Hutte Trails Podcast – A podcast about all things Salesforce

What to know about transitioning to Salesforce DevOps (Trails Podcast episode #14 with Manuel Moya)

• Hutte • Season 1 • Episode 14

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Join us in this episode as we delve into Manuel Moya's perspective as a Salesforce DevOps Consultant. We will talk about DevOps and the Salesforce ecosystem. Explore his journey, gain insights, and discover valuable tips.

Harald (00:02)
Hi Manuel, huge pleasure to have you on Trails Podcast today.

Manuel Moya (00:08)
Hey Harald, I feel like an important person in a podcast. I have heard many podcasts but I have never been in one.

Harald (00:12)
Thank you.

Well, awesome. So then it's a double primer because it's also the first time that we actually invite someone who is so closely related to Hute. So it's no secret that you are a contributor actually. So I would even say a team member of Hute. So you are working with us to improve the product. You have...

Manuel Moya (00:40)
Mm -hmm.

Harald (00:40)
Just recently we co -hosted a webinar on open source and Salesforce, and you have done a lot of more great work with or for Hute, like for example, trailblazing, how Hute works with the flexible framework.

But yeah, today, obviously we don't want to talk about Hute, but we are more interested in you, your career. So that's why I would like to kick us off with the question that I always start the interviews with. And that is basically, how did you get in touch with Salesforce? When was it? And how did your career basically evolve from there within the Salesforce ecosystem?

Manuel Moya (01:09)
Hehehe.

Yeah, so actually when I started working, I started working with networking actually. So I started working with Cisco and Juniper hardware. I was working in the configuration of all these systems, but I was not finding the happiness in this. Actually, I knew that what I wanted to do is to code, to work as a developer.

But I didn't know specifically on which technology. I was just looking for a company where I can learn to be a good developer. I saw an offer at that time in Financial Force, here in the city where I have always lived. It was a junior developer offer. I didn't know anything about Salesforce. I just knew that Financial Force was a good company to work with. So I decided to do the interview there.

By the way, the person that did the interview to me is Alba, who was doing the podcast here a few days ago. So she was one of the interviewers in the technical part.

Harald (02:36)
I didn't know that.

Manuel Moya (02:40)
Yeah, so fun fact. And yeah, I really liked the people there. So I decided to start there. I learned a lot about Salesforce best practices. The people working there were great mentors. So yeah, that's why, that's how I started in the ecosystem.

Harald (03:02)
And what had been your next stop? I think you have seen a lot. So you started with a big ISV, but you have also done work outside the ISV space, right?

Manuel Moya (03:15)
Yeah, I started this years in Financial Force. I learned a lot about the enterprise ISV side because at the end, Financial Force was a very mature company. Also in the development side, the practices when coding, the processes of delivery, in general, the complete development lifecycle. I learned a lot about that there. I was very interested in the DevOps.

side of Salesforce. So at that time I decided to switch to Copado. I was working for a few years in Copado as a technical lead. Reason of going to Copado was not only for DevOps, but also to understand how is the work in a more startup ISV. At that point in time, Copado was, let's say ending the startup phase because it was already quite a big company.

and going more into the mature company phase. So I learned a lot about this migration, let's say, and about the different way in which you develop when you actually need more features, right? It's a different way of thinking. After that, I also wanted to learn out of the ISB ecosystem. So I decided to go into something called video practice in Salesforce. It's kind of consultancy, but it's not exactly the same.

And I decided to join a very cool company called Equivalent Apps. In Equivalent Apps, the main mission was to create app exchange packages for customers. And I was working there as a developer and similar roles for some time. I really learned a lot about the customer side and customer interaction. And then I keep, I...

wanted to keep learning about the DevOps side because I knew there was a lot more to learn. I decided to switch as a contractor, as a freelancer, and I started working and contributing to Huty and with other companies, both as a technical architect, DevOps consultant, this kind of roles.

Harald (05:39)
Yeah, having seen, let's say, a wide range of players within the ecosystem, but also, yeah, as you mentioned, working kind of different sides of the business at an ISV directly or more involved in projects, let's say the PDO, what is currently keeping you going? What is motivating you? What is exciting you?

in your current role, working with different customers basically on your own and choosing your project, your assignment.

Manuel Moya (06:19)
To say it quickly, I always try to maintain myself in the technical side of Savers. Because at the end when you are evolving from the lead Saver in a developer position to a higher step in the ecosystem, for example, if you are evolving into technical lead or technical architect or architect in general, it's very easy that you switch into more management.

tasks or more solution architecture tasks.

I have experienced it. I have experienced how I have had to do some job in this other parts of Salesforce. I have learned a lot about it, but I have also realized that it is not what motivates me to wake up and work for many hours. So from these experiences, at the end, I know what I really like, which is the technical side of Salesforce.

and it's what I try to look for when I wake up. At the end it's also where I am useful because I feel myself much more useful in doing something that I know I am quicker, I am more efficient and I am enjoying.

Harald (07:43)
Great, yeah, I can relate very well.

What about the platform itself? Is there something that recently spiked your interest? I mean, we see the seasonal releases coming. I know that you are an avid, let's say...

Yeah, you, you closely look what's new on the platform. You get in touch with many of the new things that get released. Could you point out any of the recent announcements or feature releases on Salesforce platform that specifically excited you or something that is announced that you're looking forward to?

Manuel Moya (08:32)
Yeah, there are a lot. So years ago, the one that amazed me was the release of custom data types, but we are talking about many years ago. But I think custom data type, especially to ISVs, I think it was a huge contribution in the way that you can extend the behavior of a package with extension packages, with second generation packaging and all these...

wave of features that came years ago. If we talk about the current point in time, one of the things that I have recently worked on is Flow Orchestrator, which I think is quite nice until I discovered that it is a freemium product, so you can use it in a free way until you have a certain number of...

of requests and then you have to start to pay. At that point in time I was not that happy. But I will say that that was a nice feature and then with all the evolution with AI and all this kind of...

features that Salesforce is releasing in a way that you don't need a super skilled developer. It's also an interesting step that Salesforce is doing. From one side is very positive because it has a big potential. From one side, from another side, is also, let's we could say concerning in the way that the technical depth that can be created for the future because at the end all this AI

systems are giving you a solution, but they're not giving you the best solution. So you need an intelligent person behind the scenes that understand how to implement the solution that AI is giving to you. And I believe at the end, this is going to create a lot of technical depth and a lot of maybe bad decisions that we will need to fight in the future. But yeah, I don't want to...

I just want to take it as a point because at the end the evolution is quite nice to see. This company, for example, that I was talking about before, Equivalapse, they are investing a lot into AI and it's quite nice to see the discoveries that they are doing.

Harald (11:05)
Great. Yeah, I think they even have a podcast, right? Dedicated to Salesforce and AI, hosted by Jakub from Acuiva Labs. I have to catch up on a few of the latest episodes, but I listened to the first ones and was quite excited about it.

Yeah, so most of the work where we, the two of us, directly collaborate is obviously about DevOps. So, and that kind of implicitly means Git based. So all the open source initiatives we are excited about, we have already talked about.

or mentioned flexible, but you are also currently investigating how to best bring SFDX hardies and HUTE to great use together. And yeah, obviously we...

use and are passionate about many Salesforce open source initiatives, various SF plugins that we use and so on. In the end, kind of from my thinking, the precondition for even tapping into this whole awesome world is working Git based, which seems to be a bit of a...

a no brainer or maybe even the norm that you are used to for a long time working mainly on ISVs and on packages. But I think we both know that working Git based is not considered mainstream in Salesforce yet. So I'm curious about your thoughts. Do you think we are close to seeing...

Yeah, let's say most teams, even if not working on with packages, let's say, so teams who work, let's say an in -house team at a customer working on their Salesforce org, that they make the switch to Git -based development, or do you think that...

Yeah, the model of let's say, orc to orc deployments, which is basically still somehow the default, let's say, with change sets is here to stay. So yeah, just curious to hear your thoughts about Git -based development in Salesforce.

Manuel Moya (13:26)
Hmm.

I wish I could say next year every company in the market is going to be using Git -based development. I wish I could say that. But I think the reality is a bit different. So from one side, I think the companies are realizing about this and they are incrementally switching to Git. They are not...

all doing it at the same time and they will probably not be all doing it this year. But I think it's slowly evolving, right? Because many companies from one side, they may not have the resources in order to cover this transition. So, skill developers that can support in this transition, for example, or some DevOps engineer.

But also there are companies that even though they may have the resources, they have not thought about this transition. They are comfortable in the current way they are working, right? And the problem is that some companies, not everyone, but some companies are only realizing about the challenges of the old way of developing or releasing when they have an issue in a...

deployment to products when they have a real business impact and then of course this is late in the game then they will try to in a rush switch the complete development life cycle and go to get etc. So from one side incrementally they will switch of course and from another side the companies that are not proactively doing it

will do it because of business impacts. It is sad to say, but in my experience it's also what I have been seeing.

And at the end also we have all the new frameworks like DXAT Scale, Harddisk, Cumulus CI. Previously you were asking me about Salesforce, new Salesforce features. At the end we also need to talk about all the community contribution because FlexiWall is not from Salesforce, DXAT Scale is not from Salesforce or Harddisk is not, but at the end we have a big...

Harald (15:31)
Yes!

Manuel Moya (15:58)
community contribution which in the DevOps side has been huge and is making all this transition to it much easier. If we talk about years ago, five or eight years ago, there was not much for DevOps. Either you paid a product for it or either you use chainsets or you use these terrible Ant scripts that no one could understand in XML.

So there was not a lot, but now there is a big landscape of different options to make this transition easier. The community here in this aspect of Salesforce has been amazing.

Harald (16:45)
I couldn't agree more. Yeah, so to round us up, I'd like to ask you, so you have also earned yourself a reputation as a speaker. I remember joining one of your talks at a community event not that long ago.

Well, it was, I think it was barely a year ago in that must have been checked reading. I really enjoyed your talk there. And yes, I'm curious to you. How does your your travel upcoming travel schedule look? Do you still visit a lot of those events? Did you do did you apply for any talking slots? Anything exciting coming up in terms of events or traveling?

Manuel Moya (17:09)
Hm.

It's funny that you say I have earned a reputation. I don't think I have much reputation as a speaker, but I am glad that you say that I am happy to hear it. I have been a speaker in four or five occasions, but I do it occasionally, only when I have a topic that I am really enthusiastic to talk about. So this year has been a...

busy year, I wished I could have made it to Drimole, which was also in Granada, but it wasn't possible because of a personal commitment. But talking about the future, I want to go to Drimole, because ATN is my... familiar event, let's say, it's in Spain, so I am at the end meeting with all the people that they have been working with.

But if we want to do the big bet, I would really like to go to TDX. Trailhead DX is the one that I have always been looking at. It's quite difficult to go to TDX, but if we need to create a wishlist, that will be in my wishlist. But also, apart from that, other thing that I have learned about events is that I have more fun in small community events.

like DreamOle, like Sect Dreaming or London Calling than in huge events like Dreamforce or the WorldTour because at the end these are very huge events and it's very difficult to meet with the people that you are familiar with in the ecosystem but later when you are going to community events you have a lot of lunch and dinner and post event

parties and this kind of things which is much more close and you have more fun, at least from my experience.

Harald (19:42)
Yeah, so I'm sad that you won't make it to Wir sind Ohana in...

Berlin next week. I know it because I actually invited you and I know that you have a conflict with a personal obligation there. But yeah, I'm sure we will meet at more community events. I'll also join you in your efforts to be able to speak at Trill Blizzard DX. I have some topics in mind that I'll apply. I think it will probably open in December or so, again, if I remember correctly. And then let's see, maybe we'll land

Manuel Moya (20:17)
Hmm.

Harald (20:18)
spots and would be great to go to or travel together or see you in San Francisco. But...

Manuel Moya (20:23)
Yeah, I need to speak to my group of friends that they need to stop getting married. Because otherwise I cannot go to any event.

Harald (20:31)
No.

All right, so yeah, thank you very much, Manuel. I really enjoyed our conversation, like always. And have a great rest of the day. Talk to you soon. Thank you for your time.

Manuel Moya (20:47)
Thank you, Harald. It was a pleasure.