This recap includes the following episodes and guests. 
Guest title reflects the guest's position at the time of the episode.

Recipes:

• The Origin Story 

• SRE Fundamentals

• Career Path 

• People First - The Core Ingredient

• ROI - Measuring what Matters

🍳 Getting Started with the Omelette

Welcome to the first crack at our SRE Omelette! I had the pleasure of speaking with two powerhouse voices in IBM - Ingo Averdunk, IBM Distinguished Engineer, IBM Garage for Cloud and IBM SRE profession leader, and Kareem Yusuf, now SVP, Ecosystems, Strategic Partners & Initiatives. Together, we peeled back the layers of what SRE means, how it evolved at IBM, and why it’s more than just a role—it’s a mindset, a movement, and a recipe for success.

🥘 The Origin Story 

Goal: Reframe culture as an outcome.

Ingo emphasized that SRE isn’t just about uptime—it’s about ownership. He encouraged engineers to build depth before breadth, advising, “Pick one area and go deep. Build the muscle of being able to decode the system.” That depth, he believes, is what builds confidence—and ultimately, resilience.

But he also challenged the idea that automation is the end goal. Sharing a story about a server that crashed every Monday, he noted, “If my application server dies every Monday, I could automate a restart—but the problem still exists.” True SRE and the engineering rigor we want to arrive at, he said, is about engineering the problem away, not just masking it with scripts.

🏗️ Career Path 

Goal: Create space for SREs to grow, thrive, and be recognized.

One of the most transformative decisions IBM made was to formally recognize SRE as a profession. This wasn’t just a title change—it was a cultural shift. Ingo helped lead the effort, and he speaks about it with pride. “It’s not just a role—it’s a profession with a curriculum, a roadmap, and a career path.”

This structure gave SREs a place to grow, learn, and be seen. It also helped IBM attract and retain top talent. “Ultimately,” Ingo said, “we want to attract, nurture, and retain the right skill and the right talent.” It was a recognition that SRE isn’t a temporary trend—it’s a long-term investment in people and practice.

🧑‍🍳 People First - The Core Ingredient

Goal: Center the SRE profession around human skill and collaboration.

Both episodes closed with a reflection on people and emphasized that the real secret sauce is people.

For Kareem, the most important part of building a world-class SRE function isn’t the tooling—it’s the people. “The number one ingredient,” he said, “it’s got to be people and their skills.” He spoke about the importance of meaningful work, professional pride, and creating environments where people can thrive. “Everything we do is human capital. It’s us who bring our brains to work to generate this IP every day.”

Ingo reinforced this idea, especially when it comes to incident response. “SRE is a team sport,” he said. “Knowing someone has your back at 2 a.m. matters.” It’s not just about solving problems—it’s about solving them together.

💸 ROI - Measuring What Matters

Goal: Define success through outcomes, not just uptime.

Kareem also tackled the tough topic of prioritization. His framework? Time, cost, and quality. But he added a twist: “Features are useless if customers cannot use them meaningfully to get their work done.”

Ingo added that while metrics like MTTR and automation rates are useful, they’re not the whole story. “You need to find good performance indicators that measure velocity, quality, and efficiency,” he explained. Because in the end, SRE isn’t just about keeping systems up—it’s about helping teams move faster, build better, and deliver more value.

💬 🥄 Stir the Pan: Let’s Talk About It

Here are a few questions to spark deeper conversations with your team or community:

1. 🧩 How do you define the boundaries of SRE in your organization - where does it start and stop?

2. 🧠 How do you personally define the ROI of reliability work in your organization?

3. 🧪 If SRE is a team sport, what role do you play—and how can you support your teammates better?