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SRE = site reliability engineering (as best as I can tell), for anyone else wondering. How you can write an entire article with an acronym in the title and not

SRE = site reliability engineering (as best as I can tell), for anyone else wondering. How you can write an entire article with an acronym in the title and not define it anywhere is beyond me.

pokoleo 4y ago
Will's a great communicator, and quite personable: I know this because I've worked with him for a few years. I don't think it's bravado, SRE is a common industry term.
- XorNot 4y ago
  So are all sorts of terms, but in the sciences at least the rule is still that you introduce the full term and its acronym the first time it is used, before switching to the acronym for the rest of the paper. Sure, everyone doing electrochemistry knows what EIS means, but you still write "electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)" before you go on. You can adjust the strictness for audience and intent perhaps, but it's still sloppy not to.
  - mwt 4y ago
    And on your blog you can choose to use common abbreviations like OS, BIOS, and GPS without spelling them out.
n42 4y ago
this acronym is ubiquitous in the industry of this site and anyone who follows his blog. it's not unreasonable. I'm shocked someone commenting on Hacker News doesn't know it.
- ramraj07 4y ago
  I’m in the industry. Have been for years. I still have no clue what an SRE is. Like what do they do? Debug broken services? Unless you worked with people in that SRE role it’s not clear how you’re supposed to know what they do. This article could have helped me with that but it didn’t fully. It sounded more like a rant that will totally make sense maybe to 50% of infra or devops people. Maybe it’s me though. I actually still don’t know what a true product manager is supposed to do lol.
  - idunno246 4y ago
    sre means different things to different people, it’s an overloaded term like devops. but I feel like he spent a lot of this article defining what it meant for this team - all that about embedding a dedicated person is their definition of sre
  - tbrownaw 4y ago
    I assume it's like "Enterprise architect" only maybe less so. For EA I've heard that no two companies ever mean the same thing by the term (I barely even know how we define it, and that's the team I'm on), where SRE I think is supposedly copied from people's half-understanding of what Google says it does.
    - browningstreet 4y ago
      EA is design, SRE is ops/support.
      - throwaway-dos 4y ago
        This is wrong. SRE is an engineering org, NOT an ops or support org. While it's common practice for SRE teams to share some of the operational burden, it's for the purpose to find risks and vulnerabilities and then engineer solutions to those. I have never seen SRE do support. SREs should know how to build and run reliable and maintainable systems. Architecture and design are the best tools for that.
        browningstreet 4y ago
        Not at the 3 SF financial enterprises I’ve worked at it in the last decade.
      - tbrownaw 4y ago
        Not alike as in the same job, alike as in the same level of well-definedness.
  - rrix2 4y ago
greatpostman 4y ago
Sre is a really common term
colesantiago 4y ago
Me neither, I have no clue what this means either, I guess the author is in a very very small circle.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  SRE/Production Engineering are common terms in the tech industry... How do you come to the conclusion that the author is the one with a "very very small circle"?
  - colesantiago 4y ago
    I've been an engineer and manager in a software company in europe and have only heard about what an SRE is. Now "software engineer" is a common term, but not this SRE thing. Perhaps it's only common within silicon valley circles, that being said, the fact that the author didn't define the acronym didn't help either.
    - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
      I'm curious, have you heard of any of these: Data Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer (MLE), Staff Software Engineer. I'm surprised you've never come across the term SRE/Production Engineer before (Assuming you meant to say "have only __just__ heard about what an SRE is"). I live in New Zealand and I'm pretty sure I knew what an SRE was before I even joined a big tech company (Not a SV one btw).
      - syntheticcorp 4y ago
        I’ve worked in tech in NZ for 7 years or so, never actually met someone who calls themselves an SRE. Obviously I know the term, but IME we don’t use that title here
    - exdsq 4y ago
      Honestly it'd be like explaining what sysadmin means nowadays. It's so common I am surprised there are sectors of the industry that don't use the term yet! But it makes sense that a person who's been blogging about SRE-work for years doesn't feel the need to define SRE. It's been around as a role since the early 2000s. Edit: It's probably been around longer that SDET!

SRE = site reliability engineering (as best as I can tell), for anyone else wondering. How you can write an entire article with an acronym in the title and not define it anywhere is beyond me.

pokoleo 4y ago

Will's a great communicator, and quite personable: I know this because I've worked with him for a few years. I don't think it's bravado, SRE is a common industry term.

XorNot 4y ago
So are all sorts of terms, but in the sciences at least the rule is still that you introduce the full term and its acronym the first time it is used, before switching to the acronym for the rest of the paper. Sure, everyone doing electrochemistry knows what EIS means, but you still write "electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS)" before you go on. You can adjust the strictness for audience and intent perhaps, but it's still sloppy not to.
- mwt 4y ago
  And on your blog you can choose to use common abbreviations like OS, BIOS, and GPS without spelling them out.

n42 4y ago

this acronym is ubiquitous in the industry of this site and anyone who follows his blog. it's not unreasonable. I'm shocked someone commenting on Hacker News doesn't know it.

ramraj07 4y ago
I’m in the industry. Have been for years. I still have no clue what an SRE is. Like what do they do? Debug broken services? Unless you worked with people in that SRE role it’s not clear how you’re supposed to know what they do. This article could have helped me with that but it didn’t fully. It sounded more like a rant that will totally make sense maybe to 50% of infra or devops people. Maybe it’s me though. I actually still don’t know what a true product manager is supposed to do lol.
- idunno246 4y ago
  sre means different things to different people, it’s an overloaded term like devops. but I feel like he spent a lot of this article defining what it meant for this team - all that about embedding a dedicated person is their definition of sre
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  I assume it's like "Enterprise architect" only maybe less so. For EA I've heard that no two companies ever mean the same thing by the term (I barely even know how we define it, and that's the team I'm on), where SRE I think is supposedly copied from people's half-understanding of what Google says it does.
  - browningstreet 4y ago
    EA is design, SRE is ops/support.
    - throwaway-dos 4y ago
      This is wrong. SRE is an engineering org, NOT an ops or support org. While it's common practice for SRE teams to share some of the operational burden, it's for the purpose to find risks and vulnerabilities and then engineer solutions to those. I have never seen SRE do support. SREs should know how to build and run reliable and maintainable systems. Architecture and design are the best tools for that.
      - browningstreet 4y ago
        Not at the 3 SF financial enterprises I’ve worked at it in the last decade.
    - tbrownaw 4y ago
      Not alike as in the same job, alike as in the same level of well-definedness.
- rrix2 4y ago

greatpostman 4y ago

Sre is a really common term

colesantiago 4y ago

Me neither, I have no clue what this means either, I guess the author is in a very very small circle.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago
SRE/Production Engineering are common terms in the tech industry... How do you come to the conclusion that the author is the one with a "very very small circle"?
- colesantiago 4y ago
  I've been an engineer and manager in a software company in europe and have only heard about what an SRE is. Now "software engineer" is a common term, but not this SRE thing. Perhaps it's only common within silicon valley circles, that being said, the fact that the author didn't define the acronym didn't help either.
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    I'm curious, have you heard of any of these: Data Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer (MLE), Staff Software Engineer. I'm surprised you've never come across the term SRE/Production Engineer before (Assuming you meant to say "have only __just__ heard about what an SRE is"). I live in New Zealand and I'm pretty sure I knew what an SRE was before I even joined a big tech company (Not a SV one btw).
    - syntheticcorp 4y ago
      I’ve worked in tech in NZ for 7 years or so, never actually met someone who calls themselves an SRE. Obviously I know the term, but IME we don’t use that title here
  - exdsq 4y ago
    Honestly it'd be like explaining what sysadmin means nowadays. It's so common I am surprised there are sectors of the industry that don't use the term yet! But it makes sense that a person who's been blogging about SRE-work for years doesn't feel the need to define SRE. It's been around as a role since the early 2000s. Edit: It's probably been around longer that SDET!