Type Conversion

I really appreciated this framing of switching roles. While it can seem daunting to pick up a new set of tools while learning a new platform with its quirks and sharp edges, the core concepts mostly map. In such a quick moving space, it can be tough to pin down ‘industry standard’, but a handy onboarding tool could be a ‘Industry -> $Company’ mapping/matrix, calling out what tools meet the core needs of a modern software team, where to find things, what they cover, as well as justifications for when the choice deviates from the industry norm.

SRE is the same underneath. Error budgets, blast radius, the instinct to widen the time window before trusting a correlation, the discipline of not doing anything you can’t undo quickly — none of that is specific to a company. You bring all of it with you on day one. The job isn’t “relearn reliability engineering.” It’s “figure out where this particular airplane keeps its flap controls.”

I think this also underlines the ad-hoc nature of our industry, we have hardly codified roles, let alone formal certification that goes deep into sub-roles or even type level, as in aviation. Sure there are vendor programs and diploma mill style programs out there, but nothing that is grounded in the practice of the industry. I’ve in the past compared our lack of standardization and adoption of truly replaceable parts with home carpentry. Imagine if the properties of a 2x4 8’ stud drastically varied based on the vendor? Anyone remotely familiar with lumber would be able to tell you that if you asked for a 2x4x8’, you would invariably end up with a 3 3/4" x 1 1/2" x 8’ piece of new growth wood, possibly even straight. In the software world, that equivalent request would likely result with you getting that same stick of wood from one place, the equivalent in steel framing from the store down the street, and your buddy who is selling stuff from their garage workshop has an arguably perfectly workable stick of engineered wood lovingly assembled from glow-forge offcuts and resin then milled to exact dimensions in his CNC mill… It all will hold up a wall, but how you hold it, attach to it, cut it, etc, all drastically change.