Observability in the CI/CD Pipeline with Adriana Villela - DEVOPS 240

Adventures in DevOps

In this episode, we sat down with the delightful Adriana Villela—principal developer advocate at Dynatrace, CNCF ambassador, and host of the “Geeking Out” podcast (featuring a capybara logo designed by her daughter, no less!). Adriana brought not just deep insights into observability, but also a refreshingly human and humorous perspective on the ever-evolving world of DevOps. 💡
Here’s what we dove into:
-The Heart of Observability: We explored how observability is so much more than just a postmortem tool for SREs. Adriana reminded us it’s a team sport—from developers writing telemetry to QA teams using trace data to debug pre-prod bugs.
-CI/CD Pipelines Need Love Too: When your build pipeline mysteriously breaks down, what do you do? Adriana championed the idea of bringing observability to our pipelines, arguing they’re production systems in their own right. Metrics like build times, failure rates, and even stage-by-stage breakdowns can be goldmines for improving dev efficiency.
-OpenTelemetry (OTEL) FTW: We got a crash course on OTEL’s architecture—API, SDK, and the mighty Collector—and how it’s revolutionized telemetry standardization. There’s even OTEL for Bash! (Regex lovers, rejoice... or run.)
-Beyond Engineering: Adriana blew our minds by suggesting observability principles could—and should—be applied outside of tech: recruiting pipelines, hospital ER wait times, sales cycles... basically, otel all the things.
-Sustainability in Observability: As a longtime environmentalist, Adriana is now researching how to make observability greener. Spoiler alert: she's taking that message global with upcoming talks at Observability Day in London and KubeCon Japan.
-The Human Side of Tech: From learning Rust at 72 (shoutout to her awesome dad!) to tales of whiplash from headbanging at metal concerts (yes, there’s an “Iron Neck” involved), this episode was packed with personality.
Key Takeaways:-Observability is shifting left—developers and QA should be just as invested as SREs.
-OpenTelemetry is the lingua franca of modern observability—and the ecosystem around it is growing fast.
-Treat your CI/CD pipeline like a product: monitor, trace, and optimize it.
-We’re only scratching the surface of how observability can improve every system—not just tech stacks.
"Observability allows us to ask meaningful questions, get useful answers, and act effectively on the information that we get." – Hazel Weakly (quoted by Adriana)
Tune in for tech insights, capybara love, open-source advocacy, environmental passion, and a whole lot of laughs.