rock stars, builders, and janitors: you're doing it wrong, new relic [futurestack16]

Rockstars, Builders and Janitors:You’re doing it wrong!

Alice Goldfuss, Site Reliability Engineer, New Relic

Rockstars JanitorsBuilders@alicegoldfuss

You’re doing it wrong

This document and the information herein (including any information that may be incorporated by reference) is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as an offer, commitment, promise or obligation on behalf of New Relic, Inc. (“New Relic”) to sell securities or deliver any product, material, code, functionality, or other feature. Any information provided hereby is proprietary to New Relic and may not be replicated or disclosed without New Relic’s express written permission.

Such information may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Any statement that is not a historical fact or refers to expectations, projections, future plans, objectives, estimates, goals, or other characterizations of future events is a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements can often be identified as such because the context of the statement will include words such as “believes,” “anticipates,” “expects” or words of similar import.

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and are subject to change at any time without notice. Existing and prospective investors, customers and other third parties transacting business with New Relic are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements are based on New Relic’s current assumptions, expectations, and beliefs and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement. Further information on factors that could affect such forward-looking statements is included in the filings New Relic makes with the SEC from time to time. Copies of these documents may be obtained by visiting New Relic’s Investor Relations website at ir.newrelic.com or the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

New Relic assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. New Relic makes no warranties, expressed or implied, in this document or otherwise, with respect to the information provided.

• Built new features / tools / systems

Scaled existing onesCleaned up existing ones

In the past 3 months, have you mainly:

I’m Alice

• Define the rolesExamine the current

environmentDiscuss a better way

Rockstar

Rockstar StrengthsCurious and open-minded

Can iterate fastAlways looking to the next thing

Rockstar WeaknessesGet bored easilyNo patience for maintenance

Not used to thinking about end user experience

Builder

Builder StrengthsUnderstand scaleValue reliabilityGood at catching “what ifs” that others miss

Builder WeaknessesCan move slow while trying to build out

Have hard time letting things go

Can be resident doom-sayers

Janitor

Janitor StrengthsUnderstands the weaknesses in your systems

Really good at bandaids

Able to do a lot with a little

Janitor WeaknessesCan often resort to cleaning manually instead of automating

Often gets stuck down in the weeds

Resistant to change

Rockstars

Janitors

Builders

Rockstars

Janitors

Builders

Organic == Good?

Greater Mobility, Okay?

• They get stuck

• They get stuckThey get tunnel vision

Current State of Tech

117 responses

47.9% Currently Rockstars

55.2% Want to be Rockstars

CurrentlyBuilders

35.3%Want to beBuilders

32.5% CurrentlyJanitors

Want to beJanitors

32.5% Current State

Rockstars

Builders

Janitors

55.2% 35.3%

Preferred State

RockstarsBuilders

Janitors

70.9% of Rockstarsare Devs

58.3% ofJanitorsare Ops

54.4%54.4% ofBuildersare Devs

55% who want to be Builders are Ops

Dev OpsDev

Rockstars Builders Janitors

26.3% 26.3% thinkwork distributionon team is unfair

49.1% thinkwork distributionin company is unfair

people unhappy / not doing the work they want

can try to make something like reliability a first class citizen, but people confuse that with not changing anything, so it’s a tough sell

Focus on Reliability

can try rotating responsibilities across teams, but some teams will be better at some tasks than others, and this will evolve back into an imbalanceRotate

what to do?

What to do?

Ursula Le Guin

The Left Hand of Darkness

“No physiological habit is established, and the mother of several children

may be the father of several more.”

“Burden and privilege are shared out pretty equally; everybody has the same risk to run or choice to make. ”

Have everyone do everything

what??

That’s not what this is

Remove the Blinders

Build better56

Foster new skills

Rotate

4 engineers

1 week janitor1 week builder2 weeks rockstar

50.0% 25.0%

25.0% Proposed State

Rockstar

Builder

Janitor

55.2% 35.3%

Preferred State

RockstarsBuilders

Janitors

Technical debt

Velocity!

Productivity =

Size(TechDebt)Size(System)1 -

Griffith, C. Izurieta, H. Taffahi, and D. Claudio, “A simulation study of practical methods for technical debt management in agile software development,” in Proceedings of the 2014 winter simulation conference, Piscataway, NJ, USA, 2014, pp. 1014-1025. http://www.gregerwikstrand.com/technical-debt-reduction/

case study

Decommissioned 1,139 applications in 2013 alone

Reduced systems 7,000 to 4,200 in three years

“The Digital Transformation Symphony: When IT and Business Play in Sync” http://www.slideshare.net/capgemini/the-digital-cio

Reduced debt by €14 billion

“The Digital Transformation Symphony: When IT and Business Play in Sync” http://www.slideshare.net/capgemini/the-digital-cio

Where to start?

Ops team

firefighting

pile of sustaining work

Don’t punish your ops team for your dev team’s

SHIT TY CODE

• What are you worried about?

What could we do better?

What could we do better?What do you want to add?

devs overburdened

Rockstar tasksNew feature / tool / system

Research new projects

Demo mockups

Builder tasksImprove testingImprove service resiliency

Understand greater impact

Janitor tasksBug fixesRefactoringConfig cleanup

What could we do better?

What could we do better?What do you want to add?

32.5% Current State

Rockstars

Builders

Janitors

• Define the roles

environment

32.5% Current State

Rockstars

Builders

Janitors

55.2% 35.3%

Preferred State

RockstarsBuilders

Janitors

environmentDiscuss a better way

50.0% 25.0%

25.0% Future State

Rockstar

Builder

Janitor

Thanks!

@alicegoldfuss

This document and the information herein (including any information that may be incorporated by reference) is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as an offer, commitment, promise or obligation on behalf of New Relic, Inc. (“New Relic”) to sell securities or deliver any product, material, code, functionality, or other feature. Any information provided hereby is proprietary to New Relic and may not be replicated or disclosed without New Relic’s express written permission.

Such information may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. Any statement that is not a historical fact or refers to expectations, projections, future plans, objectives, estimates, goals, or other characterizations of future events is a forward-looking statement. These forward-looking statements can often be identified as such because the context of the statement will include words such as “believes,” “anticipates,” “expects” or words of similar import.

Actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof, and are subject to change at any time without notice. Existing and prospective investors, customers and other third parties transacting business with New Relic are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements are based on New Relic’s current assumptions, expectations, and beliefs and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and changes in circumstances that may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statement. Further information on factors that could affect such forward-looking statements is included in the filings we make with the SEC from time to time. Copies of these documents may be obtained by visiting New Relic’s Investor Relations website at ir.newrelic.com or the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

New Relic assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law. New Relic makes no warranties, expressed or implied, in this document or otherwise, with respect to the information provided.

1 https://www.flickr.com/photos/lydur/22006675124/1 https://www.flickr.com/photos/qilin/49135690116 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St_Anger_Album_Artwork.png22 https://www.flickr.com/photos/tamakisono/1490306821940 https://www.flickr.com/photos/46799485@N00/447076140943 https://www.flickr.com/photos/christinagallivan/8660375888/44 Photo by Jack Liu, 201445 https://queerscifi.com/for-readers-the-new-pronouns/49 https://www.flickr.com/photos/greencolander/320392221150 https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Woodwards_building_Vancouver_demolition_2.jpg

Image credits

53 https://www.flickr.com/photos/3059349393/8000156483/54 https://www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/4923032712/56 https://www.flickr.com/photos/moonlightbulb/8025527585/57 https://www.flickr.com/photos/dafnecholet/537420094862 https://www.flickr.com/photos/alebonvini/475765119963 https://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_see/1513268418464 https://www.flickr.com/photos/diversey/1623358150/70 https://www.flickr.com/photos/expertinfantry/71 https://www.flickr.com/photos/adambelles/5044281763/72 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/9090732482/77 https://www.flickr.com/photos/twalmsley/554571234179 https://www.flickr.com/photos/athomeinscottsdale/3279949186/80 https://www.flickr.com/photos/modofodo/14964870008/

rock stars, builders, and janitors: you're doing it wrong, new relic [futurestack16]

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