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@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 It will be superseded.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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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!

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Charity Majors @mipsytipsy