FinOps be Engineering-Led

FinOps stands for Financial Operations and refers to the operational practices that aim to bring financial accountability to the variable spend model of cloud computing. It focuses on aligning cloud technology costs with business objectives and maximizing the value derived from the cloud infrastructure.

Why Should FinOps be Engineering-Led?

1. Deep Understanding of Resources and Usage: Engineers are the primary consumers and administrators of cloud resources. They make decisions about which services to use, how to configure them, and the scaling strategies to employ. Their choices directly impact cloud costs, so they’re best positioned to understand and optimize these costs.
2. Agility and Real-Time Adjustments: Engineering teams can make immediate changes to the infrastructure, such as resource provisioning, right-sizing, and deallocation. This agility allows them to optimize costs on-the-fly, based on real-time insights.
3. Shift-Left Philosophy: Shifting left means identifying and addressing issues earlier in the development lifecycle. An engineering-led approach to FinOps ensures that cost considerations are embedded from the initial stages of infrastructure design, rather than being an afterthought.
4. Integration with Development Workflows: With the rise of Infrastructure as Code (IaC), engineers can now define, provision, and manage cloud infrastructure using code. This makes it possible to embed cost optimizations directly into development…