Passing the Console: Fostering the Next Generation of Ops Professionals

Where does one go to learn ops? There are no sysadmin degrees or operations bootcamps. We learn our trade like dark witches, through varied and arcane means: books, talks, hands-on experiences, real-life outages, and backchannel lore. But tech is a thriving industry, ripe for eager new ops professionals and ideas. You have very likely met the person or people who will follow in your footsteps. So, how do we pass on our craft?

This talk will explore what it means to be in operations and how to pass on that unique skill set. We will discuss what tools and culture define our field, who to pass this knowledge onto, and how to do this effectively. Believe it or not, you are capable of contributing to the greater ops legacy in a variety of ways.

Come learn how to pass the torch—or console—and prepare the next generation of ops.

Transcript

1. PASSING THE CONSOLE Fostering the Next Generation of Ops Professionals Alice Goldfuss @alicegoldfuss
2. Hello! I’m Alice. I’m an SRE with too much free time.
3. Operations
4. Operations Software Engineer
5. Operations Tech Support Software Engineer
6. Film
7. “Expert” ->
8. Questions for the Audience
9. Dev
10. Dev
11. Dev
12. Dev
13. Ops
14. Ops
15. Ops
16. Ops
17. Why?
20. #serverless #NoOps
21. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
22. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
23. Tools Culture
24. Tools
29. Your tools don’t matter
33. Culture
35. LOL
36. BEWARE OF BOFH
38. Be curious
39. • What’s this log message mean? • How does this protocol work? • Who is this user on my system?
41. Build strong systems
42. • What if we need to failover the database? • What if the cron job fails? • What if we get a spike in traffic?
44. Serve your users
45. • Keep things patched • Work with them on dev goals • Build automated infrastructure to take yourself out of the equation
46. • Protect them from themselves
49. “No, because” -> “Yes, but”
52. 1. Be curious 2. Build strong systems 3. Serve your users
55. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
56. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
57. Dana Lawson
58. Kelsey Hightower
59. Charity Majors
60. Support
61. • Good troubleshooters • Fast learners • Familiar with different systems
62. Bootcamp dev
63. • Already know the basics • Mutually beneficial • Worst case: sympathy
64. IT
65. • Understand systems • Understand users • Can seem *too* easy
66. Look farther
67. Be curious Build strong systems Serve your users
68. Tinkerer
72. Organized
73. r u ok?
75. Service-oriented
77. “Force push to master!”
80. Carol
81. Nuala
82. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
83. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
85. • One to One • One to Many • Many to Many
86. Apprentice
87. Mentee
88. Intern
89. Give a talk
91. Write docs!
92. Ops School www.opsschool.org
94. Share them
96. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
97. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
98. Tools Culture
99. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
100. Support IT Bootcamp dev
101. Tinkerer Organized Service-oriented
102. Options 1. What should we teach? 2. Who should we teach? 3. How should we teach?
104. Ops
105. Thanks! @alicegoldfuss
106. Credits Font -> kreativekorp.com Art -> pixabay.com Pixels -> piskelapp.com Ops Engineer -> #WOCinTech Chat
107. Thanks! @alicegoldfuss