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One of the primary reasons I'm trying to move on from being a software engineer is the expectation that I'm supposed to be fluent in dev-ops type work as well.

One of the primary reasons I'm trying to move on from being a software engineer is the expectation that I'm supposed to be fluent in dev-ops type work as well. That domain, for me, is something I have absolutely no interest in, and not much of an aptitude for. The problem is that managing deployed environments is a completely different skill set and problem domain. Is it complementary? Sure. Useful to have? Yes. But it's ultimately orthogonal. I can still write great software without having to give a shit or know much about how our AWS environment is configured, much less do that work myself. Being a programmer is a spectrum, yes, but it's multiple spectrums. Build vs configure is one. Product focus vs technology focus is another, one I happen to land much closer to the product side. Unfortunately, I think the pendulum is swinging the wrong way for me on that one, and it's soon going to signal the end of my programming career.

mavsman 6y ago
I think I'm closer to you on the spectrums you mentioned. While I find the author's actual writing to come off as narrow-minded and self-aggrandizing, I do agree with the title itself. There are some companies and teams that are looking for product focused devs that don't need to work on devops. If that's what you enjoy, look for that. I know finding another job isn't the most fun thing but it might be easier than giving up on your current profession entirely.
non-entity 6y ago
What are you moving towards, if I might ask?
- LargeWu 6y ago
  I just took a job that should put me on a management track, but I had been fishing for product jobs as well. I think one way or another this will be my last programming job. If the mgmt thing doesn't work out, (the opportunity I'm expecting doesn't open up, or I just find out it's not a good fit for me), then I'm not sure what I'll do.
joejerryronnie 6y ago
Do to a reorg, one of our best software engineers has been placed in an architect role. He’s doing a fantastic job but I wonder if this is the type of work he wants to be doing (to my knowledge he did not seek out the role). The role is designed as a split architect/dev role but he hasn’t written a line of code in months. I’ve been meaning to reach out and see how he’s feeling about things and to make sure we address any concerns (this is somebody we absolutely want to keep on the team) but just haven’t made the time to do so. I now have a sticky note to reach out on Monday, thanks for the reminder!
mattgreenrocks 6y ago
There are plenty of other interesting computing domains that are technically demanding and meet real needs. But, web dev seems to suck up all the air in the room, making you think that all jobs are that. I focused into compilers, systems programming, and security. It took awhile to shift, find like-minded people, and know where to look for work. But now I see multiple avenues forward. Before, it looked like I had to leave tech because I couldn't stand web dev.
closeparen 6y ago
>But it's ultimately orthogonal. There was another vision of devops where it wasn't orthogonal: software engineers would write software to manage itself. Deployment, monitoring, resiliency, etc. would be woven into the application instead of being someone else's problem. Management would be done through APIs instead of config files and shells. But containerization kind of cleaved the world between "making containers" and "running containers." Even if the same person does both, they don't look much like each other. Distributed systems problems are hard, and usually get outsourced to battle-tested commodity services (k8s, zookeeper, consul, etc) which need their own management. Knowing your own code inside and out doesn't really help you debug a loss of quorum; the consensus protocol is "over there." And the APIs turned out to be so complicated that we built config files and shells for them anyway (e.g. Terraform).
jlokier 6y ago
I've been to several DevOps conference, and I was particularly struck speaking with people in the audience saying such things as: • "I work in DevOps managing a pipeline. I don't know how to program, but I was thinking of learning a language." • "I write Python as a senior engineer and work closely with my company's devops systems. You write C? Wow, that's supposed to be really hardcore isn't it." There clearly is more diversity in these lines of work than I would have guessed before attending.

mavsman 6y ago

I think I'm closer to you on the spectrums you mentioned. While I find the author's actual writing to come off as narrow-minded and self-aggrandizing, I do agree with the title itself. There are some companies and teams that are looking for product focused devs that don't need to work on devops. If that's what you enjoy, look for that. I know finding another job isn't the most fun thing but it might be easier than giving up on your current profession entirely.

non-entity 6y ago

What are you moving towards, if I might ask?

LargeWu 6y ago
I just took a job that should put me on a management track, but I had been fishing for product jobs as well. I think one way or another this will be my last programming job. If the mgmt thing doesn't work out, (the opportunity I'm expecting doesn't open up, or I just find out it's not a good fit for me), then I'm not sure what I'll do.

joejerryronnie 6y ago

Do to a reorg, one of our best software engineers has been placed in an architect role. He’s doing a fantastic job but I wonder if this is the type of work he wants to be doing (to my knowledge he did not seek out the role). The role is designed as a split architect/dev role but he hasn’t written a line of code in months. I’ve been meaning to reach out and see how he’s feeling about things and to make sure we address any concerns (this is somebody we absolutely want to keep on the team) but just haven’t made the time to do so. I now have a sticky note to reach out on Monday, thanks for the reminder!

mattgreenrocks 6y ago

There are plenty of other interesting computing domains that are technically demanding and meet real needs. But, web dev seems to suck up all the air in the room, making you think that all jobs are that. I focused into compilers, systems programming, and security. It took awhile to shift, find like-minded people, and know where to look for work. But now I see multiple avenues forward. Before, it looked like I had to leave tech because I couldn't stand web dev.

closeparen 6y ago

>But it's ultimately orthogonal. There was another vision of devops where it wasn't orthogonal: software engineers would write software to manage itself. Deployment, monitoring, resiliency, etc. would be woven into the application instead of being someone else's problem. Management would be done through APIs instead of config files and shells. But containerization kind of cleaved the world between "making containers" and "running containers." Even if the same person does both, they don't look much like each other. Distributed systems problems are hard, and usually get outsourced to battle-tested commodity services (k8s, zookeeper, consul, etc) which need their own management. Knowing your own code inside and out doesn't really help you debug a loss of quorum; the consensus protocol is "over there." And the APIs turned out to be so complicated that we built config files and shells for them anyway (e.g. Terraform).

jlokier 6y ago

I've been to several DevOps conference, and I was particularly struck speaking with people in the audience saying such things as: • "I work in DevOps managing a pipeline. I don't know how to program, but I was thinking of learning a language." • "I write Python as a senior engineer and work closely with my company's devops systems. You write C? Wow, that's supposed to be really hardcore isn't it." There clearly is more diversity in these lines of work than I would have guessed before attending.