Tell us about yourself.
My name is Pablo Fredrikson and I’m a Staff Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) at Split. I’ve been working in this field for 15 years and I have plenty of experience in fast-paced, fast-growing startups. I also really enjoy teaching the things I learn every day on my YouTube channel!
How did you hear about Split and what made you choose to work here?
Someone that watches my Youtube channel and works at Split contacted me about a job with Split. After a few interviews and meeting people, I got an offer!
I think what made me choose this job was the opportunity to apply my previous experience in Split. Split is a young company that’s growing extremely fast, and I love the idea of being able to help guide the company in the right direction.
Tell us about what you do at Split.
I make sure developers are able to push their code and release their features to production, quickly and securely. Additionally, I make sure that our infrastructure runs efficiently and follows the best practices.
I’ve taken on the role of Chapter Lead. So every week I meet with my fellow leads and we discuss the projects each team is working on. We make sure everyone is doing their part following the best practices. We also work to improve the experience of our engineers. For example, right now we are working on a project that will help reduce incidents and alerts across all of our teams. We want our engineers and customers happy.
What is your favorite part of your job?
I get to play with new technologies. I also get to teach people how to use them correctly.
What challenges do you face and how do you deal with them?
Being an SRE can be overwhelming sometimes. If something is broken, then I feel a lot of pressure to fix it quickly. But if everything is running smoothly, no one tends to notice. This is something that happens everywhere. What you can do is communicate and provide more visibility into the work the team is doing. We have a monthly engineering meeting where all of the teams share updates on their new and exciting projects!
What are the career growth opportunities for an SRE?
I really like being an SRE because you get to learn and experience all of the different engineering processes that can run within a company. This can help you grow in basically any direction. I really like the technical side, so my path has always been to keep playing with technical tools and apply my experience to company-wide processes.
What does your team do and what’s it like to be on your team?
Our team makes sure that our infrastructure is working properly at all times. We also create developer tools that can help them do their job more efficiently. At the same time, we debug issues that can occur at any given time. When engineers run into issues and have questions, we help engineers get the answers they need. Sometimes, we have to stay on a call for several hours until we get to the root cause of a problem. Then we have to move fast to fix the problem, and ensure that it doesn’t happen again.
What does your typical day look like at Split? Tell us about your favorite moment.
My day usually starts with taking my kid to school. When I get back to my home office, I grab a cup of coffee and make my way to my desk. While I enjoy my cup of coffee, I’m also making sure that everything is up and running!
I like to spend some time keeping informed on new technologies online. I check CVEs (security reports) to make sure our systems are not vulnerable to attacks. Additionally, I might be answering questions about deployments, good practices, or a potential production issue. Then, after lunch, we have a daily standup where we discuss the projects we’re working on and we often sync up on the things we might need from each other.
After that, probably a few more meetings with other teams or leads to sync on the projects the entire company is working on! If we are not in meetings, we may be working on coding some new tool that will make our lives easier. For example, recently we coded a tool that automatically upgrades our Kubernetes clusters. This took us a few days. But now with the new tool, upgrading clusters only takes us a few minutes.
How have you stayed engaged in a remote environment?
Daily sync ups are important. Communication is the most important thing while working remotely. Sometimes, when we need to fix a problem that’s taking too long, we join a video call and try to tackle it together. Having a fresh pair of eyes is always helpful.
What advice would you give future Splitters?
Don’t hesitate to ask questions about good practices or tools for your SRE team. Our job is to help you.
Get Split Certified
Split Arcade includes product explainer videos, clickable product tutorials, manipulatable code examples, and interactive challenges.
Switch It On With Split
Split gives product development teams the confidence to release features that matter faster. It’s the only feature management and experimentation solution that automatically attributes data-driven insight to every feature that’s released—all while enabling astoundingly easy deployment, profound risk reduction, and better visibility across teams. Split offers more than a platform: It offers partnership. By sticking with customers every step of the way, Split illuminates the path toward continuous improvement and timely innovation. Switch on a trial account, schedule a demo, or contact us for further questions.