> DevOps is about giving Developers a dedicated System Operations job for some small fraction of their time.

No. DevOps is about the development and operations disciplines working together in a cross functional way to deliver software faster and more reliably.

In a small enough startup both disciplines may be represented by a single person, though.

I respectfully disagree. I’ve scaled these teams myself, and it’s about giving developers in a small organization the job of deploying the solution and ensuring that it runs. In larger organizations, DevOps becomes impossible and it naturally splits into Dev and Ops. It’s important to understand where it works and when it stops working to effectively manage the transition as the business grows.

> In larger organizations, DevOps becomes impossible

News to me. I work at one the biggest companies around, and our DevOps posture is pretty great, and that was achieved by cross functional teams from the historic dev and historic ops teams doing all the things that Accelerate codified.

> You can’t just hire 1 DevOps superstar though

You don't go from zero to needing global 24x7 support overnight.

Hiring 1 DevOps superstar is exactly what we did a few startups back and it worked great. Of course there was no after-hours support, it's a small startup. Eventually the team grew.

Fair enough. If you don’t need 24/7 and the bus factor risk is tolerable, then you might not need a rotation.

I’d just caution that when it comes to the mental health of the one person in this role, even if they seem like they are doing ok, check in frequently.

Good grief. First and foremost I was simplifying to make a point.

>> You can’t just hire 1 DevOps superstar

Secondly, that assertion is not necessarily true. Obviously, you should just hire 1 DevOps superstar... in some cases.

Don't nitpick and don't argue foolishly.

I’ve run DevOps and know from experience the pitfalls. I’m sorry that you’ve interpreted my general agreement and elaboration of your comment as nitpicking foolishness.

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