> Ah, and the SRE team assembled themselves, hired themselves, decided what to work on, direction, technology, plans, etc all on their own?
And you think the CEO did this? No - hiring managers and directors decided it was necessary.
> This is beyond naïve
Not at all. Who decides what the product needs? Product Managers, or sometimes Engineers directly. “Setting company direction” is vague at best, and can easily be replaced by people in more direct contact with customers.
And in any case, you made my point by agreeing things would hum along for some time. Executives are not critical to a company. Workers are. Without workers, profit immediately goes to $0 (modulo automated factories / SaaS, but as mentioned once something breaks, you again need people).
You seem to believe that workers are incapable of autonomy, of seeing needs and meeting them, etc. This is why Scrum exists, because people like you don’t think people like me can be trusted to do what’s necessary to keep things running.
> No - hiring managers and directors decided it was necessary.
Where did the hiring managers come from? Poofed out of nowhere?
How did they know what to hire? Just made up their own direction?
This would be like if a McDonald's line cook could just decide the company no longer will offer the Big Mac because they don't like making it.
This line of thinking is so typical for a developer. You even reference Scrum like that means anything in the areas we're discussing. But even in that setting, how do you think Product Owners know what things to prioritize? They're just making it up as they go?
> Where did the hiring managers come from? Poofed out of nowhere?
Now you're talking about founders, which is !=== CEO. I have respect for founders - they built something. If the founder happens to still be the CEO, then same. If instead it's just yet another suit, then no, they had nothing to do with the hiring manager.
> How did they know what to hire? Just made up their own direction?
I mean, yeah? Do you think that everyone under the CEO is a helpless infant, incapable of independent thought?
> You even reference Scrum like that means anything in the areas we're discussing.
Because they stem from the same line of thinking - that workers must be managed, lest they wander aimlessly and destroy the company.
> This line of thinking is so typical for a developer.
Two fun facts: I'm not a dev (SRE/DBRE), and tech is not where I gained this line of thinking. I spent a decade as a nuclear reactor operator on a fast-attack submarine. Submariners in general are taught to be independent, and fully capable of taking over someone else's duties when necessary. Nuclear-trained personnel, even more so, and those who actually operate the reactor (me) yet more.
Could a submarine leave port without the Captain? Ideally not (and the Navy would never let it happen if they had a choice), but we are absolutely trained to do so. Hurricane prep during in-port periods mostly consists of making sure the duty section are the good ones, because if it hits, whoever is on the boat is going to start her up _real fast_, take her out, and submerge. A $2 billion warship is entrusted to a skeleton crew of personnel because we know what we're doing.
It's worth noting that Google - who invented SRE - heavily borrowed from the Nuclear Navy [0].
And you think the CEO did this? No - hiring managers and directors decided it was necessary.
> This is beyond naïve
Not at all. Who decides what the product needs? Product Managers, or sometimes Engineers directly. “Setting company direction” is vague at best, and can easily be replaced by people in more direct contact with customers.
And in any case, you made my point by agreeing things would hum along for some time. Executives are not critical to a company. Workers are. Without workers, profit immediately goes to $0 (modulo automated factories / SaaS, but as mentioned once something breaks, you again need people).
You seem to believe that workers are incapable of autonomy, of seeing needs and meeting them, etc. This is why Scrum exists, because people like you don’t think people like me can be trusted to do what’s necessary to keep things running.