The InfoQ Podcast 2021 Year in Review: Hybrid Working, Ethics & Sustainability, and Multi-Cloud

The Future of Work

• The shift to remote and hybrid work models represents a fundamental change in how people work, with a move away from the traditional five-day workweek and daily commutes. (3m5s)
• Organizations are experimenting with different approaches to hybrid work, including asynchronous communication models, to determine the optimal balance between in-person and remote work. (3m44s)

Employee Well-being and Diversity

• The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of employee well-being, with many individuals prioritizing their personal and family's needs, leading to a focus on creating positive and supportive work environments. (4m49s)
• A remote-first work environment can lead to increased diversity in hiring by expanding the geographical pool of candidates. (5m53s)

Remote Work Challenges

• Junior developers and new hires may face challenges in a remote-first environment due to limited established networks and potential difficulties in building connections with colleagues. (8m7s)
• Netflix has implemented a strategy where they have designated leaders who work remotely to ensure that remote employees have equal access to information and opportunities. (7m0s)

Software Architecture and Communication

• Companies are trying to find the right balance between monolithic and microservice architectures, recognizing that microservices don't solve all problems and require careful consideration of team structures and communication. (11m37s)
• Asynchronous communication is becoming increasingly important in software development, with the growing maturity of asynchronous APIs and tools enabling better interaction between teams developing services. (13m5s)

Data Engineering Trends

• Four high-level categories of data engineering trends are discussed: data management, infrastructure, operations, and ethics. (15m30s)
• Data management encompasses data ingestion, storage, processing, integration, and analytics. (15m30s)
• Infrastructure plays a crucial role, with technologies like Kubernetes and GPUs being leveraged. (16m6s)
• Operations have advanced with the adoption of DevOps principles, leading to DataOps and MLOps for improved database management and automation in machine learning. (16m28s)
• Ethics in AI and ML solutions are emphasized, ensuring fairness and responsibility in their application across demographics. (17m28s)

Low Code and Ethics in Software Development

• Low code solutions can be helpful for building systems up to a point, but they don't solve the difficult aspects of software development, such as determining what to build and how to build it in a sustainable and repeatable way. (20m14s)
• Software developers need more ethics training than just "with great power comes great responsibility" because the systems they build, especially with AI, have a significant impact on people's lives. (23m21s)

Sustainability in Software Development

• The tech industry is starting to address its environmental impact, but progress has been slow over the past few decades. (24m39s)
• Shifting code to the cloud and demanding green energy from cloud providers is a good starting point for developers to address sustainability in software development. (25m5s)
• Adrien Cockroft, Eugene Kova, Asim Hussain, and Asra are notable figures who have contributed to the conversation about sustainability in software development. (26m45s)

Data Sovereignty and Ownership

• Data sovereignty is a significant concern, particularly regarding who owns and controls the vast amounts of data stored and processed in the cloud, especially for marginalized communities. (27m52s)
• Personal data mesh is a potential future direction for data ownership and usage. (29m49s)

Ethical Considerations in Software Engineering

• Software engineers should receive ethics training as part of their education to consider the ethical implications of their work, especially given the increasing impact of software on people's lives. (30m3s)
• The software industry should proactively establish ethical standards and a governing body to regulate itself, rather than waiting for government intervention in response to a major incident. (32m41s)
• There is a need in the software engineering industry to consider ethical questions about what is right and good, similar to the questions raised by GDPR. (35m11s)

Cloud Computing Trends

• The cloud market was valued at 90 billion US dollars in 2021 and multicloud and hybrid cloud strategies are becoming increasingly important. (36m36s)
• Companies are increasingly using multiple cloud providers due to mergers and acquisitions, and the need for specialized services. (37m47s)
• Companies rarely switch between SQL Server and Oracle, even if they initially desired an abstract data layer for that purpose. (40m3s)

Cloud Security and Policy Management

• Open Policy Agent (OPA) and Crossplane are gaining traction as tools for implementing consistent policies across cloud platforms, particularly in authentication and authorization. (41m54s)
• There is a lack of visibility into the provenance of software and hardware used in production, making it challenging to ensure that components are what they are believed to be. (43m23s)

Software Supply Chain Security

• There is a need for a mechanism to verify the authenticity of software. (44m33s)
• The lack of attention to software supply chain security is a significant concern. (45m0s)
• Blockchain technology has the potential to address software supply chain security issues by providing a way to certify the authenticity of software components. (48m18s)

Ethical Data Engineering and AI/ML

• There is a need for a standardized way to validate the ethical nature of data engineering and AI/ML solutions. (50m34s)
• More visual ways of understanding code are being developed, such as sequence diagrams in the Ballerina language and the Glamorous Toolkit. (52m51s)

Future Outlook and Call to Action

• The speaker will continue to advocate for ethical considerations in the field. (53m43s)
• Shane believes there should be more focus on understanding the environmental impact of technology and how to reduce it. (54m0s)
• Shane hopes to see more humanistic workplaces that prioritize the well-being of employees. (54m13s)
• Thomas believes that while there is a lot of focus on advancements in technology, there should also be equal focus on ethics and sustainability. (54m55s)