Twitter SRE role

U really want me to spell it out?? 😡

Expect to start with an least two phone screens: one with mgr and one technical. Usually technical will include at least one scripting question, e.g. archiving old files or finishing a half-implemented task. My personal bar for tech screens is: is this person going to be a waste of time to interview. Not that high of a bar IMO, but we get a LOT of very poor candidates. Interviews are usually paired these days. Expect each round to be on a focus area. Areas can vary per team but expect at least one with coding/scripting/design and one on troubleshooting or monitoring. As far as SWE comparisons, there's a lot more range in SRE for coding. It is a prerequisite but we commonly slot based on team needs. Many SRE here are at least as competent and experienced as their SWE counterparts, but plenty are more the type who spend their time in Puppet and working with single-file Python scripts. As far as comp, I get the impression that the bands are equivalent but the median is a tad lower for SRE. Definitely competitive and if we really want you you should negotiate hard. If you're good at what you do, come aboard - it's a great crew over here. Hope this helps!

SRE position at Twitter is awesome. SRE have separate management chain but no roadmap or clear deliverables for the most part. Most of the work is done by dev teams. Even if the comp is little lower, take it and chill. Usual disclaimers apply: some SREs are really good and help the teams meet targets.

Hmmm SRE have no roadmap and clear deliverables and most of the work done is by SWE. That's not encouraging at all. Then why does SRE role even exist ;)

Most SRE are embedded in a (occasionally a couple) development team - they attend team meetings and standups, participate in the oncall rotations. There's no global roadmap because it usually makes little sense to have one - what each team requires in the space varies greatly. Individual SREs *should* have clear deliverables, usually tagged as part of the SWE team's roadmap. SREs are also often deep in the design phase of projects and their opinions hold a decent amount of weight. What SRE is not: a dumping ground for grunt work. Teams who shut out their SREs from participating as fellow engineers and see them as a place to dump dashboard tasks, deployments, user support, etc lose their ability to get an SRE in the future.

One selling point: once you've proven yourself (6-9mo if you're really good), the whole org is open to you. SREs have a lot of say where they land and management rarely gets in the way in any way other than determining when moves happen. It's a nice infrastructure with a lot to interest any opsy type who's used to bigger shops

Twitter SRE are supposed to advise, consent and help. Often they are lazy, resist and obstruct that leads to many fights. If they truly share roadmap and have goals, why have separate management chain. I saw many lazy SREs getting promoted, most of them get promoted without feedback from corresponding dev team.

What can I say, it's a big shop 🤷 ymmv