Do you expect a CEO to install an email server?

Do you expect a CEO to install an email server? Do you expect your CMO to install WordPress?

🤦 Then why do people expect Application Developers to install Kubernetes clusters? Here is why this is just wrong:

I keep hearing the following story:

🙂 Alice is a really good Application Developer. Within hours, she can produce a Python/Django application with database schema migrations and a UI. She really likes her job and is really good at it.

✨ But Alice is seeking higher ambitions. So she learns a bit of “DevOps tooling”. She learns Docker, Kubernetes and Helm. She totally understands how these tools can help her communicate better with the platform team.

😟 One of the platform engineers left. Who should take over? Alice gets an unwanted promotion. Overnight she needs to learn: Kubernetes administration, DNS, networking, storage, NetworkPolicies, Kubernetes security, various Kubernetes operators, etc.

😮‍💨 Basically, she would need to get CKA and CKS certified in her spare time. During her working hours, she is still expected to deliver “high-priority” features in Python.

😢 An incident occurs on Alice’s shift during nighttime. Not having received the necessary training, she gets stressed: “What was that kubectl command again? What do I do if a Node is NotReady? What is a default StorageClass?”

😌 Alice switches jobs and goes back to Python/Django development. She never mentions knowing Kubernetes again. Her previous org lost both a platform engineer and an application developer.

Does this story feel familiar to you?