Some reflections after putting 10,000 hours into DevOps engineering. From my early adolescence doing sysadmin work, customizing my Arch Linux installation, to running a server in the closet of my college dorm (narrator: it was loud, and my email rarely delivered), to working on open-source DevOps at Google — I’ve probably put in many more hours. It’s hard to tell how many of those counted as Malcolm Gladwell’s “deliberate practice,” but these are the lessons learned nonetheless. (Also see my more general