ICYMI: The Year in LaunchDarkly

2021 was a whirlwind. Luckily, it's also the end of December, which means it's time for the annual, collective exhale.

For our part, we hope LaunchDarkly has helped you push out more exciting new updates for your customers with less risk and headaches.

If you're a LaunchDarkly customer, there's plenty to look forward to in 2022. Outside of LaunchDarkly? We can all only hope for the best...

Since the end of a year tends to contain a lot of reflective moments, we wanted to quickly run down some of the stuff that happened around here in case you missed it.

Along with providing the best feature management platform on the planet, we also try and bring you closer to some of the minds and communities that are pushing our space forward; those offering observations, metrics, and methods for guiding processes and end results. We certainly can't do it on our own, and we're very grateful for all our partners' contributions this year.

So whether it was thoughts on the state of DevOps, ways to super charge your releases, or new product updates that'll help you better help your customers, hopefully this post can catch you up on some of the year's highlights (listed in no particular order.) 

Accelerate the last mile of software delivery

If you missed some of our larger product updates and forthcoming release announcements—from Flag Approvals to the Workflows Builder beta, smarter experiments to deeper integrations with tools such as Datadog and Amplitude—go ahead and catch up.

More recently, our Winter Roundup post recaps some of the most current features and updates announced in November at our annual conference, Trajectory, by our co-founder and CTO, John Kodumal.

And for a closer look at the state of our platform (with some previews of what you can expect soon), check out our product deep dive from Trajectory below, which demonstrates a bunch of different aspects of LaunchDarkly, including Workflows, architectural improvements, Big Segments, experimentation options, and more.

Gene Kim shares thoughts on the state of DevOps

2020 was a year many couldn’t wait to end, but it also left a lot of people wondering where things were headed. So we kicked off the New Year by inviting one of our favorite thought leaders in our space, Gene Kim, to talk about the general landscape of DevOps and how things changed since the onset of the pandemic. And if you want to hear more of Gene, check out the talk he gave at Trajectory. 

Galaxy unites LaunchDarkly users

How often do we assemble a virtual conference strictly devoted to sharing tips, tricks, and stories with current LaunchDarkly users? The answer was never, until March 2021, when we launched Galaxy. Representatives from software teams at companies like Hulu, StockX, Northwestern Mutual, and more gave must-see talks, which you should definitely catch up on if you haven't yet. Below you'll find the presentation from Hulu's Matthieu Labbé and Dominic Hopton, about how the streaming giant leverages LaunchDarkly custom attributes to smoothly develop & deliver features to 39 million customers.

IT Revolution webinar series tackles various angles of DevOps

Over the summer, we partnered up with Gene Kim's organization, IT Revolution, on a series of six webinars. Each webinar was based on a different paper from the DevOps Enterprise Forum in 2020, and featured the authors diving into various aspect of DevOps—from incident management to measuring software quality. You can view all of the webinars now, and we highly encourage you to check them out.   

Modernize your systems with feature management

If you've ever worked on a migration, you know how complex it can be. And yet, continuously modernizing your organization’s systems and technology is the new normal. Many companies are still hesitant to undertake such a large project due to the number of anticipated risks. The good news is LaunchDarkly can help reduce the risks and anxieties associated with these types of efforts by empowering you to take incremental steps on the modernization path, as opposed to trying to do it all in one giant leap. Check out the talk below from our CEO, Edith Harbaugh, or flip through this resource to see what we mean.

Trajectory conference continues its epic run

For the past three years, we’ve been hosting a conference, Trajectory (already name checked in this post several times because we can't stop talking about it), focusing on “the technology, people, and processes that make it possible to continuously deliver better user experiences and more powerful software while staying in total control.” This year’s virtual conference featured speakers from Uber, Tasktop, Honeycomb, Cigna, and more. Check out the talks now, and below you'll find the presentation from LaunchDarkly's own Kathleen McMahon about how to use feature flags to roll out an updated UI in stealth mode. 

First-ever report on the state of feature management

What do 203 of our customers, plus 250 software professionals using other solutions, say about the different ways they're using feature management to improve releases? Find out in our 33-page report you can download right now. 

Unintended Consequences launches

LaunchDarkly is not new to podcasts, but we did start a new podcast: “Unintended Consequences.” The general theme of "Unintended Consequences" is examining how systems become large and complex, how they’re managed at scale, and how they change the lives of everyone they touch. Specifically, we’re discussing the unintended consequences of growth at scale previously unseen. Catch up on all episodes, or check out the latest one below featuring our pal, Corey Quinn.

Nicole Forsgren & John Kodumal gather for fireside chat

We spoke with a lot of interesting people this year in our ongoing series of webinars. Case in point: this conversation between our CTO, John Kodumal, and Nicole Forsgren, Partner, Microsoft Research and co-author of the critically-acclaimed book, “Accelerate: Building and Scaling High-Performing Technology Organizations.” Hear the pair talk about DORA, the state of DevOps, metrics that matter, career advice, and beyond.

LaunchDarkly Foundation makes an impact

Like many of you, we're trying to make the planet a better place, both by improving the software we release and also by supporting various efforts in our communities. The LaunchDarkly Foundation aims to be a force for good, and we’ll continue to showcase our commitment to that endeavor in 2022. 

Our new look and fresh funding

Lastly, LaunchDarkly got a serious revamp this year, shedding our old rocket logo and brand colors for a fresh, revitalized look. The process wasn’t always as glamorous as it sounds, but we feel like the end results are more than worth it. On another note, we also raised $200 million in funding, which we'll use to continue to invest heavily in improving the lives of our customers, and our customers’ customers. 

If you’re a LaunchDarkly customer, we thank you and expect incredible things in the coming months. If you’re on the fence about becoming a customer, a quick demo will be worth your time. And if you’re thinking about joining our team, take a look at our open positions. In the meantime, we wish you all the best in 2022.