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SREs are programmers who specialize in writing programs that manage complex distributed systems. If you hire SREs and have them doing sysadmin work, then (1) y

SREs are programmers who specialize in writing programs that manage complex distributed systems. If you hire SREs and have them doing sysadmin work, then (1) you're massively over-paying and (2) they'll get bored and leave once they find a role that makes better use of their skills. If you hire sysadmins for SRE work, they'll get lost the first time they need to write a kernel module or design a multi-continent data replication strategy.

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doublerabbit 2y ago
I stand ish corrected. Feels the same difference to of that of a Senior Sysadmin. I do both, I wouldn't call myself SRE.
dijit 2y ago
> If you hire sysadmins for SRE work, they'll get lost the first time they need to write a kernel module or design a multi-continent data replication strategy. Ah yes, the old (incorrect) mantra of "sysadmins couldn't code". Which is ironic, as the vast majority of the abstractions that you'll interface with are written by sysadmins.
- qwertox 2y ago
  IDK, writing things like kernel modules to improve the reliability of a complex system doesn't really sound like a task sysadmins get paid for. Yes, a lot of coding (mostly in scripting languages) is normal, mostly to automate tasks and improve visibility into the system, to make data digestible for tools like Grafana, but other optimizations seem to be out of bounds. But I most likely do lack the insights you have.
  - dijit 2y ago
    I’ve written kernel code to do various anti-ddos stuff, however its the exception for sure. Debugging complex systems is more in the wheelhouse of sysadmins. When I came up it was a requirement for sysadmins to be proficient in C, a commandline debugger (usually gdb), the unix/linux syscall interface (understanding everything that comes out of strace for example) and perl. Usually those perl scripts ended up becoming an orchestration/automation platform of some kind- ruby replaced perl at some point. I guess it’s python and Go now? The modern “kernel module” requirement is more likely to be a kubernetes operator or terraform module, and the modern day sysadmin definitely writes those (the rest of the role is essentially identical, just tools got better)

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doublerabbit 2y ago

I stand ish corrected. Feels the same difference to of that of a Senior Sysadmin. I do both, I wouldn't call myself SRE.

dijit 2y ago

> If you hire sysadmins for SRE work, they'll get lost the first time they need to write a kernel module or design a multi-continent data replication strategy. Ah yes, the old (incorrect) mantra of "sysadmins couldn't code". Which is ironic, as the vast majority of the abstractions that you'll interface with are written by sysadmins.

qwertox 2y ago
IDK, writing things like kernel modules to improve the reliability of a complex system doesn't really sound like a task sysadmins get paid for. Yes, a lot of coding (mostly in scripting languages) is normal, mostly to automate tasks and improve visibility into the system, to make data digestible for tools like Grafana, but other optimizations seem to be out of bounds. But I most likely do lack the insights you have.
- dijit 2y ago
  I’ve written kernel code to do various anti-ddos stuff, however its the exception for sure. Debugging complex systems is more in the wheelhouse of sysadmins. When I came up it was a requirement for sysadmins to be proficient in C, a commandline debugger (usually gdb), the unix/linux syscall interface (understanding everything that comes out of strace for example) and perl. Usually those perl scripts ended up becoming an orchestration/automation platform of some kind- ruby replaced perl at some point. I guess it’s python and Go now? The modern “kernel module” requirement is more likely to be a kubernetes operator or terraform module, and the modern day sysadmin definitely writes those (the rest of the role is essentially identical, just tools got better)