Most tech trend reports tend to focus on concepts that are likely to break through in the next ten or fifteen years. They offer an inspiring vision of the future, but rarely help with your most pressing tech-related challenges today and over the next couple of years. To fill that need, we’ve created our no-nonsense, down-to-earth tech trend report.
The Futurice Tech Trends 2022 report takes a look at some of the most important developments, innovations and trends in the technology, IT and software landscape that actually matter in the daily life and work of software engineers, data scientists and architects.
The report will first highlight three key trends that we’ve identified as the most significant and pervasive drivers of change within the tech domain today and over the next few years. These are followed by more detailed trends within seven specific focus areas, and, last but not least, we’ll cover three developments that will shape the tech community itself.
The big four
What’s what in tech right now? First, let’s focus on four of the most important and far-reaching technology trends for the next two years.
Data engineering
After the artificial intelligence and machine learning wave, companies are waking up to the reality of having to harness their data and get it ready to use and deliver tangible business benefits.
MLOps and DataOps
DevOps is expanding over to the machine learning, data science and data engineering domain, enabling them to use the same tried and tested agile tools and methods in extracting data, building models and running deployment cycles.
No-code and low-code
No-code and low-code platforms are growing more popular. This affects web, mobile and cloud development by offering a new, more efficient way to implement services and integrations.
Data mesh
As the volume of data in organisations is exploding, new data management practices emerge. Data mesh is trending new paradigm and a novel way of thinking about data and analytics.
Deep dives into the tech trends of tomorrow
Next, let’s take a closer look at the key technology trends within seven specific focus areas.
What’s happening in the tech community?
If anything, 2020 has shown us the importance of communities and a sense of belonging.
With a global pandemic mixing things up, there are clear and definite shifts and developments that affect all areas of the tech community and the way it functions. Here’s our take on what to keep an eye out for.
Remote work
Remote work introduces new challenges to fostering a sense of belonging and cohesion among the tech community, driven by the need to rethink our ways of interacting.
Fewer random encounters at the office increases the risk of losing the bond between developers who don't work together in the same team.
On the other hand, remote work can also be seen as an enabler in building more connections and opportunities across different geographical sites when physical location is no longer a defining factor.
Life during the pandemic
In the short term, the Covid-19 pandemic has made a lot of external community-building efforts challenging. Physical events have been reduced to a minimum, many local communities are hibernating, and online events haven't necessarily found their place and audience yet.
The latter will keep improving as active community members find their groove and gain more experience in facilitating things, but the first two may well have to wait until societies find a more permanent new normal where physical events are, once again, a viable and responsible option.
Feeling connected
People want to feel connected with their peers and other people in their professional and social groups. For developers, that often means staying in touch with other developers, and typically there's a desire to also meet people from outside their own daily team. For people who work as the sole developer in a team, or as a freelancer, those connections are even more important.
Being an active and positive member of those communities as well as facilitating learning and discussion opportunities with other developers was already considered very important by many during regular circumstances. This is not likely to change as a result of the pandemic.
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