Is SRE role just overhyped?
Hi guys Over last couple of years SRE/Devops is on the rise. SREs need to know how to code and at the same time be expert in Linux &Networking and troubleshooting. Is it overhyped as its a mere sysadmin? #faang #amazon #aws #facebook #google
If we can call programmers "software engineers" then we can definitely call sysadmins "software reliability engineers"
I think it's Site Reliability Engineering, not software.
Correct lol til
Only a small percentage of companies I think that do SRE correctly. Generally it has been a relabel of sys admin
Depends. I think if done right it's a critical job that's necessary at most companies and something that a lot of devs don't want to do (oncall, big scale, sometimes low level knowledge needed, a lot of breadth needed, occasional fires that requires an almost stoic or masochistic personality). But most companies pay the same and don't incentive in other ways so you're not gonna get cream of the crop at a lot of places. Google imo does it best with 12 hour shifts, extra pay or PTO, and helps that they literally wrote the book on SRE.
Plus a good SRE who can both code and has a good breadth of knowledge in systems and networking and design is probably harder to find than a good SWE
Yeah. Fwiw my team at Google needs to know this low level stuff even as a SWE-SRE. But it takes a certain personality to LIKE studying DNS/BGP/Networking fundamentals whereas it makes CRUD full stack development look like child's play. (that's why I'm leaving soon lol).
Bruh just look at what happened in the FB outage to realise it's criticality. The issue is to stop giving SRE titles to sysadmins. This generally happens at smaller companies and startups. In companies that are managing matured and large scale systems, SRE is a very crucial aspect.
How is SRE different from Amazon's approach? At Amazon every dev does Ops as part of their job including on call. Interested in learning about other better models.
Devs in AWS can be considered to be performing SRE activities.
I'm just wondering if it's a better approach to have a separate SRE role so devs can focus on coding
At Google - not overhyped at all. Some of the best minds work in SRE. Would be very careful about companies that do not have well established cultures around SRE. Lot of companies use the title for roles where expectation is to be on call and keep the lights on with no emphasis on designing solutions to make systems more reliable. Stay away from them.
Apple is one of them (Apple AMP, Health and Siri being the exceptions)
You mean the SRE culture in these three Apple orgs is different? How?
Just work at Amazon as a SDE and you’ll get to try it out for yourself
It's sad so many people consider SRE overhyped. Being a SWE, I have huge respect for SRE and their work. This post makes me think their role is somewhat underrated.
It also greatly depends on the company in my view. As others have called out already, a lot of smaller companies and startups abuse the title
Calm down to anyone saying they are abusing the title in some startups and small companies. Their head of engineering and staff SWE are also living on inflated titles. Plus you aren’t granting them a doctorate and making them operate on a human. With enough experience in industry you will realize that SRE saves the day , many more times than devs do. It’s quite challenging and stressful role. As a dev, I have huge respect for SRE. In the end, everyone in the company adds value. So if you don’t like being SRE good for you, but that doesn’t make it less important.
I think it is probably a difficult job at large companies