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That's how I think of it. You pay firemen for their ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently, and for being able to execute when called upon. Giant c

That's how I think of it. You pay firemen for their ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently, and for being able to execute when called upon. Giant companies making money hand over fist pay a lot of "don't fuck this up" salaries. The primary goal for everyone is to keep the money printer running smoothly; everything else is secondary.

z3t4 4y ago
Firefighting used to be very lucrative as people was willing to pay a lot to "solve the problem" when their house was on fire. Also one house on fire could possibly mean the whole city could burn down.
commandlinefan 4y ago
It's worth noting that the beginning, the end and the middle of Scrum and what most companies laughably call "Agile" is to prevent exactly this: the entire structure is there to force every developer to interview for their job every morning and prove they're making "contributions" (it doesn't matter if they're good contributions, they just have to be completed by the deadlines).
- djkivi 4y ago
  Such a beautiful metaphor for the daily standup!
bombcar 4y ago
The key difference is people understand you’re paying the firemen for the emergencies- but a lot of SREs are actually firemen but paid like developers. When everyone is quietly pretending you’re not a fireman but you are it leads do a disconnect where everyone is playing charades.
- trombone5000 4y ago
  The people handling the emergencies should get paid considerably more than developers - when they system is down, the real, actual, company-sustaining money stops coming in.
  - dasil003 4y ago
    But on the other hand they don't add new features or push product forward in any way. Maybe this is okay for a late stage company that is in the value extraction mode. In that case the private equity playbook is to lay off the app developers, and they can throw more money at ops to increase efficiency of the shrinking pie. On the other hand if you're in a highly competitive growth industry then you need to innovate, and if you optimize for SRE talent, you won't have sufficiently senior engineering talent to find the right balance between innovation and stability.
- okdood64 4y ago
  > SREs are actually firemen but paid like developer Firefighters who also do development work to reduce fires and make their firefighting easier. That said developers also do firefighting. They can be an escalation point for deeper system issues that may elude SREs.
hyperbovine 4y ago
Reading this caused the following factoid bubbled up in my mind: the leading cause of death for firefighters is now heart disease. The 98% of their time that’s not responding to calls is evidently spent napping and eating lasagna. I’m not naysaying this arrangement, it’s how it has to be. I don’t see why it should be too different at Google, for some employees anyways.
- kart23 4y ago
  Isn't the #1 cause of death for everyone heart disease?
  - hyperbovine 4y ago
    Yeah, but for a long time previously it was things actually related to fire (burns, asphyxia, internal trauma, etc.)

z3t4 4y ago

Firefighting used to be very lucrative as people was willing to pay a lot to "solve the problem" when their house was on fire. Also one house on fire could possibly mean the whole city could burn down.

commandlinefan 4y ago

It's worth noting that the beginning, the end and the middle of Scrum and what most companies laughably call "Agile" is to prevent exactly this: the entire structure is there to force every developer to interview for their job every morning and prove they're making "contributions" (it doesn't matter if they're good contributions, they just have to be completed by the deadlines).

djkivi 4y ago
Such a beautiful metaphor for the daily standup!

bombcar 4y ago

The key difference is people understand you’re paying the firemen for the emergencies- but a lot of SREs are actually firemen but paid like developers. When everyone is quietly pretending you’re not a fireman but you are it leads do a disconnect where everyone is playing charades.

trombone5000 4y ago
The people handling the emergencies should get paid considerably more than developers - when they system is down, the real, actual, company-sustaining money stops coming in.
- dasil003 4y ago
  But on the other hand they don't add new features or push product forward in any way. Maybe this is okay for a late stage company that is in the value extraction mode. In that case the private equity playbook is to lay off the app developers, and they can throw more money at ops to increase efficiency of the shrinking pie. On the other hand if you're in a highly competitive growth industry then you need to innovate, and if you optimize for SRE talent, you won't have sufficiently senior engineering talent to find the right balance between innovation and stability.
okdood64 4y ago
> SREs are actually firemen but paid like developer Firefighters who also do development work to reduce fires and make their firefighting easier. That said developers also do firefighting. They can be an escalation point for deeper system issues that may elude SREs.

hyperbovine 4y ago

Reading this caused the following factoid bubbled up in my mind: the leading cause of death for firefighters is now heart disease. The 98% of their time that’s not responding to calls is evidently spent napping and eating lasagna. I’m not naysaying this arrangement, it’s how it has to be. I don’t see why it should be too different at Google, for some employees anyways.

kart23 4y ago
Isn't the #1 cause of death for everyone heart disease?
- hyperbovine 4y ago
  Yeah, but for a long time previously it was things actually related to fire (burns, asphyxia, internal trauma, etc.)