SRE was always about understanding; understanding data flow, understanding bottlenecks, understanding logs, understanding application architecture, understanding end user functionality, understanding break points, SLIs, SLOs. Understanding how to mitigate, gracefully deteriorate, restart, restore, recreate, scale, etc.

There is no understanding with AI-generated applications, full stop.

For the last 10 years, I don't think I met a lot of senior architects or dev who could understand all that.

Companies loves to have "specialized experts" who skilled up in one afternoon in their field. It might be different in startup, but in consulting world in relatively large enterprises, it's just a fucking joke.

What would you think of easier-to-debug infrastructure building blocks? I'm building an easier-to-debug web server and reverse proxy, and I want to know how this would compare to trying to use AI SRE agent to reduce debugging friction. Or maybe both complement each other?

idk, I develop a lot of connected systems: Pis, Macs, lights, Google speakers, custom ESP32 boards. Understanding the capabilities and communication methods to pool them together is still very much part of what I do. If you're thinking one prompt -> production via AI, sure. But I don't think we are anywhere near that because there are so many moving pieces which still require human sign off: legal, design, QA, etc. To me, it just shift ups the level of understanding rather than replaces it.

Agree up to certain levels but your examples are too specifc.

Understanding should come in different levels abstraction of what you are building,and managing.

There are different levels SREs, from beginner to say Fellow level.

Do you expect the Fellow level to understand nitty gritty details of each component his apps or services are interacting with and how each of them start? No. Especially when they have to deal with hundres or thousands of services each of them hosted by different teams, orgs, or different companies.

junior SREs, yeah probably got their hands dirty with those nitty gritty details you listed because they tend to deal with smaller or lower levels of components

So my point is, I agree withyour "Understanding" but not specific details as they differ per one's level of experience

Have the AI explain it to you. You probably won't understand it as well as if you created it yourself, but there is (the potential for) lots of understanding.

The same understanding most of the devs lack because they aren't.... curious. And thus, why they aren't SREs.

> There is no understanding with AI-generated applications, full stop.

Full slop, you mean.