Production Engineering: Connect the Dots

Friday, June 08, 2018 - 3:45 pm4:10 pm

Espen Roth, Facebook Production Engineer

Abstract: 

When recruiting and onboarding new grads and others who haven't worked in site reliability, how do we build (and become) the engineers we want to work with? While seasoned engineers debug, fix issues in production, engage with clients, automate mundane tasks, and build new tools to streamline their workflows, in school new grads are mostly only taught how to build things from scratch—not support, maintain, and protect them.

In this talk, I'll share my experience and describe how Facebook has made me bring ideas and people together, not only to realize my potential, but also to make a difference at the company.

New grads have to be able to “drink from the firehose” of new information, learn by doing, and make connections throughout the company. On top of that, there's also the Production Engineering role and philosophy which has learned to embrace and grow people who haven't done exactly this type of work before. At Facebook, the goal is to have impact, while doing the things we enjoy. Connecting those two dots is the key.

Espen Roth, Facebook

Espen Roth was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and grew up in Colorado. During his time at Colorado School of Mines he interned at 3 different companies, held a job in the computer lab, and participated in multiple programming clubs and challenges. Since then, he's been a Production Engineer at Facebook in Menlo Park, California for a year and a half.

Open Access Media

USENIX is committed to Open Access to the research presented at our events. Papers and proceedings are freely available to everyone once the event begins. Any video, audio, and/or slides that are posted after the event are also free and open to everyone. Support USENIX and our commitment to Open Access.

BibTeX
@conference {214967,
author = {Espen Roth},
title = {Production Engineering: Connect the Dots},
year = {2018},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jun
}

Presentation Video 

Presentation Audio