| I spent a few years as both an SRE and a SWE at Google. I joined Google in an SRE team - prior to that, I was a developer at another company who did have a lot of operational experience. My experience is a bit dated but I can try to answer your questions as best as I can. In my case, the adjustment from SWE to SRE was not very difficult since I had done a lot of operational work before. The oncall was not very intense even though my team supported a critical product. IMO, Google handles operations and SRE much better than most other companies I have worked at. My SRE team was split between two locations in different timezones so, I never had to be woken up at night. I was also very well compensated for time spent oncall (as bonuses) which I have not seen at other companies. I don't think your lack of operational experience will hurt, if you have the learning mindset. My goal was to learn how Google operates services at scale and even with previous operational experience, I learned a lot. I had coworkers who came from a pure development background and thrived in the role. The split between operational work and project work can depend upon the team. The goal is to have a healthy balance and some teams manage this better than others. However, project work may not always involve development and it is easy to feel distanced from the user. This was one of the reasons I switched out of SRE after a few years - I felt like I wasn't coding enough and building features for users. I definitely have no regrets about being on an SRE team - I learned a lot and would consider going back to join one again. edit: for better readability |
My impression is that it's fairly easy to move around within Google. Was that your experience?
I realize that the only way I will learn if I like SRE is to actually do it. And it feels less risky (I'd probably be moving across the country) if I know that I won't be "stuck" in a role that I don't enjoy.