Charity Majors frames observability as the critical sense-making apparatus for complex socio-technical systems, arguing it's the most upstream feedback loop for driving organizational change. She contends that companies are spending obscene amounts on observability tools due to increasing system complexity, yet often fail to realize its core problem: poor sense-making capabilities. Majors advocates for treating observability as a platform engineering team, not just infrastructure, emphasizing the need to manage it like an investment with both external (customer-facing) and internal (developer-facing) mandates. She presents tests to assess observability effectiveness, such as how engineers determine if their code works in production and whether they rely on tools or specific individuals for answers. The ultimate goal is to create fast feedback loops that enable rapid iteration, learning, and improvement, moving away from multiple-pillar approaches towards unified storage for structured data.
Sign in to continue reading, translating and more.
Continue
