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It really is nebulous. My title is DevOps. I do a lot of SysAdmin work, but I also work escalated tickets, write automation and integrations, read the flagship code bases when errors occur, I complain about the flagship code bases when bugs occur, and I file JIRA tickets about the flagship code bases when bugs occur -- but I do not write code for the flagship product. I think that is a key.

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> but I do not write code for the flagship product. I think that is a key.

Basically you clean up after big-shot devs, got it.

I like to describe it as "we are the helper elves helping Santa deliver presents"

That view of the development process is a bit reductive, I'm not sure the dev working on fixing a regression on some crusty, old, ugly, but contractually maintained branch of the product considers itself to be a big shot. But that's where most of the money comes from, so that's where this function has to act. Maintenance caused by unprovoked changes is not the lot of any single person or job in the company, it is in fact probably the most common facet of any tech job.

Sounds dreadfully similar to what sysadmins were doing 15 years ago.

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