A good SRE needs to understand systems, as in automation of n computers. Focusing on and prefering single system tools where you have to take manual action points to an immaturity in dealing with complex distributed systems.
However, it's a common problem and most of the folks buying complicated distributed tracing systems don't have particular skills in using them either, so your skills are valuable, even if there could be better ways to do it.
Similarly if you focus on hiring SREs who know shell commands well, you might lose more pertinent skills such as knowing what terraform is actually doing, general programming skills, CI/CD and an understanding of cloud APIs.
Horses for courses; the more we know the better. Look for both sets of skills in your teams and cross train as much as possible.
Arguably those who demonstrate understanding of low level fundamentals have the drive to understand as many layers as possible.
Capturing AWS API calls through sslproxy not only implies you know what terraform is doing but you also have a higher probability of solving difficult problems.
All code boils down to an execution layer and having inspection ability at that layer will always be valuable.
A good SRE needs to understand systems, as in automation of n computers. Focusing on and prefering single system tools where you have to take manual action points to an immaturity in dealing with complex distributed systems.
However, it's a common problem and most of the folks buying complicated distributed tracing systems don't have particular skills in using them either, so your skills are valuable, even if there could be better ways to do it.
Similarly if you focus on hiring SREs who know shell commands well, you might lose more pertinent skills such as knowing what terraform is actually doing, general programming skills, CI/CD and an understanding of cloud APIs.
Horses for courses; the more we know the better. Look for both sets of skills in your teams and cross train as much as possible.