3 ms·

SA-SRE or SWE-SRE?

by rachelbythebay 15y ago

SA-SRE or SWE-SRE?

jmillikin 15y ago
SWE-SRE
- rachelbythebay 15y ago
  Okay, well, that means you won the caste system at hiring time at least. SA-SREs are pretty much stuck in sysadmin roles (unless they go through the interview process again -- no joke).
  - jmillikin 15y ago
    Seems fair; if I wanted to transition to a different job role (or even a very different SWE team, like kernel development) I would expect to be re-interviewed. A developer might a good fit somewhere in the company, but that doesn't mean they'll do well everywhere.
    - rachelbythebay 15y ago
      Funny you should mention kernel development. You'd really want to do it for people going the other way, since most of the folks who wrangle the kernel there are not familiar with the Secret Sauce systems. You know, like the one called "MapReduce", cough cough. I speak from experience: my SA-SRE limbo involved leaving SRE and landing in a role expected to bridge the kernel team to prod, by making their tests work on the things which involve Lots Of Machines (tm). That was a SWE job through and through but it did not give me the ability to transfer out of it until I went through the process last year.
      - ChuckMcM 15y ago
        Grats. Nice to hear good news now and again.
    - wallywax 15y ago
      During the interview process, it is not clear which bucket you're being dropped in. Or indeed even that there are two buckets. This may have an impact on whether someone would accept an offer or not.
  - Locke1689 15y ago
    I'm curious why you think this is a bad thing. Doesn't SA stand for sysadmin? If you were hired for a sysadmin role, doesn't it make sense to reinterview you for a software development role? More specifically, if the situation were turned around and you where asked a bunch of software development questions when interviewing for a sysadmin role, wouldn't you criticize Google for asking questions irrelevant to the job?
    - rachelbythebay 15y ago
      I think it's a bad thing because I lived it. I was stuck in their little SA mold, unable to transfer onto various interesting-looking projects because of it. I wound up being stuck in this limbo for over a year until I finally got the internal transfer to go through. Note that nobody was willing to pull rank and Just Fix Things. That was a sign to me that things had turned pretty bad -- forcing people to jump through hoops like that? Come on. BTW, for SRE, the interviews are supposed to hit a range of things: sysadmin stuff, coding stuff, debugging/troubleshooting, and so on. At least, the ~100 or so I gave over the years I was there certainly did. Note that none of the things I asked were "round manhole" type questions. I hate that stuff.
      - Locke1689 15y ago
        Sure. I'm a SWE intern right now but I'm going through the conversion process right now so I've done the SWE interviews. All I'm saying is that I would have been pretty pissed if I got a dynamic programming question when applying for an sysadmin position. I'm not saying that Google's hiring process makes complete sense (I work for you writing prod code for 3 months and that gets me out of one out of five interviews? Really? One?) but this isn't exactly the biggest problem I see. It would probably be better if they gave higher priority to transfer requests so you could get it done quickly, but I see no reason why I wouldn't have to reinterview if I wanted a different job position. P.S. This is one reason why I'm glad they don't ask sysadmin questions to SWEs. I'm a really shitty sysadmin.
  - amatus 15y ago
    I was a SWE-SRE and I still got stuck in a sysadmin role.
illumin8 15y ago
What is up with Google's silly caste system? Being pigeon holed into an SA role and looked down upon by freshly minted developers with little experience "oh, you're just an SA..." is exactly why a senior systems architect like myself will probably never work at Google. Google seems to want to give their employees the popularity contest atmosphere of an undergrad school so that the elite can feel smug and superior as they slave away in an effort to get the rest of us to click on more ads.
- blinks 15y ago
  Caste system? I'm an SRE-SWE myself, but I couldn't tell you what side of the fence each of my team members are. (I might have an educated guess, though, based on the projects they choose to work on...)
  - rachelbythebay 15y ago
    go/getenglevel Yes, caste system. If you don't resemble the right sort of person at hiring time, you don't get the SWE flavored job. Managers will tell you there's no difference, but they are clearly missing the point. If you ever want to transfer out of SRE, most of the jobs there are SWE positions. As a SWE-SRE, you're set. As a SA-SRE, you're screwed. See the problem now?
    - rdouble 15y ago
      Who gets paid more? One secret I found working in Silicon Valley is that the SRE/SA types often got looked down upon by the developers, but were making more money.
      - rachelbythebay 15y ago
        My own move from Sr. SA-SRE to Sr. SWE changed nothing in terms of salary. Those are both "level 5" jobs, albeit from different "ladders": O5 to T5. Incidentally, I later found out they were underpaying me by as much as 20% compared to other folks in my area at the same level. That might mean that my no-op ladder change was an anomaly.

SA-SRE or SWE-SRE?

jmillikin 15y ago

SWE-SRE

rachelbythebay 15y ago
Okay, well, that means you won the caste system at hiring time at least. SA-SREs are pretty much stuck in sysadmin roles (unless they go through the interview process again -- no joke).
- jmillikin 15y ago
  Seems fair; if I wanted to transition to a different job role (or even a very different SWE team, like kernel development) I would expect to be re-interviewed. A developer might a good fit somewhere in the company, but that doesn't mean they'll do well everywhere.
  - rachelbythebay 15y ago
    Funny you should mention kernel development. You'd really want to do it for people going the other way, since most of the folks who wrangle the kernel there are not familiar with the Secret Sauce systems. You know, like the one called "MapReduce", cough cough. I speak from experience: my SA-SRE limbo involved leaving SRE and landing in a role expected to bridge the kernel team to prod, by making their tests work on the things which involve Lots Of Machines (tm). That was a SWE job through and through but it did not give me the ability to transfer out of it until I went through the process last year.
    - ChuckMcM 15y ago
      Grats. Nice to hear good news now and again.
  - wallywax 15y ago
    During the interview process, it is not clear which bucket you're being dropped in. Or indeed even that there are two buckets. This may have an impact on whether someone would accept an offer or not.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  I'm curious why you think this is a bad thing. Doesn't SA stand for sysadmin? If you were hired for a sysadmin role, doesn't it make sense to reinterview you for a software development role? More specifically, if the situation were turned around and you where asked a bunch of software development questions when interviewing for a sysadmin role, wouldn't you criticize Google for asking questions irrelevant to the job?
  - rachelbythebay 15y ago
    I think it's a bad thing because I lived it. I was stuck in their little SA mold, unable to transfer onto various interesting-looking projects because of it. I wound up being stuck in this limbo for over a year until I finally got the internal transfer to go through. Note that nobody was willing to pull rank and Just Fix Things. That was a sign to me that things had turned pretty bad -- forcing people to jump through hoops like that? Come on. BTW, for SRE, the interviews are supposed to hit a range of things: sysadmin stuff, coding stuff, debugging/troubleshooting, and so on. At least, the ~100 or so I gave over the years I was there certainly did. Note that none of the things I asked were "round manhole" type questions. I hate that stuff.
    - Locke1689 15y ago
      Sure. I'm a SWE intern right now but I'm going through the conversion process right now so I've done the SWE interviews. All I'm saying is that I would have been pretty pissed if I got a dynamic programming question when applying for an sysadmin position. I'm not saying that Google's hiring process makes complete sense (I work for you writing prod code for 3 months and that gets me out of one out of five interviews? Really? One?) but this isn't exactly the biggest problem I see. It would probably be better if they gave higher priority to transfer requests so you could get it done quickly, but I see no reason why I wouldn't have to reinterview if I wanted a different job position. P.S. This is one reason why I'm glad they don't ask sysadmin questions to SWEs. I'm a really shitty sysadmin.
- amatus 15y ago
  I was a SWE-SRE and I still got stuck in a sysadmin role.

illumin8 15y ago

What is up with Google's silly caste system? Being pigeon holed into an SA role and looked down upon by freshly minted developers with little experience "oh, you're just an SA..." is exactly why a senior systems architect like myself will probably never work at Google. Google seems to want to give their employees the popularity contest atmosphere of an undergrad school so that the elite can feel smug and superior as they slave away in an effort to get the rest of us to click on more ads.

blinks 15y ago
Caste system? I'm an SRE-SWE myself, but I couldn't tell you what side of the fence each of my team members are. (I might have an educated guess, though, based on the projects they choose to work on...)
- rachelbythebay 15y ago
  go/getenglevel Yes, caste system. If you don't resemble the right sort of person at hiring time, you don't get the SWE flavored job. Managers will tell you there's no difference, but they are clearly missing the point. If you ever want to transfer out of SRE, most of the jobs there are SWE positions. As a SWE-SRE, you're set. As a SA-SRE, you're screwed. See the problem now?
  - rdouble 15y ago
    Who gets paid more? One secret I found working in Silicon Valley is that the SRE/SA types often got looked down upon by the developers, but were making more money.
    - rachelbythebay 15y ago
      My own move from Sr. SA-SRE to Sr. SWE changed nothing in terms of salary. Those are both "level 5" jobs, albeit from different "ladders": O5 to T5. Incidentally, I later found out they were underpaying me by as much as 20% compared to other folks in my area at the same level. That might mean that my no-op ladder change was an anomaly.