How Much Infrastructure and Deployment Control Do Java Developers Have?

These days, developers must take on a lot of infrastructure responsibility. The idea of devs being in charge of their deployment pipelines is essential for keeping up with demands. At my last gig, the whole DevOps thing was almost entirely a shared responsibility between devs and ops. We would create our own pipelines and get immediate feedback, which is vital for keeping pace with our fast-moving projects.

Absolutely, we manage our own Dockerfiles for our Java apps! When it comes to building and pushing images, we handle our own CI/CD scripts, usually in GitLab CI. While there can be some frustrating moments—generally due to external factors like network issues—it’s important for developers to own this piece. In my experience, having that direct control enables us to adapt quickly. Sure, I don’t want to mess with the hardware aspects, but owning the software side is huge for us!

I'm a fan of using JIB for containerization; it keeps everything really smooth and the images are compact! I think a lot of the frustration people have with Docker often comes down to a lack of understanding. When developers have a direct hand in their build pipelines, it usually mitigates many issues. Also, the more familiar you are with how Docker operates, the less flaky builds seem to be!

I'm a big supporter of dev teams owning their own packaging! Whether that's a straightforward Dockerfile or more advanced tools like JIB, it's crucial that devs are in charge of these processes. They understand their applications best and need to ensure that they can read configuration from environmental variables. The deployment process should ideally be facilitated by a DevOps team, but I think devs should be fully responsible for the applications they're deploying. Sure, there's a bit of a learning curve, but in practice, it's pretty smooth once everyone is on the same page!