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I am a software developer. I went to college to learn software development. Two years ago, they tried to tack DevOps on to my job description. I told them "no t

by NoSalt 8mo ago

I am a software developer. I went to college to learn software development. Two years ago, they tried to tack DevOps on to my job description. I told them "no thanks", then had to find another job. I found one and am MUCH happier not having to do that DevOps crap. No offense, but it a soul-draining undertaking, and I like writing code ... ONLY!

jpollock 8mo ago
I have a different opinion. :) DevOps is great feedback to the engineering team. Too many alarms or alarms at unsocial hours? The engineering team should feel that pain. Too hard to push? The engineering team should feel that pain. Strange hard to diagnose alarms? Yep, the engineering team should feel that pain! The feedback is very important to keeping the opex costs under control. However, I think the author and I have different opinions on what DevOps is. DevOps isn't a full time role. It's what the engineer does to get their software into production.
- bobanrocky 8mo ago
  The only folks who like devops are those that haven’t touched anything else, or are scared to move out of that molehill. Try it once .. is my advice
  - jpollock 8mo ago
    I think there are different definitions of DevOps. I see a difference between a more definite operations team (SRE) vs an engineering team having responsibility for how their service works in production (DevOps). DevOps is something that all teams should be doing - there's no point in writing code that spends it's life generating problems for customers or other teams, and having the problems arrive at the owners results in them being properly prioritized. In smaller orgs, DevOps and SRE might be together, but it should still be a rotation instead of a fulltime role, and everyone should be doing it. Engineers who don't do devops write code that looks like: if (should_never_happen) { log.error("owner=wombat@example.com it happened again"); } Where the one who does do devops writes code that avoids the error condition entirely (usually possible), or decides what the code should do in that situation (not log).
  - esseph 8mo ago
    > The only folks who like devops are those that haven’t touched anything else, or are scared to move out of that molehill. IDK I've been called everything from: SysOp, SysAdmin, Network Engineer, Systems Architect, Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Platform Engineer, etc. Half of those at different companies are just "DevOps" depending on the org.
  - rirze 8mo ago
    It truly depends on the type of DevOps experience. I've avoided firefighting DevOps roles my career and I enjoy it. Having the space to step back and design intelligent dependent systems is satisfying.
- antonvs 8mo ago
  This sounds very adversarial to me. I’m glad our devops team doesn’t think like you.
  - jpollock 8mo ago
    In my career, DevOps was never a separate organization. It was a role assumed by the code owners. SRE (is it up, is the hardware working, is the network working?) was separate, and had different metrics. Having separate teams makes it adversarial because both orgs end up reporting into separate hierarchies with independent goals. Think about the metrics each team is measured on. Who resolves conflicts between them? How high up the org chart is it necessary to go to resolve the conflict? Can one team make different tradeoffs on code quality vs speed from another, or is it company-wide?
  - raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
    If you have a “DevOps team” - they are operations and you aren’t getting any of the benefits of a DevOps mindset
    - antonvs 8mo ago
      Meh, real life is a bit more complicated than a manifesto.
      - raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
        It’s not about just a manifesto, at the startup I worked for before getting into consulting 6 years ago - cloud + app dev - it was much more affective for the team who did the work, to create their own IAC based on a standard. What’s the difference between a “DevOps team” in 2026 than “operations” in 2001?
        antonvs 8mo ago
        The difference is what they do. Assisting other teams with creating fully automated build and test pipelines. Managing infrastructure using automated systems. Identifying issues in production systems that other teams should look at, down to a level of granularity that wasn’t really possible in 2001. > affective You mean “effective”.
Joel_Mckay 8mo ago
DevOps is secretly spiral development. Great if billing by the hour, and mostly unsustainable for products =3
booleandilemma 8mo ago
Same thing happened to me at a company several years ago. It felt like they wanted me in two roles but were only paying me for one. Didn't take long for me to jump ship after that.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
I am first and foremost still a software developer as far as my hands on keyboard job. I absolutely love being able to set up my own infrastructure without depending on glorified system administrators who call themselves “DevOps Engineers”. It’s all just code at the end of the day - setting up infrastructure involves writing yaml, HCL or actual code (CDk).
dilyevsky 8mo ago
> I like writing code ... ONLY! Boy do I have some bad news for you...
- NoSalt 8mo ago
  And what would that news be? I have successfully doing this for almost 20 years. Yes, it means fewer promotions and less money, but I don't care. I value my sanity over money.

by NoSalt 8mo ago

jpollock 8mo ago

I have a different opinion. :) DevOps is great feedback to the engineering team. Too many alarms or alarms at unsocial hours? The engineering team should feel that pain. Too hard to push? The engineering team should feel that pain. Strange hard to diagnose alarms? Yep, the engineering team should feel that pain! The feedback is very important to keeping the opex costs under control. However, I think the author and I have different opinions on what DevOps is. DevOps isn't a full time role. It's what the engineer does to get their software into production.

bobanrocky 8mo ago
The only folks who like devops are those that haven’t touched anything else, or are scared to move out of that molehill. Try it once .. is my advice
- jpollock 8mo ago
  I think there are different definitions of DevOps. I see a difference between a more definite operations team (SRE) vs an engineering team having responsibility for how their service works in production (DevOps). DevOps is something that all teams should be doing - there's no point in writing code that spends it's life generating problems for customers or other teams, and having the problems arrive at the owners results in them being properly prioritized. In smaller orgs, DevOps and SRE might be together, but it should still be a rotation instead of a fulltime role, and everyone should be doing it. Engineers who don't do devops write code that looks like: if (should_never_happen) { log.error("owner=wombat@example.com it happened again"); } Where the one who does do devops writes code that avoids the error condition entirely (usually possible), or decides what the code should do in that situation (not log).
- esseph 8mo ago
  > The only folks who like devops are those that haven’t touched anything else, or are scared to move out of that molehill. IDK I've been called everything from: SysOp, SysAdmin, Network Engineer, Systems Architect, Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Platform Engineer, etc. Half of those at different companies are just "DevOps" depending on the org.
- rirze 8mo ago
  It truly depends on the type of DevOps experience. I've avoided firefighting DevOps roles my career and I enjoy it. Having the space to step back and design intelligent dependent systems is satisfying.
antonvs 8mo ago
This sounds very adversarial to me. I’m glad our devops team doesn’t think like you.
- jpollock 8mo ago
  In my career, DevOps was never a separate organization. It was a role assumed by the code owners. SRE (is it up, is the hardware working, is the network working?) was separate, and had different metrics. Having separate teams makes it adversarial because both orgs end up reporting into separate hierarchies with independent goals. Think about the metrics each team is measured on. Who resolves conflicts between them? How high up the org chart is it necessary to go to resolve the conflict? Can one team make different tradeoffs on code quality vs speed from another, or is it company-wide?
- raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
  If you have a “DevOps team” - they are operations and you aren’t getting any of the benefits of a DevOps mindset
  - antonvs 8mo ago
    Meh, real life is a bit more complicated than a manifesto.
    - raw_anon_1111 8mo ago
      It’s not about just a manifesto, at the startup I worked for before getting into consulting 6 years ago - cloud + app dev - it was much more affective for the team who did the work, to create their own IAC based on a standard. What’s the difference between a “DevOps team” in 2026 than “operations” in 2001?
      - antonvs 8mo ago
        The difference is what they do. Assisting other teams with creating fully automated build and test pipelines. Managing infrastructure using automated systems. Identifying issues in production systems that other teams should look at, down to a level of granularity that wasn’t really possible in 2001. > affective You mean “effective”.

Joel_Mckay 8mo ago

DevOps is secretly spiral development. Great if billing by the hour, and mostly unsustainable for products =3

booleandilemma 8mo ago

Same thing happened to me at a company several years ago. It felt like they wanted me in two roles but were only paying me for one. Didn't take long for me to jump ship after that.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

raw_anon_1111 8mo ago

I am first and foremost still a software developer as far as my hands on keyboard job. I absolutely love being able to set up my own infrastructure without depending on glorified system administrators who call themselves “DevOps Engineers”. It’s all just code at the end of the day - setting up infrastructure involves writing yaml, HCL or actual code (CDk).

dilyevsky 8mo ago

> I like writing code ... ONLY! Boy do I have some bad news for you...

NoSalt 8mo ago
And what would that news be? I have successfully doing this for almost 20 years. Yes, it means fewer promotions and less money, but I don't care. I value my sanity over money.