What do today’s developers wish CIOs and IT leaders knew about the realities of the cloud era? What do developers want in order to advance their careers? For my first episode hosting Red Hat’s livestreaming show, In The Clouds, I was excited to dig into these and related questions around the role of developers in the enterprise. I was joined by the leaders of the Red Hat Developer Business Unit: Vice President and General Manager Mithun T. Dhar and Senior Director of Developer Marketing and Strategy Ignacio Riesgo Pablo. We had an excellent discussion about how Red Hat works with developers and the unique culture and opportunities that brought all three of us to join the company.

Empathy and making developers productive is what drives Mithun Dhar’s work with the Red Hat Developer business unit. His 400-person organization strives to improve developer productivity and engagement. While developers are a diverse group, here are his insights into the mindset of developers:

1. Keep it simple (your code and offerings)

2. Make it (your product/offering) effective

3. Make access to your technology friction free (including self-service)

Looking at the career advancement topic – because what CIO doesn’t worry about talent retention these days – Ignacio shared that a key driver in his career is that you must be able to get out of your comfort zone. It doesn’t matter what you know today since technology will change. You must be prepared and embrace the changes happening in the industry.

Communicating around these issues to developers is crucial. Delivering opportunities for peer learning and collaboration, via a community, is also important.

Want to learn more? Watch this episode of In the Clouds:

[ Interested in accessing developer resources offered by Red Hat? Access many free tools at https://developers.redhat.com/ ]