RedMonk March 2025 Update
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Hi Everyone,
Steve here. The calendar has somehow turned to March, which means - at least up here in Maine - that birds are starting to chirp in the mornings, grass is glacially reemerging from the snowpack and the days are starting to warm up (ish).
Even better, baseball is almost back.
For all of us in the tech industry, meanwhile, things are starting to wake after a slow winter. Conference season is ramping back up, and while the overall numbers are mixed, with the turn of the calendar RedMonk’s seeing the most hiring we’ve seen in years. LinkedIn has become a veritable flood of new openings, which has been a most welcome development. And it appears that it’s not just the RedMonk network - it seems as if there is some legitimate job growth at hand.
Fingers crossed.
Speaking of conferences, it won’t be hard to find a monk this spring. I’ll be at JavaOne next week. Sadly, due to spousal travel and parental responsibilities, I’ll be missing my first Monki Gras at the end of March in London, but most of the team will be there. You can buy tickets here. We’ll also have monks at KubeCon in London the week after, and then at least one of us will be at Atlassian Team, Google Next and devopsdays Atlanta among others.
It’s not just conferences, of course. Spring has seen product releases pick up (e.g. the week of DeepSeek), acquisitions accelerate (e.g. Datastax, Voyage AI) and even regulatory approvals (finally!) cross the finish line (e.g. Hashicorp).
Things are beginning to move, in other words, which is good because I think we could all use some distractions right now.
As all of us monks start to get back on planes, hopefully we’ll get the chance to see each of you in person soon. That is, after all, why we travel. But until then, take care and be good to yourselves.
-sog
Links Roundup
- This is a fantastic post about tech salary trends across career levels and geographic locations from Gergely Orosz.
- Sarah Novotny's talk Trust is the ultimate currency helped me draw parallels with Kate's recent piece on AI agents.
- Love this guy. Olson is a real one: Not a Tech Bro
- If you've ever wanted to feel better about your own UX design, please read this piece about Citi Bank's payment system.
- A great post about the AWS Correction of Error (CoE) document and process - this is effectively a how to go guide to help you get started using similar approaches to AWS in learning lessons from outages and issues and ensuring the same problems don't crop up again. This was actually a link first shared by Corey Quinn in his Last Week in AWS newsletter.
- More goodness from this month’s Write the Docs Newsletter: even if doc(umentarian)s are not your thing, check out the section on Maximizing the value of weekly meetings.
- Old news (literally). After a fragment of a story about this artifact was pushed via email, we had to track down this article on the world's oldest analog computer - the Antikythera Mechanism.
- This from O'Reilly is honestly just well put together - includes neat summaries of recent AI news (of which of course there is too much!)
Featured Article
James Governor with a preview of what you can expect at Monki Gras 2025- it’s going to be fire. Sustainable Open Source and Pragmatic takes on AI.
The show is set to be a banger. I spend a lot of time agonising over a theme every year, and in 2025 for the first time it’s a reprise – in 2017 we explored Sustaining Craft, and this year it’s Sustaining (Software Development) Craft. Why relitigate? Because, frankly, the pressure on our craft is greater than ever.
Recent RedMonk Research
- Kate Holterhoff has a theory (and the CEO-authored receipts to back it up) about perceptions of AI’s ROI in AI Agents and the CEOs RM clients mentioned: AWS, Microsoft, GitHub and Salesforce
- James Governor talks IDE incumbents (looking at you, Visual Studio Code) and challengers in AI disruption – code editors are up for grabs RM clients mentioned: GitHub and Microsoft
- If you’ve jumped on the recent trend of “reading papers” about AI, chances are you’ve encountered a conference proceedings or two. Kelly Fitzpatrick digs into this format and why it is important to computing research: On Publishing: Computing Conference Proceedings
- Kate Holterhoff reflects on the significance of the TypeScript compiler's full migration to Go: New TypeScript Compiler, Who Dis? RM clients mentioned: Microsoft, Google, and Sentry
Recent Videos and Media Appearances
- Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub, chats AI agents with Kate Holterhoff. They discuss the definition of AI agents, GitHub Copilot’s role as peer programmer, and AI as an abstraction layer in software engineering. Check out A RedMonk Conversation: Thomas Dohmke Chats AI Agents and Shower Coding
- Couchbase’s Jeff Morris joins Steve O’Grady to discuss agentic apps, examples of them in practice, and the role of the database in building them in A RedMonk Conversation: What is an Agentic App and How to Build One
Exclusively on the MonkCast
- RMC: Making Docs Better for AI and Humans (with Jennifer Marandola). Jennifer Marandola, Technical Writing Manager at Cribl, joins Kelly Fitzpatrick for a discussion on the evolving role of technical writing in an era of AI copilots and assistants. She shares insights on how her team collaborates with Cribl’s AI team to enhance documentation, making it more accessible and effective for both human users and AI tools.
- A RedMonk Conversation: Psychology, Technological Innovation, and Why We Need Science (with Dr. Cat Hicks). Dr. Cat Hicks, a psychologist studying software teams, joins Kelly Fitzpatrick to discuss the role of psychology in technological innovation. Dr. Hicks shares insights from her recent research projects, including a study on code review anxiety and the impact of what she calls “AI Skill Threat” on developers. Dr. Hicks also addresses the challenges faced by scientists today, the significance of cumulative cultures in software, and her upcoming book on the psychology of software teams.
- A RedMonk Conversation: How GitHub is Getting Beginners into Git (with Kedasha Kerr and Andrea Griffiths). Kedasha Kerr, Developer Advocate and Technical Content Creator at GitHub, and Andrea Griffiths, Senior Developer Advocate at GitHub, chat about the importance of educational content for developers, language accessibility, community engagement, the value of open source, and the role of AI in learning, with Rachel Stephens, Research Director at RedMonk. They discuss the need for foundational skills in programming and the importance of finding supportive communities for self-taught learners.
- A RedMonk Conversation: Jason Lengstorf from Screamo to CodeTV. Jason Lengstorf shares his journey from aspiring rock star to tech media mogul with Kate Holterhoff, senior industry analyst at RedMonk. Jason digs into his experiences at IBM, Gatsby, and Netlify—and he doesn’t hold back. Jason discusses the challenges of navigating corporate structures, the importance of community in open source projects, and the impact of venture capital on innovation. He also reflects on the current state of GraphQL and front-end frameworks including Next.js, Astro, and Gatsby. In this conversation, Jason outlines the importance of long-term planning in leadership, the challenges executives face in maintaining focus, and the value of doing the ‘boring’ work that improves products. Finally he shares thoughts about his latest project, CodeTV, including insights on innovative content creation for developer audiences.
- A RedMonk Conversation: How GitHub Education Aspires to Reach 1 Billion Developers (with Avni Khatri Fein). Avni Khatri Fein, Senior Director of Education at GitHub, chats with Kelly Fitzpatrick about GitHub Education’s mission to make coding accessible to everyone. They discuss the importance of bridging the gap between coding education and tech careers, the evolving nature of computer science, and how AI can enhance learning experiences.
- A RedMonk Conversation: Making Container Isolation a Reality with Alex Zenla. Alex Zenla, founder & CTO at Edera, chats container security and virtualization with Rachel Stephens, research director at RedMonk. Alex shares her unique journey from Minecraft to the tech industry. She emphasizes the importance of security in computing, particularly in the context of IoT and legacy systems. The conversation also explores the differences between eBPF and secure design principles, as well as the potential of WebAssembly in the tech landscape and a proactive approach to security in technology.
- A RedMonk Conversation with Derek Collison, “the Forrest Gump of Messaging”. Derek Collison, founder and CEO of Synadia and creator of NATS.io, discusses the evolution and importance of messaging systems with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk. In this wide-ranging interview, Derek shares insights from his time at TIBCO building Rendezvous, Google co-founding AJAX APIs, VMware co-founding Cloud Foundry, and now Synadia maintaining NATS. Derek not only talks about the history of the tech industry and how it has evolved since the 90s, but also his current views on AI, streaming, open source foundations, edge computing, distributed systems, and the rise of enterprise application integration (EAI).
RedMonk Recommends
Andrei Zimin is an experienced technical product manager with a proven track record of driving impactful, scalable solutions in enterprise SaaS. Most recently at Asana, Andrei led the Feature Scaling team, defining ownership structures and solving core scalability challenges to ensure Asana could support its largest customers and drive bigger deals. He also optimized the observability stack, resulting in significant cost savings and improved engineering satisfaction. Prior to that, at VMware, he played a key role in launching a Backstage-based Developer Portal as part of VMware’s flagship Kubernetes platform, enhancing developer experience and productivity.
Andrei is currently exploring senior technical product management opportunities in enterprise SaaS, with a focus on developer experience, AI-driven products, and large-scale infrastructure. With deep expertise in scalability, technical problem-solving, and strategic thinking, he is well-suited for organizations that need a product leader who can bridge technical complexity with strategic business outcomes.
Monki Gras
Tickets for Monki Gras 2025 are still available! Early bird tickets are now sold out, but you can purchase mid-bird/late-bird tickets online here. We hope to see you March 27th/28th in London.
If you're interested in sponsoring this year's Monki Gras, please contact Morgan Harris for a list of available opportunities.
Meet the Monks
Events we'll be attending:
- JavaOne 2025: 18-20 March, Redwood Shores, CA
- KubeCon + CloudNativeCon EU 2025: 1- 4 April 2025, London, UK
- Atlassian Team ’25: 8 - 10 April 2025, Anaheim, CA
- Google Cloud Next ’25: 9 - 11 April 2025, Las Vegas, NV
- devopsdays Atlanta: 29-30 April 2025, Atlanta, GA
Events we'll be hosting:
- Monki Gras 2025: 27 - 28 March 2025, London, UK
Our mailing address is:
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