When the worlds of DevOps and Serverless collide, are they really competing — or secretly on the same team?
🚀 Serverless: The Developer’s Shortcut
Serverless is loved by developers for good reason — it keeps things fast and simple. Teams can skip the tedious parts of infrastructure and jump straight into building products. But here’s the catch: the Ops work doesn’t vanish — it just moves behind the scenes to cloud providers, managed services, and automated pipelines.
🛠️ DevOps: Still Doing the Heavy Lifting
DevOps is far from obsolete. Serverless runs because strong DevOps practices run underneath it — monitoring, security, reliability, and automation keep the lights on. While developers might not see it, someone’s making sure your serverless code stays fast, safe, and scalable.
⚙️ When Should You Build It Yourself?
Of course, it’s not always one-size-fits-all. Sometimes building your own Kubernetes stack makes sense — if your team needs full control, has strict compliance rules, or needs deep security visibility. But for most, managed serverless wins on speed and time-to-market.
Don’t pick your tech stack because it’s trendy. Context matters more than buzzwords. Yes, vendor lock-in is a risk — but so is data gravity (once your data’s in, moving it is hard). Staying flexible always comes with a price.
In the end, the panel’s biggest takeaway was clear: Serverless and DevOps aren’t enemies — they’re partners.
And guess what?
Michael Dowden, who led this lively session last year, is back at the conference again this year — ready to push this conversation forward. Don’t miss it!
