From Sys Admin to Netflix SRE

What does it take to be a Netflix SRE? With tens of thousands of Linux instances in a distributed system architecture, and thousands of daily production changes, it's an environment that's both challenging and exciting. No two issues are the same! This talk will show you how SREs operate in this environment, and what skills are important for our SREs to have. You might be surprised at what we do and don't know: when an environment is this large, this complex, and this dynamic, it's a given that you won't know everything. The trick is knowing enough and having sound diagnostic procedures that work quickly on any system.

In this talk you'll hear from two of Netflix's CORE SREs about the challenges we've learned from and tools we use to keep everything running. Throughout the talk we'll discuss how Netflix views the role of the SRE and how it differs from the traditional Systems Administrator role. It also explains why freedom and responsibility are key, trust is required, and chaos is your friend.