The Reliability Rebels Podcast explores making software and systems more reliable by challenging the status quo. We sometimes have to challenge past decisions, existing technology, and even company culture when improving how we run production. This podcast will explore real-life examples from our guests and reveal insights and techniques applicable to your career and team. Intended audience- humans in the tech industry, especially software engineers and their leaders, product managers, and DevOps/Site Reliability Engineering practitioners.
Gilles Chehade- IT architect, long-time OpenBSD contributor, creator of OpenSMTPD, and co-founder of the open source backup platform Plakar- joins the show to talk about the reliability problem nobody wants to own: your data. Why replication and eleven nines of durability aren't backups, and why the restore is the only part that actually counts. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/gilles-chehade.html.
12 Jul 2026
Episode 14: Stephen Roylance
Stephen Roylance, a systems and information infrastructure engineer with 30 years across health care, e-commerce, and big tech (including time alongside Amin in Meta Production Engineering), joins the show to cut through the AI hype-vs-bubble debate with a practitioner's take on using AI effectively in SRE- without repeating the mistakes of past infrastructure hype cycles. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/stephen-roylance.html.
1 Jun 2026
Episode 13: Stephen Townshend
Stephen Townshend, host of Slight Reliability and Team Lead for SRE & DevOps at BlueCurrent, joins Amin to talk about mental health in tech- anxiety, burnout, and why leaders who do the inner work make the industry less stressful for everyone around them. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/stephen-townshend.html.
5 May 2026
Episode 12: Amin Astaneh
In this special episode, the tables are turned — host Amin Astaneh becomes the guest. Stephen Townshend, host of Slight Reliability, interviews Amin about rebuilding his life as a nomad: traveling North America, living out of a pickup truck, and running his business from the road. A personal conversation about freedom, simplicity, and the human side of a life in tech. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/amin-astaneh.html.
8 Apr 2026
Episode 11: Sylvain Kalache
AI agents are triaging incidents and writing runbooks- but are LLMs actually the right tool for operational work? Sylvain Kalache, Head of AI Labs at Rootly, shares research on where AI SRE tools add real value, where they fall apart, and what it means for operational maturity when humans only see the hardest problems. Guest: Sylvain Kalache, Head of AI Labs at Rootly (https://rootly.com). Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/sylvain-kalache.html.
10 Mar 2026
Episode 10: Kyle Forster
Explores the 'AI code tsunami' and how massive, AI-generated code changes are forcing engineering teams to rethink traditional code reviews, observability, and the future of SRE roles. The conversation highlights a shift toward treating test environments like production and using narrowly scoped AI agents to manage system reliability, guided by simplified, binary SLIs and SLOs. Guest: Kyle Forster, founder and CEO of RunWhen (https://runwhen.com). Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/kyle-forster.html.
14 Dec 2025
Episode 9: Jon Reeve
Discusses the 'complexity cult' of the current observability industry, how the open-source TUI tool Gonzo can reveal infrastructure insights using novel use of LLMs for sentiment analysis, and the vision of more accessible observability experiences for software engineers. Guest: Jon Reeve, founder and CPO of ControlTheory (controltheory.com). Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/jon-reeve.html.
29 Oct 2025
Episode 8: Aaron 'Checo' Pacheco
Explores monitoring and observability evolution, examining how observability costs now consume 15-25% of infrastructure budgets with Aaron Pacheco from Ottermon.ai. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/aaron-pacheco.html.
7 Sept 2025
Episode 7: Sebastian Vietz
Discusses how naming conventions shape industry perceptions, with focus on AI SRE terminology with Sebastian Vietz from Compass Digital. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/sebastian-vietz.html.
13 Jul 2025
Episode 6: Chris Evans
Explores whether automation through AI actually reduces toil or just shifts it elsewhere with Chris Evans from Incident.io. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/chris-evans.html.
31 Mar 2025
Episode 5: Derek Brown
Compares infrastructure management at large tech companies versus smaller organizations with Derek Brown from Plaid. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/derek-brown.html.
14 Mar 2025
Episode 4: Kat Gaines
Examines incident management beyond technical fixes, emphasizing communication and customer experience with Kat Gaines from PagerDuty. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/kat-gaines.html.
5 Jan 2025
Episode 3: Michael Abed
Chronicles resolving a complex production incident at Meta lasting over three days with Michael Abed from Datadog. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/michael-abed.html.
18 Nov 2024
Episode 2: Ricardo Amaro
Reflects on early DevOps initiatives at Acquia with Ricardo Amaro, who authored a chapter on ML-driven capacity planning in Seeking SRE. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/ricardo-amaro.html.
10 Nov 2024
Episode 1: Rick Gorman
Inaugural episode exploring technical debt, testing approaches, and blameless culture with software engineer Rick Gorman. Show Notes Available at https://podcast.certomodo.io/rick-gorman.html.
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