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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 7th, 2023

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  • I’ve done both, it’s just a rarity to have someone experienced enough in both to be able to cross the lines.

    Those are your gems and they’ll stick around as long as you pay them decently.

    Hard to find.

    Because the problem is that you need

    1. A developer
    2. A systems guy
    3. A social and great personality

    The job is hard to hire for because those 3 in combo is rare. Many developers and systems guys have prickly personalities or specialise in their favourite part of it.

    Devops spent have the option of prickly personalities because you have to deal with so many people outside your team that are prickly and that you have to sometimes give bad news to….

    Eventually they’ll all be mad at you for SOMETHING…… and you have to let it slide. You have to take their anger and not take it personally…. That’s hard for most people, let alone tech workers that grew up idolising Linus torvalds, or Sheldon cooper and their “I’m so smart that I don’t need to be nice” attitudes.


  • As a devops manager that’s been both, it depends on the group. Ideally a devops group has a few former devs and a few former systems guys.

    Honestly, the best devops teams have at least one guy that’s a liaison with IT who is primarily a systems guy but reports to both systems and devops. Why?

    It gets you priority IT tickets and access while systems trusts him to do it right. He’s like the crux of every good devops team. He’s an IT hire paid for by the devops team budget as an offering in exchange for priority tickets.

    But in general, you’re absolutely right.


  • It’s because they appear to be something they’re not.

    They’re usually friendly and fun and do all sorts of employee retention activities like arranging go karting and such…

    They seem like they’re there almost as union stewards, to try and help retain employees and ensure you’re treated well by management. This is not the case. They’re there to protect the company from lawsuits originated by you. This means that they’ll apply rules and such in ways that are not usually beneficial to you.

    They’re actually really helpful if you have issues with a coworker! However, you need to remember that despite how friendly they seem, they’re not actually in your corner, they have their own agenda.

    So the simple answer is that they aren’t bad at all, but it can feel bad if you thought they were your friend.