Code Generation and Optimization are the Primary Areas Where GenAI is being Used Significantly: Ascendion

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“A frugal approach, where a lot of care has been taken towards measuring how much engineering is needed along with being very mindful of the business needs, can go a long way.”

Code Generation and Optimization are the Primary Areas Where GenAI is being Used Significantly: Ascendion

In this engaging discussion with Amit Singh, Krishnendu Chakrabarty, Associate Director of Platform Engineering at Ascendion, shares insights into the challenges and considerations in building and upgrading engineering platforms, the transformative impact of Gen AI, integration of cloud and metaverse technologies, and the importance of user experience design and security in platform engineering. Join us as we explore the future of engineering platforms and the strategies Ascendion employs to stay ahead in this dynamic landscape

Amit: What are some common challenges enterprises face in building and upgrading engineering platforms? What should enterprises consider while upgrading their engineering platforms in 2024?

Krishnendu: It has always remained a challenge to strike a balance between engineering excellence, the allocated budget, and target timelines in any large platform engineering endeavor and it remains one of the major points of contention. Additionally, with the level of advancement we are experiencing in the fields of AI and quantum computing, it has become extremely challenging to build a secured platform capable of protecting user data.

A frugal approach, where a lot of care has been taken towards measuring how much engineering is needed along with being very mindful of the business needs, can go a long way. Optimizing the solution for items like cloud economics, SecOps and automation along with the right technology selection can significantly help. GenAI enablement during solutioning, as well as implementation, can be a game changer in this context.

Amit: How platform engineering is beneficial for Gen AI to automate repetitive coding tasks, suggest improvements to existing code, and even generate new code snippets based on developer intent?

Krishnendu: It’s revolutionary, to say the least, code generation and optimization is one of the primary areas where GenAI is getting used significantly. It can produce code in almost all the known languages with varied degrees of accuracy depending on the problem. The conversational GenAI tools and GenAI-enabled IDE plugins can make this very effective for the developers. The critical part is that the developer needs to be equipped with the right system knowledge on the ground as well as command over the technology to reap the benefits.

Amit: Cloud and Metaverse are shaping the digital landscape. How does Ascendion incorporate these technologies into its platform engineering solutions, and what advantages do they offer in terms of user experience, data insights, and practical applications?

Krishnendu: It’s safe to say that cloud engineering has become one of the de-facto technologies for almost everything in software engineering, and it has reached the position of a fully emerged

technology and no longer remains a niche. Ascendion embraces this omnipresence of cloud technologies with dedicated COEs (Centers of Excellence), for all the premier cloud technologies which helps to find the right solution for a client problem. We also have a dedicated cloud economics COE backed by a set of powerful homegrown tools to enable the optimization of cloud costs.

We fully understand the power of Metaverse technologies and leverages the use of case-based implementations and frameworks to solve any client problem in this area. Along with providing the right solution around Metaverse technologies, Ascendion COEs take extra care in finding the suitability of Metaverse technologies for a given solution as this tech is going through the hype phase in the industry.

Amit: User experience is pivotal in platform adoption. How does Ascendion prioritize user experience design in platform engineering, and what strategies are employed to ensure intuitive and engaging interfaces for end-users?

Krishnendu: Dedicated COE, a very large library of pre-built designs that keep getting refreshed based on industry best practices and Ascendion’s own experiences interacting with the clients, special focus on accessibility and inclusive UI designs – are our ways of offering user experience solutions. A lot of effort goes into striking the right synergy between user experience designing and then backing it by optimum UI technology that is the best fit for the job. The usage of GenAI in creating rapid prototypes and rich UX components is another area where we have put a lot of focus around.

Amit: Building scalable platforms requires a balance between flexibility and standardization. How can enterprises strike this balance to create platforms that are adaptable to unique client needs while maintaining a standardized and efficient engineering approach?

Krishnendu: Creating high-quality and independently scalable components, with an API-first approach, would be the way to go. This enables the implementation teams to rewire the orchestration to meet various customer needs with relative ease. As a technology, containerization has reached the next level of maturity, and this provides a lot of benefits in creating a hyper-flexible application consisting of individually engineered components working together to achieve a common goal. The component-ization of software solutions lets teams with different skill sets focus on their part of the solution bringing in quality and an API-based integration provides flexibility.

Amit: Security is paramount in digital innovation. How does Ascendion approach security considerations in platform engineering, and what best practices should enterprises adopt to safeguard their platforms and user data?

Krishnendu: Ascendion believes in embedding security in all aspects of software engineering rather than keeping it as a separate exercise. Left shifting of security via automation and DevSecOps engineering is the single most important item for making the application security practices sustainable – this enables bringing in the security culture from the very first day and standardizing the security practices across the organization.

Amit: Could you elaborate on how enterprises can effectively implement adaptive development workflows, and what advantages these workflows bring to the software and tech development process?

Krishnendu: Adaptive development workflows help an implementation team prepare for continuous changes and pivot based on real user feedback. This could be extremely helpful in navigating through all the unavoidable changes that the industries are going through. To have an effective adaptive software development methodology, deep user interactions are a must – a feasible way to ensure this would be needed. Adaptive development methodology depends on extensive testing at all stages; hence an integrated development, QE, and DevOps team and sufficient automation are critical for the success of such a model.

Amit: Success metrics are vital. How should organizations measure the success of their platform engineering projects, and what key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential for enterprises to monitor when evaluating the success of their platform development initiatives?

Krishnendu: KPIs play an extremely vital role in making sure any platform engineering program follows the right trajectory and allows all the stakeholders to take objective decisions on whether any course correction is needed. By the inherent nature of the business – some of the KPIs become more important than others and here, the expertise of the consultants plays a big role. In general, all the KPIs that measure security vulnerabilities, quality of the deliverables, and compliance with the timelines give the best insight into the health of the program.

Amit: What is your outlook for the engineering platforms space over the next 3-4 years?

Krishnendu: Platform engineering will remain one of the key drivers of organizational transformations and will embrace newer technologies more deeply. GenAI, with all its potential, is poised to become one of the most important platform engineering tools. GenAI-infused solutions will become more and more common place and it will contribute towards improving quality and reducing the implementation time of the platform engineering projects. Other technologies like blockchain and metaverse will also have their niche based on the business use case. Security and performance, which have remained important aspects throughout, will continue to do so but will be aided by new-age technologies.