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> We have even had interesting candidates walk away from job offers citing the fact that we don’t use Kubernetes as the reason! This is not too surprising. Can

> We have even had interesting candidates walk away from job offers citing the fact that we don’t use Kubernetes as the reason! This is not too surprising. Candidates want to join companies that are perceived to be hip and with it technology-wise in order to further their own resume.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
You want your skills to be transferrable (unsolicited career advice). Someone isn't going to work on your bespoke infra management system for below or at market rate when those skills won't transfer to another org (and they'll be behind the curve compared to others who have been "in the trenches" with k8s during the same window of time). Google, Facebook, and similar get a pass because they will shower you in money for their bespoke infra work (and it looks good on your CV to other orgs, typically). Personally, you don't have to be hip, but I want to be able to have another job in hand based on the tech I was working with and the work I was working on in a matter of days when I decide to bounce (or the decision is made for me). This is just good risk and career management. (disclosure: infra roles previously)
- Sevii 5y ago
  There is also the quality of work factor. What is easier to use a bespoke infra or kubernetes? For the same pay I'd rather work with k8s than deal with whatever gremlins are buried in 'custom' infra.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  > Google, Facebook, and similar get a pass because they will shower you in money for their bespoke infra work (and it looks good on your CV to other orgs, typically). You left out "Their bespoke infra work tends to be the genesis of the commodity infrastructure other people are using." It's not hard for a Googler familiar with Borg to pick up Kubernetes. It's not hard for a Facebooker with some UI work under their belt to figure out React.
jscheel 5y ago
Counter-point, these candidates foresee constant frustration and struggles because the company has a culture of NIH. Not saying that's actually the case, but since their website is down, it's kinda hard to tell.
- hdhjebebeb 5y ago
  Yeah I can't read the article, but as an applicant this would immediately trigger a yellow flag. If the CTO/director/whoever decided can justify it as a unique differentiator then maybe it's fine and it's a cost of doing business. If they just don't want to deal with k8s because they like their home grown thing, it's going to be a drag on the company long-term to maintain.
  - lallysingh 5y ago
    > If they just don't want to deal with k8s because they like their home grown thing This is another way of saying that they don't want to read too much documentation.
- hamburglar 5y ago
  Yeah I could totally see the director of engineering at my old company gleefully writing a smug blog post about how they don’t use technology X because they don’t go for all the hip new trends (translation: we actively avoid anything trendy even if it’s good, and we have an extreme NIH attitude). As a result, everything from search indexing to queuing to RPC to deployment is 100% homegrown and you need a training course in how to use everything, everything has specific experts that you must consult, and everything is in need of debugging sometimes when it should just be standard tools used everywhere.
intev 5y ago
OR....bear with me for a minute...they could have strong opinions about how something should be done, and if a company is not doing it that way it might be a warning sign. If a company says they don't use any modern JS framework and stick to JQuery, I'd be out before they even explain why. Not because I want to be hip and further my own resume but because I'd hate my job if I worked there.
fimbulvetr 5y ago
That doesn't seem like the only possible reason, another one could be that it appeared the company was anti-k8s for the sake of being anti-k8s. I would walk away from a company that I felt was proud of not using the right tool for a job. p.s. Not claiming it was the right tool for the job in this case, it would all depend on context.
adamors 5y ago
I mean sure, that can be a case, but I for instance am bored of companies who waste enormous resources to reinvent public cloud offerings with their own version written in Bash/Python/Terraform etc. that constantly has to be maintained/debugged/documented and worked around. So maybe if people hear, hey our infrastructure is running on some 10 year old Frankenstein cobbled together from Docker and Virtual Machines and AWS and on premise servers they just pass.
- pm90 5y ago
  So much this. I’m tired of having to learn an new infrastructure management/deployment tool every time I shift jobs. Tired of having to work with company custom platform. If you’re deployed on kubernetes it would take me a day to figure out how/where everything is deployed just by poking around with kubectl. Probably around that much time to deploy new software too.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    It will take you 18 months to get kubectl access on just the staging environment though, and then another 6 to track down only 90% of the obscure people and processes that generate and mutate the manifests before deploying. Finally you'll realize that the whole time it was one guy in a corner cubicle in a remote office typing custom magic commands acting as the sole link between the engineering org and the cluster. K8s is just another giant footgun. Good and bad orgs will still be good or bad, with or without it, but it definitely amplifies the bad.
    - pm90 5y ago
      If we’re looking at bad orgs, they’re probably gonna fuck up their custom orchestration tools to the same extent. If we’re looking at the median, most orgs will more or less work with k8s manifests, maybe with some abstraction layer on top to make it easier for developers.
nrmitchi 5y ago
I wouldn't walk away from a company just because they were not using a given technology. I would walk away if they were using a technology not fit for the job, or were actively building an in-house version based on out-dated knowledge (the use of the word "minion" in Kubernetes was deprecated in 2014 IIRC). Think about this in another realm, like plumbing. If you were a plumber, would you accept a plumbing job if the company told you that they didn't buy materials and tools, and were instead designing and building their own in-house version?
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > based on out-dated knowledge (the use of the word "minion" in Kubernetes was deprecated in 2014 IIRC). If they decided in 2014 not to use k8s, how much effort do you expect them to spend on keeping up-to-date with the latest and greatest of a technology that they're not using?
  - nrmitchi 5y ago
    Sure, but if you don't want to keep up to date with something, don't write an article about it. If you choose to write an article in 2021 about it, I would expect some level of updated research first.

toomuchtodo 5y ago

You want your skills to be transferrable (unsolicited career advice). Someone isn't going to work on your bespoke infra management system for below or at market rate when those skills won't transfer to another org (and they'll be behind the curve compared to others who have been "in the trenches" with k8s during the same window of time). Google, Facebook, and similar get a pass because they will shower you in money for their bespoke infra work (and it looks good on your CV to other orgs, typically). Personally, you don't have to be hip, but I want to be able to have another job in hand based on the tech I was working with and the work I was working on in a matter of days when I decide to bounce (or the decision is made for me). This is just good risk and career management. (disclosure: infra roles previously)

Sevii 5y ago
There is also the quality of work factor. What is easier to use a bespoke infra or kubernetes? For the same pay I'd rather work with k8s than deal with whatever gremlins are buried in 'custom' infra.
shadowgovt 5y ago
> Google, Facebook, and similar get a pass because they will shower you in money for their bespoke infra work (and it looks good on your CV to other orgs, typically). You left out "Their bespoke infra work tends to be the genesis of the commodity infrastructure other people are using." It's not hard for a Googler familiar with Borg to pick up Kubernetes. It's not hard for a Facebooker with some UI work under their belt to figure out React.

jscheel 5y ago

Counter-point, these candidates foresee constant frustration and struggles because the company has a culture of NIH. Not saying that's actually the case, but since their website is down, it's kinda hard to tell.

hdhjebebeb 5y ago
Yeah I can't read the article, but as an applicant this would immediately trigger a yellow flag. If the CTO/director/whoever decided can justify it as a unique differentiator then maybe it's fine and it's a cost of doing business. If they just don't want to deal with k8s because they like their home grown thing, it's going to be a drag on the company long-term to maintain.
- lallysingh 5y ago
  > If they just don't want to deal with k8s because they like their home grown thing This is another way of saying that they don't want to read too much documentation.
hamburglar 5y ago
Yeah I could totally see the director of engineering at my old company gleefully writing a smug blog post about how they don’t use technology X because they don’t go for all the hip new trends (translation: we actively avoid anything trendy even if it’s good, and we have an extreme NIH attitude). As a result, everything from search indexing to queuing to RPC to deployment is 100% homegrown and you need a training course in how to use everything, everything has specific experts that you must consult, and everything is in need of debugging sometimes when it should just be standard tools used everywhere.

intev 5y ago

OR....bear with me for a minute...they could have strong opinions about how something should be done, and if a company is not doing it that way it might be a warning sign. If a company says they don't use any modern JS framework and stick to JQuery, I'd be out before they even explain why. Not because I want to be hip and further my own resume but because I'd hate my job if I worked there.

fimbulvetr 5y ago

That doesn't seem like the only possible reason, another one could be that it appeared the company was anti-k8s for the sake of being anti-k8s. I would walk away from a company that I felt was proud of not using the right tool for a job. p.s. Not claiming it was the right tool for the job in this case, it would all depend on context.

adamors 5y ago

I mean sure, that can be a case, but I for instance am bored of companies who waste enormous resources to reinvent public cloud offerings with their own version written in Bash/Python/Terraform etc. that constantly has to be maintained/debugged/documented and worked around. So maybe if people hear, hey our infrastructure is running on some 10 year old Frankenstein cobbled together from Docker and Virtual Machines and AWS and on premise servers they just pass.

pm90 5y ago
So much this. I’m tired of having to learn an new infrastructure management/deployment tool every time I shift jobs. Tired of having to work with company custom platform. If you’re deployed on kubernetes it would take me a day to figure out how/where everything is deployed just by poking around with kubectl. Probably around that much time to deploy new software too.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  It will take you 18 months to get kubectl access on just the staging environment though, and then another 6 to track down only 90% of the obscure people and processes that generate and mutate the manifests before deploying. Finally you'll realize that the whole time it was one guy in a corner cubicle in a remote office typing custom magic commands acting as the sole link between the engineering org and the cluster. K8s is just another giant footgun. Good and bad orgs will still be good or bad, with or without it, but it definitely amplifies the bad.
  - pm90 5y ago
    If we’re looking at bad orgs, they’re probably gonna fuck up their custom orchestration tools to the same extent. If we’re looking at the median, most orgs will more or less work with k8s manifests, maybe with some abstraction layer on top to make it easier for developers.

nrmitchi 5y ago

I wouldn't walk away from a company just because they were not using a given technology. I would walk away if they were using a technology not fit for the job, or were actively building an in-house version based on out-dated knowledge (the use of the word "minion" in Kubernetes was deprecated in 2014 IIRC). Think about this in another realm, like plumbing. If you were a plumber, would you accept a plumbing job if the company told you that they didn't buy materials and tools, and were instead designing and building their own in-house version?

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> based on out-dated knowledge (the use of the word "minion" in Kubernetes was deprecated in 2014 IIRC). If they decided in 2014 not to use k8s, how much effort do you expect them to spend on keeping up-to-date with the latest and greatest of a technology that they're not using?
- nrmitchi 5y ago
  Sure, but if you don't want to keep up to date with something, don't write an article about it. If you choose to write an article in 2021 about it, I would expect some level of updated research first.