Making sense of SRE and observability, one week at a time.
What is site reliability engineering (SRE) really about? How can I make sense of it in my organisation? How do I cut through the buzzwords and actually improve the lives of my colleagues and customers?
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We spend a third of our life at work. It needs to be something we enjoy and something with purpose. Our work experience also impacts our family, friends, and our personal lives. This week I'm joined by tech engineer, leader, and author Richard Bown to explore this and many other topics including... 🌪️ The difficulty in applying the ideas we read in books in real organisations 🤫 When you want to implement a thing you can't talk directly about the thing 🍃 Does change require senior leadership? Can it be grassroots? 🫂 The importance of looking after yourself at work 📗 The experience of publishing a novel ...and much more. You can find Richard's book "Human Software - A Life in I.T" here: https://humansoftwarebook.com/ ...and you can find Richard on... LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-bown/ References from the episode (excluding some of the TV shows we mentioned): Rosegarden Linux music composition editing environment: https://www.rosegardenmusic.com/ Managing Humans by Michael Lopp: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/managing-humans-biting/9781430243144/ Rands leadership Slack: https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/ The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113934.The_Goal Local Hero (1983): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085859/ Turn the Ship Around! by David Marquet: https://davidmarquet.com/books/turn-the-ship-around-book/ Scrivener (book writing tool): https://scrivener.app/ You can buy Slight Reliability merch here (Note: you cannot order the mugs outside of New Zealand): https://slightreliability.digitees.co.nz/ You can find Stephen on: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/slightreliability.bsky.social YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SlightReliability Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slight_reliability/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_kiwi_sre
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About the host
Stephen has a background in SRE and performance engineering. He has worked in the industry for 15 years as both an external consultant and an internal engineer.
Our industry is full of buzzwords and exaggerations, it can be hard to know what is real or not. Stephen strives to take these complex technical concepts and to simplify and present them in a way everyone can understand and apply (and to call out when something is too good to be true).
Stephen lives in Auckland, New Zealand and currently works as a Developer Advocate for SquaredUp, as well as promoting and improving observability and SRE practices internally in the organisation.