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An Honest Job Advertisement

Imagine if job advertisements were completely honest. Most companies advertising for IT workers would state that the job is mostly great except for twice a year when ``hell month'' arrives and everyone scrambles to deploy the new release of some major software system. This month is so full of stress, fear, and blame that it makes you hate your employer, your job, and your life. Oh, and by the way, the software releases are often late, so you can't predict which month will be hell month. As a result, you can't schedule any kind of vacation. Without time off to relax, stress builds and makes your life even worse.

Sadly, at many companies hell month is every month.

A company that adopts the DevOps principles is different. A rapid release environment deploys upgrades to production weekly, daily or more often. It is not a stressful event. It is just another day. There is no fear of an upcoming hell month.

Launching new software releases at Stackoverflow.com is fully automated and self-service. The developers do it. SRE is only involved for special cases. The SRE team can therefore focus on writing tools to improve operations and so on.

Imagine if an auto manufacturer's employees spent most of their time assembling cars but when a car actually left the factory it was a fearful, stressful, month of hell. It would be unacceptable to run a car company that way. It should be unacceptable to manage technology that way too.

Adopting DevOps techniques is not just better for the company it is better for you. Over time more and more companies will adopt these techniques not just because it is better for their bottom line, but because they will find it impossible to recruit and hire technical talent.

Who would want to work anywhere else?

Posted by Tom Limoncelli in DevOps

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