Episode 62: Eli Lilly Embarks on the Jenkins Journey

Host Brian Dawson is back on the latest episode of DevOps Radio , joined by Nick Liffen, software engineering team lead at Eli Lilly. Nick started at Eli Lilly as a software developer and quickly moved to product ownership where he now oversees a team of eight people who focus on standing up Jenkins Share Libraries and Jenkins Pipelines in the DevOps space.

Nick begins by describing his experience with Jenkins and the benefits of applying it to Eli Lilly. He breaks down the Jenkins enterprise users by their different personas and goes on to explain who they are. Persona One are people who don’t have the expertise or desire to build Jenkins pipelines; Persona Two are people who have some niche use cases where they would like to build their own Jenkins pipeline, but don’t want to manage any Jenkins infrastructure; and Persona Three are people who want to do it all, from owning their own Jenkins controllers to their own pipeline.

Like many organizations, Eli Lilly is undergoing the digital transformation process . With DevOps central to this transformation, Nick explains what he calls the “DevOps Mindset,” an attitude towards looking at processes and thinking that they can always continue to do better. DevOps is a process that should always be evaluated and constantly improved, says Nick. He also adds that people and culture are also key within Eli Lilly - if you don’t have the people to stand up or consume the technologies, what’s the point of having them?

The conversation wraps up as Nick shares his tips for success on the Jenkins journey. For those who are early on with adopting Jenkins and are looking to stand up an enterprise Jenkins service or CloudBees, be open and ensure that your customers are on the journey with you. By knowing your customers and their journey, you can create a personalized Jenkins service to meet their needs.

Interested in hearing more conversations like this? Check out the CloudBees website to listen to our archive of episodes , or subscribe to DevOps Radio on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to get access to the latest and greatest.

Additional resources:

• Discover how CloudBees Jenkins distribution adds stability and security to your Jenkins environment

• Learn everything you need to know about Jenkins X

• Find out how to drive digital transformation with DevOps