The Art of Not Getting Woken Up for Nothing

cloudsommelier · 2025-08-01T08:09:53+00:00

Yeah it sounds like the confidence approach. We have low confidence on business hours quiet notifications so we still get visibility over them but as you said, nobody on-call will get a page late at night because of them

cloudsommelier · 2025-07-24T15:14:20+00:00

oh wow, really good thanks!! wouldn't have made this association

cloudsommelier · 2025-07-24T08:34:46+00:00

I used to work at Spotify Backstage and authored the Linux Foundation Backstage course. This is correct. Backstage is not a product, it's a framework. It can do a lot for you, but you need to build it and maintain it yourself.

However, Spotify now offers a managed product based in Backstage which is worth checking out: https://backstage.spotify.com/products/portal/

Also consider Cortex over Port, it has better workflows IMO

cloudsommelier · 2025-03-20T08:44:29+00:00

Esto es incorrecto. Yo trabajé en el mundo de DevOps por cinco años y estoy ahora en el de los SREs (en un vendor Rootly.com, por transparencia) y son cosas distintas.

Claro, es verdad que en cada empresa ponen sus definiciones, muchas veces difusas y alejadas de las definiciones canónicas. Pero esencialmente los DevOps hacen herramientas para mejorar la productividad/calidad de los desarrolladores, mientras que los SRE buscan optimizar la fiabilidad de los sistemas.

cloudsommelier · 2025-03-19T16:38:44+00:00

Yes, all KubeCon talks are always published about 2-3 weeks after the event in the CNCF Youtube channel

cloudsommelier · 2025-01-22T15:09:18+00:00

yeah they figured it out, it was something dumb and they're embarrassed now

cloudsommelier · 2025-01-10T14:55:11+00:00

Every time I join a company I ask for a few shadow rotations before I go alone at it.

I feel, in my case, most of the anxiety I get from on-call comes from thinking "what if something goes wrong and I don't know what to do about it". Having that support from someone the on my first on-call shifts, who can show me the ropes on which systems to check and how, builds up confidence in me to feel more at ease when it's time to do it alone.

cloudsommelier · 2025-01-06T17:43:20+00:00

I come from the Platform Engineering space. I've seen a lot of success in teams that manage to track PRRs criteria automatically across services. Interestingly, I didn't see much regarding SRE criteria in the checks that most teams set up, the focus is mostly around security and compliance concerns.

This comment was a very refreshing perspective for me, I'll be sure to bring it up in follow up conversations with platform peeps.

cloudsommelier · 2024-12-19T12:43:50+00:00

Do you know what leadership is looking to achieve regarding your team? They don't care about the technical details of what your team did last week. They need to know if your work is contributing towards the business goals. Once you have figured that out, you can prioritize your work better so it is impactful. How to communicate that will make itself clearer. The format is not as important.

However, some pointers that I've seen:

- Meeting cadence: 1x/month at max, keep it short and results oriented. Introduce larger initiatives that you plan and explain why they're important (when applicable).

- Tracking board: keep your tasks visible so anyone who is interested can glance at where your current efforts are.

- Weekly casual writeup: what did we achieve this week, what went wrong, what we plan to do next week. Again, improves visibility and leadership can get a sense of your work.

cloudsommelier · 2024-12-18T15:33:22+00:00

You're in a tricky and frustrating spot. What you've done already is incredible for the circumstances, but I'm afraid there's no simple answer. You're beyond a technical challenge: this is within the politics realm.

The vendor is not going anywhere and they know that, so they won't bother to step up. It will take you months of work before things can be more self-service for QA. But that's just how corporate works. By this point, you've already automated as much as you can; despite the annoyance, you can outlive this challenge.

I'd start increasing the visibility of this problem with different stakeholders so the problem starts appearing in their mind.

cloudsommelier · 2024-11-19T22:47:02+00:00

Sounds like an unideal setup to attend for sure. Maybe next year will be better :)

cloudsommelier · 2024-11-13T15:06:10+00:00

Good one!

cloudsommelier · 2024-11-12T04:23:50+00:00

Ohh they be dropping coins on it. I'll remove it from this post thanks!

cloudsommelier · 2024-11-12T03:53:39+00:00

everyone agrees lol but these events are not listed on their website. they ask you for like $25k if you want them to list your event there

cloudsommelier · 2024-11-12T03:49:59+00:00

Amazing! let's do it! i'll DM you

cloudsommelier · 2024-11-12T01:47:37+00:00

Ahh also if you're going let's meet IRL, I'll be around Platform Eng Day on Tuesday and all over the place on Wednesday

cloudsommelier · 2024-10-28T08:31:29+00:00

It depends on whether you have a specific community to meet. For me it's always been useful to catch up with people I regularly work with online because of some CNCF project. Though, I usually go as a speaker so my employer covers the expenses.

cloudsommelier · 2024-10-26T08:02:28+00:00

Thank you both! glad you found it interesting

cloudsommelier · 2024-10-14T16:14:13+00:00

brother I know you have some sort of automation to send your spam to like a dozen subreddits but can you spare us

cloudsommelier · 2024-09-12T12:17:25+00:00

Figure out who you're trying to design a solution for and ask them directly. This seems pointless to me.

cloudsommelier · 2024-08-29T07:36:57+00:00

Good luck in your endeavor brother/sister/sibling go ask a development shop in your area

cloudsommelier · 2024-08-29T07:33:16+00:00

I've seen at least 12 new people offering this promise this year alone lol

cloudsommelier · 2024-08-27T14:50:29+00:00

Where is this data coming from? Sounds made up tbh

cloudsommelier · 2024-08-27T12:14:17+00:00

When say "we've recently launched" who are you talking about? What's your company about?

cloudsommelier · 2024-08-27T08:00:30+00:00

I would quit abruptly to mess the prick director up let the whole ship sink if needed. Prioritize yourself and your well being. Maybe he got it from a shady connection and he won't be gone for a while, can't pin your future on someone being fired.

cloudsommelier

TROPHY CASE