Jamie Doyle has worn a lot of hats at Capita.
Over his 25 years at the company, he’s had many roles, from dealing with Windows servers to overseeing DevOps automation. Someone with Jamie’s career history understands the importance of keeping up-to-date with new skills, so when the opportunity to upskill and formalise his knowledge in DevOps came up with the Corndel DevOps Apprenticeship Programme, he grasped it with both hands.
"And then this opportunity came up, and I thought this just aligns perfectly with everything we're trying to do, and we can learn to do it properly – formalise our knowledge and fill in the gaps”.
“I'm very much a generalist. I've always been used to fill the gaps. I'm a fairly quick learner, so I tended to be the person picked to learn something new. I've done everything in this company from being one of the first employees dealing with Windows servers through to now DevOps automation. Looking after end-user services and being operations manager for end-user services and things like that. So lots and lots of roles."
"At the point the opportunity came up, we had been working with providing automations via code for a customer and a product that we were developing at the time. We had embedded some pipelines in and had begun to use Scrum and all that kind of stuff, but it was very much our own flavour of what we'd learned by trying to do it.
And then this opportunity came up, and I thought this just aligns perfectly with everything we're trying to do, and we can learn to do it properly – formalise our knowledge and fill in the gaps”.
He's certainly seen efficiency gains since starting the DevOps programme, especially with a workflow for software installations that reduced engineers' manual work significantly, improving user experiences without constant remote connections:
“The DevOps programme has saved Capita hours and hours of engineering time. We implemented a process to trigger a workflow when people within the organisation wanted software installed on their machine, and it significantly improved the user experience. It saved countless hours of engineers remotely connecting and installing software, which was massive."
Jamie's experience with the DevOps programme also shifted his mindset towards automated testing, which he now advocates for, including discussions with colleagues about system updates.
“The DevOps programme reset my mindset to always consider automated testing. This philosophy applies across the board, not just in development, but also in discussions with colleagues. They often mention rolling out new systems or updates, and my immediate question is, 'What's the plan for testing? How will you ensure that changes won't disrupt existing functionality? Where's your regression testing?' This emphasis on thorough testing was one of the most significant takeaways for me."
There are lots of ways to upskill in DevOps, but Jamie stresses the collaborative learning aspect of the DevOps apprenticeship, highlighting its practical value in acquiring new skills effectively:
“As someone who's made a career out of staying up-to-date with new skills, the programme has been invaluable. But you can't tackle it alone. Sometimes, you need the collective wisdom around you. Being on a call with five other people, all debating the best approach, it's incredibly valuable. Otherwise, you're just arguing with a YouTube video, which doesn't accomplish much. That’s why I found working with my DevOps PDE so useful”.