Oh, this is such a good question that I can't believe how infrequently people ask it: what are the top three ops skills for software engineers? What must a SWE know to be "production-literate?"
(Here come my answers; do share yours!)
(Here come my answers; do share yours!)
1) they are suitably wary but not terrified of the deploy process, e.g. what happens between when they commit a change and when it goes live?
They can re the deploy process without referring to the source. With the source, they can explain each step and why in detail.
They can re the deploy process without referring to the source. With the source, they can explain each step and why in detail.
... oops, got interrupted. ☺️ yes, #1 technical ops skill is knowing how code goes live, and being able to capably deploy and roll back one's changes (and debug and fix basic errors in the process)
Number two is the ability to navigate & debug your system using instrumentation.
This is nothing at all like debugging code. It means learning to *distrust* the code and trust your powers of observation; to treat production services like black boxes with episodic schizophrenia.
This is nothing at all like debugging code. It means learning to *distrust* the code and trust your powers of observation; to treat production services like black boxes with episodic schizophrenia.
(Yes, I got distracted again. This three point list has now taken me three days to get through.)
