One of the things I struggled with as an SRE was being able really grok what non-engineers/non-devs like my manager, whomever they reported to, and various chains in my employer’s business, cared most about when it came time to tool selections. A specific example that I will anonymize and discuss is when a past job of mine decided to migrate from Tool A to B - the decision wasn’t based on B necessarily being a superior tool for our specific technical needs, it was mostly based on other management criteria like license consolidation. Depending on the size of the employer, startup to enterprise, there are increasing numbers of non-engineering folks who have decision making power over the team’s tools. Thus, as devs, ops, etc. we cannot keep our focus on just the technical aspects of different tools and frameworks or we’ll miss the opportunity to appropriately make our case to these other stakeholders. In this talk, I’ll be discussing what these other groups need to know to help them make a decision in your best interest.

Pitch: Whether it be via merger or internal need, at some point we need to advocate for the tools we need to stakeholders who are not necessarily affiliated with engineering. In order to help with this, I'll be walking through the decision tree of how management determines "should I pay for this tool".