Hi there,

This week's Cold Start! Let's discuss DevOps tribalism and repeating the same mistakes we did with that, infrastructure as code when serverless (and what we want from it), our threat to read #awswishlist tweets outside the next Boston Amazon office, and excessively using our own tweets to backup our point.

Let's get this started!

DevOps And Becoming The Neckbeards We Replaced

Recently a job description made the rounds on DevOps Twitter.

The post elicited the usual responses such as (paraphrasing) "What does that even mean?", "This is why this field makes me cringe," and "I bet they want 5 years experience." All this felt wildly familiar. 

I’ve started coming to the realization that we’re repeating the same cycle we saw with DevOps and public cloud adoption. We’re too busy dismissing what’s coming because we think the name is dumb, we think people don’t understand our job, or just a general willingness to think our job will change.

This attitude left too many of us poorly prepared for change in our careers. We were too busy laughing at the idea of a "DevOps engineer" because "what even is a 'DevOps Engineer'?" or "the job is just a sysadmin that codes and I already do that." That attitude left many of us in an uncomfortable position years later as we struggled to retain or find new employment. 

For many of us in the DevOps community, we’re repeating the same mistakes that others made in dismissing us years ago. We’re descending into unhelpful tribalism. (Credit Simon Wardley for me adopting that term.)

There’s no reason why serverless shouldn’t be as innocuous as saying container management; and yet it is. I think for those of us in both the DevOps and serverless communities it’s important for us to be vocal and articulate why and how serverless will change our jobs.

From my experience at DevOpsDays Denver and DevOpsDays Seattle there are people receptive and ready to listen to our message. However, it’s going to be a slow and long journey.  I hope, like what happened with the early days of DevOps, we don’t write each other off until many of us are forced to learn some hard career lessons.

Blog: Infrastructure As Code With AWS Serverless

As a continuation of the Serverless Ops Blog series, we've published "Serverless Ops: Infrastructure As Code With AWS Serverless". Here we explore what infrastructure as code is, where the value of operations is (and it's not being able to start a service on a host), and what we'd like to see for managing AWS infrastructure as code going forward.

It's a long read but well worth it. Even if you're not serverless already there's much to learn about your work today.

And In Local News

Finally, Amazon has announced a new office in Boston and we have volunteered to read #awswishlist tweets if the serverless planning cabal ever meets there.

We will also wear the AWS SAM outfit because if you make that ridiculous of a statement, then you have to accept when someone ups the absurdity on you.

Closing

I'm Tom from ServerlessOps and we provide services to make you successful with your DevOps transformation and enhancement through AWS serverless adoption. Ask us about our training and advisory services.

Also let us know what you think of this week's Cold Start using the 👍/👎 links at the end of this email!

Cheers,

Tom at ServerlessOps