December 1, 2025

What Is SRE? Site Reliability Engineering Explained

Most companies are doing SRE wrong. Hiring SREs doesn’t make you reliable. Metrics dashboards don’t guarantee accountability. And cultural change doesn’t happen because you wrote it on a slide deck. In this episode, Duncan Mapes and Jason Ehmke push back against the misconceptions. They argue that SRE isn’t a bolt-on team but a systemic shift in how engineering works. Without shared accountability, meaningful metrics, and cultural buy-in, SRE will fail. And no, copying Google’s model isn’t the answer. If you think SRE is just a headcount play, this episode will challenge everything you believe. Got a different perspective? Drop us a review, share your comments, and send your toughest SRE questions our way.