Name: Anastasia Kondratieva
Role:  Site Reliability Engineer
Company: Latency

Tell a bit about your background and the journey that brought you to tech.

Tech was never something I had on my radar. Translation seemed like the path to take as someone who spoke three languages. However, when I was 29, I was tired of the job and the instability of this sector, so I decided to flip my life around. My boyfriend was working as System Administrator at that point, and that’s how I learned that the Tech sector had something more than coding (which never attracted me).
I started researching and discovered many things I gravitated towards within System Administration. I had no prior knowledge but decided it was a “now or never” situation. I started studying Linux System Administration full-time and did that for a few months while my earnings allowed me to.
Long story short: a few months into the pandemic, I got my first job in tech as a SysAdmin Trainee in a big company! Later, in December of 2020, my first “good” job in tech came when I had a chance to join a super cool company as Junior SRE. For over two years, I honed my skills in Clarity AI, and just about four months ago, I got a proposal from Latency: build all the AWS infrastructure of a new startup all by myself! Initially terrified, I hesitated to say yes, but it was worth it. During all these years, I never stopped learning and studying as I felt more and more passionate about my job.
Right now, I am fortunate to work in an exciting early-stage company with a clear goal. I work remotely as part of a fantastic team, I can see how a tech product is built, and I can contribute to its growth.

Tell me about your current role (and if relevant for explaining your role, tell us about your company). Think about how you’d explain it to someone unfamiliar with it.

SRE is short for Site Reliability Engineering, and it’s a complex and relatively new role that first appeared in Google. We are in charge of a platform (web, webapp, app…). We aim to make it stable, scalable, secure, and reliable. Many say that SRE is the practical application of the DevOps philosophy, and I usually describe it as “modern System Administration.”
An SRE is in charge of the infrastructure of a company, and considering the size of any tech company infrastructure, it’s a complex role covering a vast tech stack: cloud, CI/CD, IaC, containers, system administration, programming skills etc.

Scaling brings SREs unique challenges; I used to work in a startup that has grown from 70 to 270 employees in less than two years. Our main clients were our engineering team, so we had to work hard to keep up with the changes. 

Now I have a different challenge: build the foundations of a new company from the infrastructure up. We are a big data company, and I am in charge of positioning us in the right spot for the moment we go public with our product, especially considering our platform’s security, scalability, reliability and availability. In my day-to-day I work with AWS, I design and implement our architecture, help data and engineering teams with new capabilities, create a scalable and reliable infrastructure as code…and more!

Thinking about your journey, what advice would you give someone wanting to pursue a similar career path?

Firstly, I would assure them that infrastructure/SRE/system administration is a super exciting path inside tech, and many people (especially women) are needed here. Not everything in tech is about programming.

Secondly, I would say that the most important thing to join this sector is not your background or your prior knowledge but the desire to grow and learn. Even though becoming a self-taught person is an arduous path, if you desire to grow and learn, you will find a place in this sector, and it can be a great way to improve your life.

I would say that the most important thing to join this sector is not your background or your prior knowledge but the desire to grow and learn.

I believe one brings the learning acquired from other areas to wherever one goes, and that knowledge and life journey enriches what you’re doing today. So I wanted to ask you, do you find that your background helps you think or see things differently in your day-to-day? 

Firstly, I think my background made me a strong communicator, a critical skill when working remotely. 

Secondly, speaking three languages also expanded the number of job offers I could apply to. And last but not least, the language studies field has many things in common with programming and system administration as it focuses on optimal communication inside our infrastructure. I’m always connecting things between one and the other.

I think that people from different backgrounds make the tech sector a more diverse space and bring a “fresh” view of many things. Especially when we are not afraid to ask questions we might give our teammates a chance to rethink things and better understand why we are doing something in a particular way.

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