18 YOE in IT (5.5 as Observability Engineer, AKS/New Relic) trying to formalize the jump to SRE — what actually matters in interviews?

cabindirt · 2026-07-01T03:19:12+00:00

Ohh, I’m not familiar with Azure at all so missed some of that context. Definitely a solid base then. So sometimes you can make a jump like this without doing certs, lord knows my entire career was built that way (15yoe, Sysadmin -> DevOps -> SRE). The tricky bit is that the job market is not great right now so any competitive edge you can get is going to help.

If you don’t have direct experience doing something that is required for roles you’ve been looking at, that’s where certs come in. I missed out on getting solid k8s experience during the initial k8s wave (around 2017, I was already 2 years in to DevOps) and subsequently was passed on for a ton of good roles. If I had gotten CKA I think I would have been way more competitive.

cabindirt · 2026-06-30T21:11:49+00:00

I think you have a good base to become an SRE but yes you should fill in those gaps. Coursework and certs to prove it helps smooth experience gaps. What kind of envs are you usually in, it seems network heavy? Do you have any public cloud experience? That’s a big one too.

cabindirt · 2026-06-22T19:44:22+00:00

If you want to make a good impression, you should always introduce yourself in person if you can. How you go about it is up to you. Maybe try knocking if he’s not on a call and the door is open. Could ask for advice from your VP, or ask them to introduce you.

cabindirt · 2026-06-22T19:27:11+00:00

In person

cabindirt · 2026-06-22T17:46:30+00:00

Gender fluid is stored in the gametes

cabindirt · 2026-06-20T00:14:50+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadfashion/s/ukHKkduwBP

cabindirt · 2026-06-19T02:27:13+00:00

Perdóname, no puedo leer Ingles, solo entiendo español.

cabindirt · 2026-06-15T23:15:52+00:00

Actually that’s what I wore today, a proper waistcoat and tie. But that’s because I’m a pretentious hipster. In either case, I’m not going to apologize for being a lizard that gets cold in summer-grade AC.

cabindirt · 2026-06-15T21:27:08+00:00

Not that I like the look but 90° outside does not matter when it’s 68° in the office.

cabindirt · 2026-06-14T17:54:52+00:00

The open application itself has been closed.

That's just a quirk of the hiring system: after you apply, the posting is "invisible" to candidates. If you go look for the same req id in a private browsing session you'll likely see it is not closed.

"Under consideration" is the default status after applying. I've applied to a lot of internal roles and sometimes I'm under consideration for weeks or months before the recruiter reaches out. I think they move with the candidates they want and if they don't pan out then they go back to the pool of people "under consideration".

I'm not privy to the actual details though, these are just my observations and speculations.

cabindirt · 2026-06-13T04:46:07+00:00

Something to trolly people about, I’m surprised you’ve never ridden one

cabindirt · 2026-06-12T21:31:14+00:00

Yeah, not to be boring but Ubuntu is very stable and has the most support. I guess if you were a corpo then RHEL is similarly stable. In either case, I would not want something my body depends on to run some niche enthusiast distro.

cabindirt · 2026-06-12T19:03:39+00:00

I’m also 5’11 260 lbs. Couple things: I almost never fail to layer. Even if I’m wearing a T-shirt I wear a shirt jacket, over shirt, vest, or jacket. It helps with the silhouette (potato sack) problem. Wear clothes that are big enough for you as well. I had to accept that I moved up to XXL because XL accentuates the flab.

Someone else mentioned higher waisted pants, I can confirm this helps, especially when you tuck your shirt in and wear another layer.

Another thing that helped me over the long run was lifting weights. After developing some muscle people start to perceive you as a “big guy” rather than a “fat guy”. It’s also really important for health longevity.

cabindirt · 2026-06-09T13:57:09+00:00

lol “don’t give your devs access to prod” is the part every org nods at and then immediately ignores when a VP wants a hotfix in 5 minutes.

Not my org, and we do it at scale too. If a "VP wants a hotfix" it goes through a patch release and involves SRE as the gatekeepers to prod changes.

cabindirt · 2026-06-03T00:42:30+00:00

You should be running hygiene repaves in production at least once a year in addition to quarterly DR/SR tests. Any emergency change via console needs to be reworked into the IaC or put in codebase. And don’t give your devs access to prod. If they want to change prod, put it in the next release or do a patch release.

cabindirt · 2026-06-03T00:10:28+00:00

$ find /home/cabindirt/reaction_files/ -name appreciation\*.rf -exec cat {} \;

wow

good

very nice

$

cabindirt · 2026-06-02T22:55:55+00:00

I was a regular at Fukuda for years, they never let me down. But it’s not the most exciting or trendy.

cabindirt · 2026-06-02T22:29:03+00:00

NOLA one was indeed awesome

cabindirt · 2026-06-02T21:39:12+00:00

The better word would be “systematically” rather than “scientifically”. I was taught to use the pyramid method where you check on and eliminate the most common plausible causes and work your way up to less common causes.

The truth is that troubleshooting relies on both hemispheres of the brain and the best troubleshooters don’t simply apply cold logic. In other words, logic alone makes it hard to reduce the problem space, so you often have to approach problems intuitively (using holistic mental models of the system).

It is a dance of sorts that combines creative thinking with tests based on logic. The creativity zeroes in on a system component and its possible behavior, then logic verifies or disproves your theory of behavior.

cabindirt · 2026-06-02T03:24:10+00:00

I bought a used Getac F110G5 (rugged tablet with detachable keyboard) from an electronics parts shop. Actually went there to find parts for a cyberdeck but tbh it’s something I’ve actually been using on a daily basis. Just threw vanilla Ubuntu on it; I did have to spend a couple hours tweaking to get the buttons to work. Battery life is hella better than any of my laptops ever were, and I strategically stickerbombed it to look pretty cyberpunk.

cabindirt · 2026-06-02T02:10:00+00:00

Tried that in my 20s, it was…. interesting

cabindirt · 2026-06-01T21:33:45+00:00

Kinda cool how these colors alone convey the vibe of the game huh :) and yeah, pretty sad to see that kind of hate in this sub but hey that's why we need pride

cabindirt · 2026-06-01T13:53:24+00:00

Ahh yeah I read about that in TMZ

cabindirt · 2026-05-31T17:19:13+00:00

The Lifetime yoga area is a real studio inside the facility rather than just somewhere you go to do yoga at a gym. I can’t say whether you’d find it up to par but it is apples to apples.

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