Episode Summary:  In this episode, we’re talking to Nick Durkin, Field CTO and VP of Field Engineering at Harness. Harness is the industry’s first Software Delivery Platform to use AI to simplify your DevOps processes including CI/CD, Feature Flags, Cloud Costs, and more. Nick and I will discuss how to remove the most annoying parts of your job so that you can focus on what you do best and why AI and ML are the future of DevOps. 

About:  Nick Durkin: Field CTO and VP of Field Engineering at Harness

Nick Durkin has spent the last three years building Pre-Sales teams for Startups, Value Added Resellers (VARs), and Enterprise Sales Teams. He possesses over a decade of data center architecture knowledge combined with a wealth of certified training. Nick also owns over five years of Hadoop and Big Data experience, architecting systems and building big data applications for not only the Federal government, but also the world’s largest financial institutions. Nick has held the position of lead architect on the Department of Homeland Security’s FIVICS initiative, as well as developed many of the anti-fraud applications currently in use among the aforementioned financial institutions. Utilizing his successful history of innovative design involving data protection, fiscal responsibility and directive appreciation, Nick continues to develop purposeful solutions tailored to each of his client’s needs. 

Chapters:

1:10 Nick’s introduction and background

3:00 What’s a Field CTO?

5:00 Start with why as a foundation

6:08 The problems that Harness solves. 

6:15 Using AI & ML to solve CI/CD

10:20 Why compliance is important for your customers

13:25 How the cost factor changes throughout the growth journey

16:25 Intersection of cost and observability data management

20:00 AI & ML: defining the often misused terms

24:54 Why Nick wouldn’t work at a company not using AI & ML

27:08 Is AI as far advanced as the public thinks it is?