The structure of Thomas Khalil's team includes a platform team, a development experience team, and an observability pillar, each handling different aspects of engineering enablement.
The DevEx pillar within Thomas' team focuses on enabling and unblocking other teams, promoting reusability and improving convergence levels to increase productivity and make developers' lives easier.
Deep dives
Overview of the Team and Structure
Thomas Khalil, the head of platform at SRE at Chavago, discusses the structure of his team, which includes a platform team responsible for Cloud Landing Zone tenant management, a development experience team focused on tooling and documentation, and an observability pillar handling metrics and logging.
Failed Attempt at Rolling Out Spotify Backstage
Thomas shares insights on their unsuccessful rollout of Spotify Backstage, attributing the failure to timing and lack of customer uptake. He highlights the importance of readiness and customer value in determining the success of such initiatives.
Measurement of Team Impact
Thomas discusses the metrics used to measure the impact of his team, including cost of incidents, happiness and retention of the team, and feedback from internal surveys. He highlights the importance of celebrating wins and setting achievable goals to keep the team motivated.
Focus on DevX and Guidance
The DevEx pillar within Thomas' team focuses on enabling and unblocking other teams. They provide guidance and support in various ways, such as responding to pull requests, offering subject matter expertise, and helping with greenfield projects. The team aims to improve convergence levels and promote reusability to increase productivity and make developers' lives easier.
Thomas Khalil, Head of Platform and SRE at Trivago, describes how the teams reporting into him are structured, the tactics they’re using to increase awareness of their work, and how they demonstrate their impact.
Discussion points:
(1:17) The pillars of the Central Platform organization
(2:18) The organization’s focus on time to market and efficiency
(3:09) The differences in developer experience between teams
(4:37) Deciding whether to consolidate services
(5:57) How platform, developer experience, observability, and SRE teams interact
(8:40) How these problems were being tackled previously
(10:09) A failed attempt at rolling out Backstage
(13:48) How SRE squads are organized
(15:39) How to motivate platform teams
(17:23) Demonstrating the impact of the organization
(18:42) How the data is collected
(22:32) How they’re increasing awareness for their work
(23:42) The DevEx pillar
(25:46) How the DevEx roadshow will work
(27:56) How DORA metrics fit into their measurement program
Mentions and links: Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn
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