The Mechanic: Interview with a Site Reliability Engineer and SDET @tutoriaLinux

Uploaded June 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

Today I'm interviewing one of my mentors (and an occasional coworker), Brian! He's a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET), former Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), former platform engineer, sysadmin, Java developer, and full-time motorcycle and car restoration/experimentation mechanic.

00:00 Intro
01:30 Brian's Background
10:00 Brian's tech philosophy
11:35 We're All Tech Mechanics
13:38 Impostor Syndrome
16:00 Abstraction is a two-edged sword
17:25 XKCD reference
17:38 Understand the Abstractions
18:45 Curiosity and Enthusiasm as Strengths
19:51 How to start in tech from scratch
24:15 Theory vs Practical Application
26:10 Current favorite tech work
28:35 All devops branding is BS
31:30 Networking for real
34:44 Advantages of middle-aged white dudes
36:30 Reach out and help good people
37:48 Skills people neglect
43:25 Future predictions for the tech world
49:01 Worse is better
51:03 Undifferentiated heavy lifting

Linode Referral Link (you get $100 credit when signing up): linode.com/tutoriallinux

Step-by-step project-based Linux course for beginners: udemy.com/course/hands-on-linux-self-hosted-wordpress-for-linux-beginners/?referralCode=19C0A7DEE2FD53C9C09D

Free Linux Sysadmin Course Playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtK75qxsQaMLZSo7KL-PmiRarU7hrpnwK

Patreon: patreon.com/tutorialinux
Official Site & e-mail list: tutorialinux.com
Twitter: twitter.com/tutorialinux
Facebook: facebook.com/tutorialinux
Podcast: kernelpanicpodcast.com

The Mechanic: Interview with a Site Reliability Engineer and SDET

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$Web Server Project 02 Setting up MySQL and PHP Heres how to get your database and interpreter set up for hosting an application on the LAMP/LEMP stack (Linux / Apache/Nginx / MySQL / PHP). This is the second of three videos about how to set up a webserver (and a WordPress blog or website on Linux). In this video, Ill show you how to install and configure a MySQL Database. Ill also show you how to set up PHP and php-fpm (our PHP interpreter and the fastcgi process manager) so that nginx can ask PHP to render pages with dynamic content for website visitors. This video is quick-and-dirty no optimization, only the most basic security precautions, etc...but it should get you started. Heres the nginx configuration file content for /etc/nginx/sites-available/{yoursite}: server { listen 80 default_server; listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on; root /usr/share/nginx/html; index index.php index.html index.htm; server_name server_domain_name_or_IP; location / { try_files $uri $uri/ =404; } error_page 404 /404.html; error_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html; location = /50x.html { root /usr/share/nginx/html; } location ~ .php$ { try_files $uri =404; fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+.php)(/.+)$; fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock; fastcgi_index index.php; fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name; include fastcgi_params; } } Full Linux Sysadmin Basics Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtK75qxsQaMLZSo7KL-PmiRarU7hrpnwK Check out my project-based Linux System Administration course (free sample videos): https://www.udemy.com/hands-on-linux-self-hosted-wordpress-for-linux-beginners/?couponCode=tl35 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tutorialinux Official Site: https://tutorialinux.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/tutorialinux Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tutorialinux$

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