, yeah. I'm just saying like, it's okay. Like, don't worry about it. Don't think about things. It's all good. Is really what you're saying. Awesome. Well, as always, for those listening, please share the podcast.
00:51:45
Speaker
Let your friends and colleagues, grandmothers, whoever know about the podcast and join the Slack. Follow us on YouTube. All those things, um please.
00:51:57
Speaker
We very much appreciate it. And thank you for listening. This brings us to the end of another episode. I'm Ryan. I'm Bobbin. Thanks for joining another episode of Kubernetes Bytes.
00:52:11
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Kubernetes Bytes Podcast.