The main reason was the YAML config file could be easily understood. Since switching things over to use OctoDNS a couple months ago we've had nearly 75 PRs to make changes, mostly internal/testing/dev, but plenty of real stuff too. I don't have an exact number, but skimming over those there's probably ~25 people who have made those PRs.

In order to make it possible for anyone at the company to make PRs, not just SRE team members, we had to minimize or eliminate the learning curve and YAML was the best option for that we could think of. In the past those 75 PRs would have instead been issues asking an engineer on the infrastructure team to make the changes. It's been a huge and positive shift.