Mar 4th 2021

Life of a Site Reliability Engineer With Tommy

Name: Tommy
Title: Staff Site Reliability Engineer
Department: Engineering Team

Tell us what you do here at Vungle, and what your typical day is like.

For me, as an early bird, the first thing I do in the morning is rewarding myself with a cup of coffee, then going through emails, task reports, and a to-do list to prepare for the later works. Our first shift of the day starts at 7 a.m. If I’m on call, then a fair amount of time I would spend on going through the handover brief from the previous shift, following up on any open incidents (if any), and fixing them. If I’m not on the first shift for the day, assigned tasks would be my top priority, followed by planning for new projects, and then improving the system in general. It doesn’t sound much fun, but boring is good for infrastructure reliability!

What was unexpected about working at Vungle?

The maturity of the process. I came from a startup environment, so being able to work with a mature process helps me shape my discipline and stay focused on delivering quality results.

What makes your work meaningful?

To me, the quality of work is reflected in how good the initial plan is and how well it’s executed, which are the two things the site reliability engineering team sees as core values. Being able to provide a reliable setup, reusable codebase, and informative documentation are some of the things that would benefit not only our team but the overall engineering team in general, both from day-to-day execution and also in the long-term.

What’s your favorite memory about working here so far?

Back in the early days when I just joined, I remember that we were in fire-fighting mode nearly all the time. Then, slowly, the application teams, along with the site reliability engineering team, worked closely to improve the system bit by bit, so that we have a better foundation today.
I also remember a time where the team and I worked for 12-14 hours a day for two weeks to deliver an important feature, and it was a good success and brought meaningful impact to the business as a whole.

What would you tell people who are considering joining Vungle?

A lot of things to learn in Vungle. Oftentimes, it means getting out of your comfort zone. Also, there would be sweat and tears. But if you try your best, the outcome will be fruitful and your effort would be well-rewarded.