Episode 2 - Building Resilient Skillset for the Work of Tomorrow

In this episode with return guest David Leigh, we explore one of the most important pillars of Season 3: how learning transforms systems—and more specifically, how resilience is built not through tools or processes alone, but through the interplay of diverse perspectives, psychological safety, and evolving mental models. What begins with a playful callback to David’s earlier storytelling episode quickly becomes a deep and wide‑ranging conversation about: Why resilience is fundamentally about preparing for the unexpected How mental models age, erode, and become outdated—and why acknowledging that is a strength The power of diverse representation in incident response Why psychological safety is the foundation for resilient socio‑technical systems How practices like pre‑mortems and tabletop exercises build cultural readiness The limitations of automation, metrics, and “preventing recurrence” mindsets And why learning is not simply knowledge acquisition, but a force that shapes systems themselves David shared stories, examples, and insights that apply equally to engineering teams, organizations, and society.  

In this unique episode, we sit down with Dr. Jane Goodyer, Dean of the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University and a global leader in reimagining engineering education. From her inspiring personal journey to pioneering Canada’s first fully work-integrated digital technologies degree, Jane shares how academia and industry can collaborate to prepare graduates for the ever-changing world of work. We explore: What “work-integrated learning” really means and why it matters. How resilience, curiosity, and empathy are critical skills for tomorrow’s engineers. The role of psychological safety and active learning in shaping future talent. Why continuous learning and breaking down silos between education and industry is essential. Whether you’re an SRE, an educator, or a lifelong learner, this conversation will challenge how you think about skills, adaptability, and preparing for the unexpected.   Things to listen for: Jane’s Origin Story Her working-class background and early challenges. How resilience shaped her journey. Work-Integrated Learning Explained Why it’s more than internships or co-ops. Active vs. passive learning and why doing matters. Resilience for the Future of Work Why adaptability and psychological safety are essential. Soft Skills as Hard Skills Empathy, communication, curiosity, and self-awareness. Industry-Academia Collaboration The Trailblazer process and what employers really want. Continuous Learning Beyond Graduation Breaking silos between education and work. Advice for Engineers Be curious, brave, and true to your values.

Season 3 of Making of the SRE Omelette is here - and it’s all about resilience. Resilience isn’t just about surviving outages. It’s about building systems and cultures that adapt, learn, and thrive under pressure. In our kickoff episode, we sit down with Dr. Jennifer Petoff, co-editor of Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems and leader of Google’s Global SRE Education. Jennifer shares why resilience starts with people, not just technology—and how psychological safety and confidence are the secret ingredients for reliability at scale. You’ll learn: * How to scale learning like a production system * Why postmortem culture drives improvement * How to apply SRE principles beyond infrastructure If you’ve ever wondered how to make reliability a business advantage, this episode is for you.   Check out How to SRE Anything here: https://www.reliablepgm.com/how-to-sre-anything/   Topics: * Origins of SRE and Education at Google How Google scaled SRE education globally. Why education is treated like a production system (repeatable, reliable, measurable). * Psychological Safety and Learning Why psychological safety is critical for resilience. Creating environments where teams can share mistakes without fear of blame. How this accelerates learning and reliability. * Hands-On Experience as a Learning Model Importance of experiential learning (e.g., game days, simulations). Why theory alone isn’t enough for building confidence under pressure. * Scaling Knowledge Across Large Organizations Strategies Google uses to scale SRE principles globally. Balancing standardization with flexibility for local teams. * Resilience Beyond Reliability How resilience differs from reliability. Building adaptive systems and teams that thrive through adversity. * Culture as a Foundation Why culture is the “secret ingredient” for successful SRE adoption. Encouraging curiosity and collaboration across roles. * Future of SRE Education Trends in learning for distributed teams. How continuous education supports evolving reliability practices.

The conclusion of the two part crossover podcast series explores the intersection of AI with sustainable IT operations featuring Jerry Cuomo from The Art of AI and Kevin Yu from Making of the SRE Omelette. The discussion delves into practical measures for more efficient energy use in AI systems, emphasizing the need for data and the analysis of past behavior to inform energy-efficient decision-making. Jerry and Kevin highlight the importance of balancing AI and human inputs to achieve meaningful tasks and improve overall quality of products. Discuss challenges such as right-sizing compute and recognize the pivotal role of data in addressing these issues, advocating for a data-driven approach to answer critical questions and provide necessary context for decision-making. Additionally, the conversation touches on the future of AI and sustainable IT operations, emphasizing the need for diverse perspectives and the integration of SRE and sustainability as standard practices in software development. The podcast aims to provide a better understanding of how AI intersects with sustainable IT operations and how innovation can be approached responsibly. Please be sure to catch Part 1 on Jerry's Art of AI podcast.

Mike Hollinger, Master Inventor, CTO for Applied AI & Distinguished Engineer for Maximo Application Suite talks about how we can leverage operational insights from assets, facilities and infrastructure to drive clean energy transition and decarbonization. Mike shares stories from customers that showcases successes as well as challenges they faced. Mike have a call to action to inspire Site Reliability Engineers to embrace the data and capabilities we have at our fingertips today to turn data into action to achieve the sustainable future. Things to listen for: [02:20 - 03:25] Mike's career path that led to his current role [03:59 - 05:47] Meaning of sustainability to Mike [07:56 - 10:06] Sustainability movement over last few years [10:18 - 11:41] Importance of driving action from data [12:04 - 15:45] Challenges in Facilities and Assets [16:28 - 18:07] Civil Infrastructure example that drive action from data [20:40 - 22:19] What Mike considers as success [22:50 - 23:39] Importance of driving action from data [26:06 - 29:34] Suggestion for c-suite executives to take action [30:15 - 34:24] Call to action for SREs [38:32 - 41:03] Mike's ingredient & recipe for a Sustainable Future

Have you struggled to convince others of your idea? Be it to tackle a reliability problem or a sustainability challenge. In this episode, I have a conversation with Danny Fontaine - host of the Podcast Pitch Master on how to pitch SRE and Sustainability ideas. Danny shared one of his favorite stories - the origin of the elevator pitch to get us started - and continued with many others including how he changed the paradigm of a customer by surprising them with a fictional scenario and won the deal. Listen in as Danny transforms how you think about presenting and help you persuade others of your ideas. Things to listen for: [02:01 - 03:16] Danny pitching himself [06:48 - 09:28] Meaning of pitching [12:24 - 16:39] The origin story of the elevator pitch [16:54 - 18:57] How Danny get ready for pitching [21:44 - 27:32] Pitching for Sustainability [28:38 - 32:52] Pitching against detractors [34:31 - 37:42] Pitching for head of IT vs. Business [38:23 - 40:04] Danny's ingredient and recipe for pitching

Design transforms the human experience with technology - including the experience for Site Reliability Engineers. And enduring Sustainable results are only achieved when we consider Sustainability in the entire solution life cycle beginning with Design. In this episode, I have a conversation with Erin Buonomo, Executive Director of Design and Chris Hammond, Distinguished Designer of IBM Sustainability Software on how the SRE discipline can embrace Design for a better experience for Site Reliability Engineers and clients we support - as well as how we partner up to achieve our Sustainability goals. Erin & Chris encourages the SRE practitioners to introduce ourselves into dialogs everyday. To be that extra leg on the stool, to not only share our perspectives of achieving Sustainable goals, but also to educate others of the practice of SRE. The goal is to achieve "Sustainability Consciousness" - where it is part of everyday decisions, how we do business and part of our culture. Things to listen for: [03:37 - 04:58] Reason for having the conversation between SRE & Design [05:40 - 09:23] Meaning of Sustainability to Chris & Erin [09:49 - 15:48] AS-IS state [16:06 - 21:09] How we get to the TO-BE state [21:33 - 25:36] How do we know we have arrived at this future? [25:59 - 28:57] How SRE can partner w/ Design [32:35 - 34:55] Erin & Chris' ingredient & recipe to embrace design for a sustainable future

If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. This applies to SRE as well as Sustainability. Salil Narayanan - CTO of Envizi captures what it takes to start the Sustainability journey by taking action from reporting. Salil had the foresight of carbon footprint impact management back in 2003 and co-founded Omni Meta - which became Envizi. He shares stories over the past 20 years in this space, tips to good visibility and how legislatures have influenced the industry. Salil also gives a call to action for Site Reliability Engineers and all practitioners on embracing the entrepreneurial spirit to drive value for customers and businesses we support. Things to listen for: [01:19 - 04:37] Salil's journey to the CTO role [06:42 - 08:58] Biggest challenge faced by customers [11:19 - 14:49] Step after getting data [14:57 - 16:40] Action on the data [17:13 - 19:21] Meaning of Sustainability in the context of SRE [19:31 - 21:05] Sustainability as it relates to energy footprint and efficiency [21:39 - 22:49] Stories from the field [24:06 - 26:27] Embrace entrepreneurial spirit for SRE [27:07 - 27:55] Salil's ingredient and recipe to turn reporting into actions

Rishi Vaish, VP and CTO of IBM Sustainability Software takes us through Sustainability by the Numbers to give us context and scope of the impact of climate change and why we need to act now. Rishi also gives concrete examples of what we can do to make a difference. In addition, he has a call to action for Site Reliability Engineers - from questions to get us to think of sustainability from the start, as well as considerations to be more sustainable from our roles. For example: what is your take on sustainability as it relates to energy footprint and efficiency? do you know how many of your development environments are running when no-one is using it? Things to listen for: [02:04 - 03:05] What sustainability means to Rishi [03:21 - 07:33] Sustainability by the Numbers [08:02 - 09:06] Was there an aha moment for companies to act now? [10:42 - 11:38] Carrot and Stick [12:01 - 14:34] Call to Action - Infrastructure footprint opportunities [18:16 - 19:51] Call to Action - Hardware opportunities [21:33 - 23:55] Call to action - development environment opportunities [24:37 - 25:57] How to get started - for CSO [26:10 - 27:35] Guidance for Site Reliability Engineers [28:02 - 29:08] Rishi's Omelette Recipe

Sustainability is no longer just an ambition, over the last few years, we’re starting to see companies actively doing things and changing their behaviours to be more sustainable. Suzanne Livingston, VP of Development & Reliability Engineering at IBM Sustainability Software takes the audience through the journey of building a solution that is reliable and sustainable from day one. She also shares insights on why Sustainability is the focus of companies today, success stories with customers she has worked with and what IBM is doing to help their customers to achieve sustainability goals. Lastly, Suzanne gives practical advices on how companies and organization can get started right away and take steps closer to realizing their sustainability goals. Things to listen for [01:48 - 03:44] Suzanne's role [04:09 - 11:00] What sustainability means to Suzanne [11:38 - 15:11] Why now? [15:29 - 21:39] How IBM is helping companies to achieve their sustainability goals [22:13 - 24:09] How to get started [25:01 - 28:38] How to drive innovation in sustainability [29:11 - 30:02] Suzanne's ingredient and recipe for companies to achieve their sustainability goals