LinkedIn Site Reliability Engineer vs Engineering roles

May 8, 2019 11 Comments

The recruiter asked me if I am interested in SRE roles or Engineering roles. My understanding was that Engineering roles are better because:

1. You actually write and architect code.
2. Don't do constant fire fighting.
3. Pay is higher.
4. You are more valuable to the company.
5. Have better career prospects.

What do you guys (and gals) think ?

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
TOP 11 Comments
  • PayPal
    168to669

    Go to company page PayPal

    168to669
    I hear SRE/dev ops gets paid quite handsomely -- and it could be just as interesting playing with k8, istio, etc professionally for a company of LI scale? (Assuming they use similar tech)
    May 8, 2019 0
  • Nvidia
    ECTT56

    Go to company page Nvidia

    ECTT56
    Do you like to be woken up in the middle of the night because no one writes good tests on your team?

    No? Then don't take any job that requires on call.
    May 9, 2019 0
  • New
    bmmC14

    New

    bmmC14
    Well, SRE can write the same production code, can design any application, knows how to make it work in any environment and how to monitor that shit DEVs write. And yes, DEVs are more valuable, sure ๐Ÿ˜‚.
    May 9, 2019 0
  • 1. You do that in both
    2. Yeah no fire fighting in dev
    3. Nope. But this is subjective. But you cannot compare bw dev and sre
    4. Depends on team and your competence.
    5. Sure, SRE culture at other companies is not yet as evolved as in LinkedIn, Google
    May 8, 2019 0
  • Chase / Eng
    OFqo26

    Go to company page Chase Eng

    OFqo26
    I am not sure about sre but devops which is sometimes used interchangeably depending on company, is terrible. Did devops for two years and moved to software development. Devops roles tend to focus more on supporting vs development focuses on designing and building things. Itโ€™s rare in devops that you code an app and work with other developers to build features on top of it. Youโ€™re focused on 50% operations and 50% development but 100% of development is to improve support operations. Devops get paid well because thereโ€™s a shortage. Also interview tends to be easier for devops than a developer.
    May 9, 2019 5
    • I can tell you from my experience of recently interviewing with many companies for SRE (at least those worth their salt ) that you cannot leetcode your way into them. Infact Leetcode or coding round would be a medium intensity part of the interview. I really had to check my cosmo as I failed the first few interviews but I really love working on infrastructure issues and Linux env is my candy store.
      So coming back to your observation, yes SRE has to to some support work and the dev work may not be as boner-inducing as per say an iOS or a backend service team but it nevertheless is important. If in your observation, SRE= running htop and looking for abnormalities then you should look at some good SRE teams in FB, LI, Google, Dropbox to name a few. It is definitely not for everyone and can get frustrating sometimes. You cannot work in silo like some product-engg teams which could be a good or bad thing. Also, there is a saddening gender imbalance when it comes to female representation in SRE barring probably Google and Facebook.
      May 12, 2019
    • New
      bmmC14

      New

      bmmC14
      One more point. SRE will be the last in org to be fired ๐Ÿ˜†
      May 12, 2019