Cloud technology has changed the dynamics of the software development industry in recent years. With the shift towards cloud-based solutions, Go (also referred to as Golang) has emerged as a popular language for building cloud-native applications. The early adopters of Golang include technology giants like Google, Netflix, Uber, and Facebook.
However, despite the growing popularity and demand for Golang development, there is still a need for more skilled professionals. The Hiring Report by SGP Technology highlighted that only 10.5% of professional developers use Go globally, with an estimated 1.6-2.5 million Golang developers worldwide.
Many companies are turning towards Go staff augmentation to meet this demand and bridge the skill gap. This practice involves hiring external Golang developers to provide a temporary extension to their in-house teams.
What is Go Software Development?
Go, popularly known as Golang, is an open-source programming language launched by Google in 2009. Go was designed to combine the ease of use of dynamic languages like Python with the performance and safety of compiled languages like C++.
Networking and infrastructure were the primary focus during its development, making it an ideal language for cloud-native development. Go's simple syntax and built-in support for concurrency make it a perfect language for working on large-scale projects.
Its simplicity and fast compilation times have helped Go become a popular choice for DevOps tools, microservices architecture, and distributed systems. The API/RPC service and command line tools like Kubernetes, Docker, and Prometheus are examples of how Go is used in infrastructure development.
When Might You Need to Augment Your Team With Go Developers?
Businesses operating in the technology sector often face tight deadlines, resource constraints, and a shortage of in-house expertise. In such scenarios, augmenting their internal team with Golang developers provides a quick and efficient solution.
Below are some scenarios where augmenting your team with Go software developers can be beneficial:
Server-side development
When developing server-side applications, businesses need a reliable and efficient language to handle large amounts of data. Go's concurrency capabilities allow it to handle multiple tasks simultaneously, making it an ideal choice for server-side development.
Its high performance and low memory footprint make it suitable for handling significant amounts of data, ensuring efficient and robust server applications.
Golang helps businesses achieve faster response times and improved scalability when working on web services and backend systems. By augmenting their in-house staff with an experienced software development team, companies ensure the timely and efficient delivery of server-side projects.
Microservices architecture
Microservices architecture is an approach where businesses break down their applications into more minor, manageable services. Each service is developed, deployed, and managed independently, allowing for greater flexibility and scalability. Golang's simplicity, built-in support for concurrency, and fast compilation times make it a popular language choice for microservices development.
For example, a company might need to develop a microservice that handles user authentication for their web application. The in-house team may work on components like the user interface, database management, and front-end development.
Meanwhile, Golang developers focus on building a robust and scalable microservice for authentication. This division of work speeds up the development process and ensures efficient use of resources.
Businesses also opt for staff augmentation services to build individual microservices or develop an entire architecture from scratch. This approach helps enterprises to improve their application's performance and scalability while meeting tight deadlines.
Cloud-native development
The shift towards cloud-based infrastructure has led to the widespread adoption of cloud-native development. Go's powerful standard library and focus on networking and concurrency make it a popular choice for developing containerized applications that run seamlessly in a cloud environment.
Cloud technology offers businesses greater flexibility, scalability, and cost-effective solutions. However, developing cloud-native applications requires a specific skill set, which may not be available in-house.
In such cases, staff augmentation managed services provide businesses with the necessary talent to quickly develop efficient and scalable cloud-native applications. Golang developers help build containerized applications optimized for deployment on cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
DevOps tools and automation
DevOps is a methodology that combines software development and IT operations to shorten the systems development life cycle. Go's simple syntax, fast compilation times, and support for cross-platform development make it a preferable language for building DevOps tools.
Additionally, Go's built-in support for concurrency and networking makes it ideal for developing automation scripts and tools that can handle large amounts of data. This speeds up the development process and ensures efficient and accurate automation.
Golang developers can help businesses build custom DevOps tools or integrate existing ones into their workflow. By augmenting their team with Golang developers, companies can improve their development processes and achieve faster releases.
For example, a company may need to automate deploying its applications on various platforms. Staff augmentation service providers can help build a tool that automates the deployment process, reducing the time and effort required.
Networking and distributed systems
Go excels in networking applications and distributed systems. Its powerful networking libraries and support for concurrency make it a reliable language for projects that require high network performance.
Golang's built-in HTTP/2 capabilities make it ideal for building high-performance web servers and handling thousands of concurrent connections. Its efficient use of memory and fast compilation times also make it suitable for developing distributed systems that require quick response times.
In scenarios where businesses need to build networking applications or distributed systems, the Golang staff augmentation model provides them with the necessary expertise and resources. Augmenting their team with experienced Golang developers ensures timely and efficient delivery of such projects.
Golang's simple syntax and easy learning curve allow businesses to quickly onboard new team members and ramp up their development efforts.
Boosting Project Efficiency with Go Staff Augmentation
Go staff augmentation provides businesses with the necessary talent and resources to improve their development processes and achieve faster results. Here are some ways in which companies can boost their project efficiency with staff augmentation:
Developers often have to juggle multiple tasks and projects simultaneously, leading to burnout and decreased productivity. By augmenting the team with experienced Golang developers, businesses can distribute the workload more evenly and ensure timely project completion. This also allows team members to focus on areas where they excel, leading to greater efficiency and higher-quality work.
Recruitment of augmented staff allows businesses to access the specific skills and expertise they need for a project without the long-term commitment of hiring a full-time employee. This ensures that projects are handled by professionals with experience using Go for specific tasks, resulting in higher-quality work and faster delivery.
Staff augmentation solutions offer businesses flexibility in managing resources. Companies can scale up or down based on project requirements without the added costs of hiring and training new employees. This allows businesses to save time and resources while achieving their desired project outcomes.
Go Staff Augmentation Case Studies
Let us take a look at some real-world examples of companies that have successfully leveraged Go staff augmentation:
Case study 1: Go cache service implementation for high performance
In Allegro, a well-known Polish online marketplace, a team was tasked with creating a fast cache service that could handle 10k requests per second, with 5k for writes and 5k for reads. The team also needed to handle POST requests containing JSON messages and retrieve entries immediately after they were added, ensuring consistency.
After exploring different language options, the team used Go for its speed and managed memory capabilities.
To meet the high-performance requirements, the team created their cache service using in-memory caching instead of external caches like Redis or Memcached. They found that existing Go caches did not meet their specific needs, so they created their solution called freecache.
Ultimately, their cache service handled 10k requests per second with an eviction time of 10 minutes, reducing response times from over 2.5 seconds to under 250 milliseconds. The team also discovered the impact of Garbage Collection (GC) pauses on application performance and used caches like bigcache and freecache to solve this issue.
Overall, this case study highlights the benefits of using Go for high-performance services and the effectiveness of creating custom solutions when existing options do not meet specific needs.
Case study 2: A Distributed database written in Go
In CockroachDB, a team was assigned to build a distributed database that could handle large code bases and prioritize the simplicity and orthogonality of features. After exploring different language options, they used Go for its scalability and emphasis on clean, understandable code.
The team appreciated Go's focus on implementation rather than OOP, abstraction, and automatic memory management.
The team initially had concerns about using a garbage-collected language like Go for a high-performance distributed system. However, they found that Go's support for libraries, interfaces, and tooling made it the right choice for their project.
Despite being a new language for most of the team, Go's simplicity and orthogonality of features made it easy for contributors to join the project. As a result, the project now has over 600 contributors and is written primarily in Go.
While it is difficult to quantify the effect of using Go on productivity compared to other languages like Java or C++, the team has seen positive results regarding memory management and performance when they ported an extensive system from Java to Go.
Overall, this case study highlights the benefits of using Go for building high-performance, distributed systems and showcases how a team was able to create a successful project by utilizing the language's strengths. So, Go is a good fit for building complex and high-performance services such as distributed databases.
Finding the Right Go Talent
Augmenting a development team with Golang developers requires careful consideration and research. Here are some tips for choosing the right augmented team before onboarding:
1. Look for developers with experience building cloud-native applications, DevOps tools and automation, and networking or distributed systems using Go.
2. Consider developers with experience working with containerization and deploying applications on cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
3. Look for developers familiar with popular DevOps tools like Docker, Kubernetes, and Terraform.
4. Consider developers with experience using Go's concurrency features, such as goroutines and channels, to build efficient automation scripts.
5.Look for Golang developers with experience working with RESTful APIs and developing microservices.
iRonin.IT is a company that provides experienced Golang developers for staff augmentation. With over 12 years of remote work experience, iRonin.IT has delivered 500+ successful projects in various industries. The dedicated team comprises 75% senior developers who undergo a strict technical vetting process before being recruited.
Contact us now to learn more about how iRonin.IT can help you build high-performance and scalable services using Go for your next project.
