The Future of Software Engineering is SRE

As AI makes code generation easier, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) will become the most valued skill in software development.

"The first 90% to get a working demo is easy. It's the other 190% that matters." Anyone can create a proof-of-concept, but few can operate production systems reliably.

The No-Code Cautionary Tale: an accountant's quick spreadsheet solution that saves hours weekly becomes a burden requiring constant fixes, preventing vacation time, creating operational dread.

Cites Richard Feynman's "computer disease" -- people enjoy tinkering with automation but dread the responsibility of reliably running systems at scale indefinitely.

"People don't buy software, they hire a service." Customers care about invisible reliability -- whether photos sync, documents save, or payments process -- not implementation details.

Operational excellence demands: uptime guarantees, defect identification and recovery speed, proactive issue detection, secure data handling, timezone-aware incident response, failure recovery without data loss, legal accountability.

With AI democratizing code writing, competitive advantage shifts to organizations that master operational reliability, scalability, and system stability.