The Future of Ops Jobs (PlatformCon 2023)

A lot of flamebait has been dropped about how platform engineering means that "DEVOPS IS DEAD!#@!" Stuff and nonsense. Platform engineering is what you get once you fully commit to the idea that software engineers should own their code in production. It's about the *convergence* of developers and Ops in the glorious future, where every engineer writes code and owns what they write, and the team that makes that possible: platform engineering.

Transcript

1. @mipsytipsy The Future of Ops Jobs PlatformCon 2023
2. @mipsytipsy engineer/cofounder/CTO https://charity.wtf real observability for complex systems new!
3. I was baited into writing this talk… “DevOps is Dead”
4. Software doesn’t die.* • COBOL • Java • Javascript • MySQL • Postgres • LISP • emacs • SQL • FreeBSD • Linux • IPv4 • TCP/IP • png • gcc • gdb • elisp • X11 • /proc • grep • sed/awk • O’Reilly books • bash • nginx • haproxy * a list of things that are not dead, all of which are older than devops
5. “DevOps is dead” is just a stupid thing to say… clickbait marketing🤮 But there is a kernel of truth there DevOps is not eternal. It will be superseded.
6. The long arc of software careers 1990 Write code and run what you write 1995 Devs write code, Ops runs code. Friction ensues. 2007 DevOps emerges; devs + ops Empathy, #hugops blah blah 2023 Write code and run what you write
7. 1. Every engineer writes code. 2. Every engineer runs the code that they write, and operates it in production. These days:
8. Systems are becoming rapidly more complex. They can only really be operated by the people who write them. And you can’t do a good job of writing them unless you are regularly exposed to the feedback loops of operating them.
9. Operational expertise is more critical than ever, but the landscape is shifting for ops jobs. Two big trends are converging: everybody writes code, runs the code they write hosted infra and tools, we all move up the stack
10. If you 🤍 operating code: If you 🤍 infrastructure: Work on IaaS, PaaS Work as an SRE or platform engineer
11. Platform engineering has emerged from this realignment. • Companies are shutting down their ops teams and outsourcing infrastructure to PaaS/IaaS/etc. 
 • However, you now rely on a complex web of other providers, services and tools via APIs and SDKs. 
 • Operational skills and software engineering skills are equally important for a good platform team
13. How to tell if your “platform engineering team” is really a platform team or not: Is the team responsible for SLOs, service uptime, and a reliable customer experience? ✅ platform team NO ⛔ platform team YES
14. Platform teams build for developer productivity. Product engineering teams and SREs build for external customer experience.
15. Which metrics does YOUR platform team care about? SLOs, errors, service availability, quality customer experience Time to spin up new service or db, or other developer workflow or ??
16. If your platform team spends a lot of time writing software, something is wrong.
17. “Vendor engineering” is a large share of any platform team’s remit Cost is an essential part of architecture. Platform is about NOT having infra to run.
18. Learn to think and talk about the value of your work, in the universal language of business goals and $$$ Career advice for ops engineers: Learn to work like a product team, even if you do ops/infra work.
19. The hardest part of software is operating it. Always has been. Always will be.
20. In conclusion, computers are terrible. Everything dies. Have fun!
21. Charity Majors @mipsytipsy