@mipsytipsy
The Future of Ops Jobs
PlatformCon 2023
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@mipsytipsy
engineer/cofounder/CTO
https://charity.wtf
real observability for complex systems
new!
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I was baited into
writing this talk…
“DevOps is Dead”
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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
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“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It will be superseded.
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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
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1. Every engineer writes code.
2. Every engineer runs the
code that they write, and
operates it in production.
These days:
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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.
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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
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If you 🤍 operating code:
If you 🤍 infrastructure:
Work on IaaS, PaaS
Work as an SRE or
platform engineer
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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
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No content
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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
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Platform teams build for
developer productivity.
Product engineering teams
and SREs build for external
customer experience.
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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
??
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If your platform team spends a lot of time
writing software, something is wrong.
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“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.
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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.
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The hardest part of software is operating it.
Always has been. Always will be.
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In conclusion,
computers are
terrible.
Everything dies.
Have fun!