[jchmbrln]

To answer your question, yes, this happens. The cybersec team tried to "poach" me a while back, and more recently I was asked by the VP of Cloud Operations to leave my technical lead role within engineering and become Sr. Manager of SRE (I accepted).

Speaking of which, what caught my eye in your post is the problem you identity with how SRE is usually practiced vs. what it was supposed to mean. My mandate in this new role is to update our practices and technology to make our software more reliable, and I'm shooting to accomplish that specifically by tackling that problem. In my opinion, there's a reason why the term "SRE" was coined, and it all centers around shaping the organization, _not_ the technology. In an organization with properly aligned incentives, the technology should follow. (Of course it's not entirely one or the other—tech can feed into incentives and help shape the org as well.)

I'm doing my best to carefully guard the term "SRE" here and educate people about its meaning because the ideas and philosophies it brings to the table are precisely what will allow me to deliver what I was asked. If this resonates with you or anyone reading this, send me a message. We're hiring.