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I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

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Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#61

Post by antonvs »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #45
jeron wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

devops means a lot of different things to different people

If you are a “DevOps engineer” - how is what you are doing any different from operations folk 25 years ago if you aren’t working with developers and embedded into their teams?

Why are you assuming that devops engineers aren’t embedded in development teams?

The problem you’re suffering from is assuming that the limited range of situations you’re familiar with is the same as what everyone else is doing.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#63

Post by chopete3 »

Solution Engineering is a highly sought after role in startups and growth companies. It is an important role in established enterprises too but it won't be seen as an IP role. It is a great escape career path for engineers from pay scale change perspective. The author didn't touch upon that part but there was certainly a big salary increase.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#64

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

antonvs wrote: post #59
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not about just a manifesto, at the startup I worked for before getting into consulting 6 years ago - cloud + app dev - it was much more affective for the team who did the work, to create their own IAC based on a standard. What’s the difference between a “DevOps team” in 2026 than “operations” in 2001?

The difference is what they do. Assisting other teams with creating fully automated build and test pipelines. Managing infrastructure using automated systems. Identifying issues in production systems that other teams should look at, down to a level of granularity that wasn’t really possible in 2001. > affective You mean “effective”.

It very much was possible in 2001. In 2001 we automated updating and automating our 15 or so Windows job runners with Perl and the Win32:: module.

No large enterprise by 2001 was walking up to individual PCs and updating computers by walking around and sticking CDs/DVDs in each computer and they were definitely making sure our on prem SQL Server and later MySQL database wasn’t having issues using dashboards and alerts.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#65

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

antonvs wrote: post #61
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a “DevOps engineer” - how is what you are doing any different from operations folk 25 years ago if you aren’t working with developers and embedded into their teams?

Why are you assuming that devops engineers aren’t embedded in development teams? The problem you’re suffering from is assuming that the limited range of situations you’re familiar with is the same as what everyone else is doing.

Rule #1 is never make assumptions about anyone on the internet…

In the past 8 years I’ve led the architecture of a startup - cloud + app dev. Then spent almost 4 years working at AWS ProServe involved with large cloud + app dev “cloud application modernization” projects and now 2 years doing the same as a staff level consultant at a 3rd party consulting firm. I think I’ve seen my fair share of how large private companies, startups, government organizations and colleges work.

A lot of my projects pre AI involved bringing modern DevOps practices to an organization - convincing operations to use IAC and best practices and have them more embedded into the dev teams.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#66

Post by k__ »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #42

> Part of it was repetition. My days had become predictable: check the dashboards, respond to tickets, debug whatever broke overnight, push some Terraform, go home. Maintain the HashiCorp Vault clusters, manage the secrets pipelines, answer the same support questions. Repeat. The work that used to feel engaging had become routine. This isn’t “DevOps”. This is “IT Support”. But honestly, if you aren’t embedded into a…

Yeah.

In most companies, IT people just started coding and called it DevOps.

Still better than IT folks who refuse to code.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#67

Post by k__ »

Some people mentioned to me that going Solutions Engineer was a good way to get more non-technical/business skills.

I saw a few SEs starting their own companies later, seemingly because their SE roles "trained" them for the business side of things.

I considered doing this myself; however, I'm a freelance software engineer and technical writer. More a jack of all trades than someone with major skills in one category of software engineering.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#68

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

k__ wrote: post #66
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #42

> Part of it was repetition. My days had become predictable: check the dashboards, respond to tickets, debug whatever broke overnight, push some Terraform, go home. Maintain the HashiCorp Vault clusters, manage the secrets pipelines, answer the same support questions. Repeat. The work that used to feel engaging had become routine. This isn’t “DevOps”. This is “IT Support”. But honestly, if you aren’t embedded into a…

Yeah. In most companies, IT people just started coding and called it DevOps. Still better than IT folks who refuse to code.

Smart IT people were automating things with Perl and later Powershell since I started professionally working in Windows shops in 2000.

Before that I was working on DEC VAX machines where IT was using DCL.

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#69

Post by bstsb »

side note, i absolutely love Infisical’s self-hosted offering. it’s really easy to get set up with and aside from a few minor problems with their Universal Auth, i had it working in production in just a few days. it’s made secret management a lot easier, especially across different environments!

i’m aware that there are limits on the free plan, but as a single user i haven’t hit any crazy restrictions

Re: I spent 5 years in DevOps – Solutions engineering gave me what I was missing

#70

Post by virgilp »

falloutx wrote: post #11
ikjasdlk2234 wrote: post #2

My path went from engineering-aligned (math) to engineering management back to engineering to product to program management to solutions engineering to account executive. Honestly I had a negative connotation about sales for most of my career, but turns out I really love it. The exposure to different problems every day is awesome and more like a puzzle than work to me. I feel a bit of reverse imposter syndrome though…

Sales is amazing but if your companies sales people require engineering to build POCs a lot of the times or always have to sell some custom solutions, then it wastes a lot of resources and it usually indicates the company is losing product market fit.

I'm wondering about that. I think with the advent of AI, we might see a new kind of successful software company - one that doesn't sell a single solution to many customers, but instead has the building blocks, prompts (agents skills etc) & processes to quickly build very custom solutions for each customer - using a new blend of engineers that are not exactly "customer support" nor traditional "sw eng", but more around the emerging "forward-deployed engineer" role.
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