Macquarie Group Unveils Dexd: The Premier Developer Experience Daemon

Quick Read

• Macquarie Group launches Dexd, a daemon for developer experience.
• Dexd is crafted to enhance the setup and onboarding experience for engineers.
• It employs Microsoft’s Dev Containers to provide a fully featured development environment.
• Dexd assists engineers in collaborating across various teams and cloud platforms.
• The tool aims to boost productivity and speed up delivery in the cloud.

Introduction

Macquarie Group has unveiled an innovative tool named Dexd, which aspires to transform the developer experience for its engineers. Introduced by Brent Burgess, Head of Public Cloud, during the AWS re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Dexd seeks to guarantee that engineers have a uniform setup along with access to templates that aid in maintaining productivity and workflow. Dexd is integrated into each engineer’s laptop, providing a smooth onboarding experience and the adaptability to collaborate across various teams and projects.

Features of Dexd

Base on Dev Containers

Dexd is constructed on Microsoft’s Dev Containers, offering developers a holistic development environment. This configuration enables engineers to start from a stable base and choose from a selection of pre-configured templates related to their specific tasks.

Streamlined Onboarding

A key feature of Dexd is its capability to simplify the onboarding experience. New engineers or those moving between teams can rapidly become acclimated with the required tools and frameworks, thanks to Dexd’s user-friendly dashboard and traffic-light system that ensures all settings are properly configured.

Innersourcing Enhancements

The tool’s functions are persistently broadened through innersourcing, permitting engineers to add improvements, ensuring Dexd evolves in line with user demands.

Cloud Integration

Macquarie Group primarily utilizes AWS and GCP, with more than 70% of its infrastructure and applications hosted in public cloud services. Dexd is essential in supporting this cloud-first strategy, allowing for swift deployment and development on these platforms.

Impact on Business

Burgess emphasized that Dexd aids in reducing complexity for engineers, enabling them to concentrate on delivering business results effectively. The introduction of this tool has reportedly increased the pace of coding new features and deploying them into production environments, aligning with Macquarie Group’s objective of achieving scalable business outcomes on a global scale.

Summary

Dexd signifies a noteworthy advancement in enhancing the developer experience at Macquarie Group. By simplifying setup procedures, easing team transitions, and boosting productivity, Dexd enables engineers to efficiently produce high-quality software solutions. As the group continues to broaden its cloud presence, Dexd will play a pivotal role in ensuring that Macquarie stays at the cutting edge of technological advancements.

Questions and Answers

Q: What is Dexd?

A: Dexd is a developer experience daemon launched by Macquarie Group to provide uniform setups and seamless onboarding for engineers.

Q: How does Dexd benefit engineers at Macquarie Group?

A: Dexd streamlines the setup process, expedites onboarding, and eases transitions between teams, letting engineers concentrate on software development.

Q: What significance does using Microsoft’s Dev Containers hold in Dexd?

A: By leveraging Microsoft’s Dev Containers, Dexd presents a complete development environment, furnished with templates and tools geared to specific tasks.

Q: How does Dexd support Macquarie’s cloud strategy?

A: Dexd facilitates quick deployment and development on Macquarie’s cloud services, AWS and GCP, thereby improving productivity and scalability in business.

Q: What future enhancements are envisioned for Dexd?

A: Macquarie Group intends to further extend Dexd’s functionalities through innersourcing and will share additional updates on their engineering blog.