Software Build and Release Specialist

Just as the title states, not everyone can adapt to the demanding and unpredictable nature of a build and release engineer’s job.  We just recently hired an intern for our group to help out with the hectic build implementation tasks.  The intern in question had a website design background which I believed was thoroughly shocked when placed in the configuration management environment where good knowledge of multiple scripting and languages were needed.

The intern took it quite well initially and seemed to be treading the murky waters but looks could be deceiving.  Couple long hours with stress from the onslaught of build projects and we have a perfect gourmet ingredient for a time bomb.  Strenuous training regiments for new tools, processes, implementation details, and infrastructure management takes a heavy toll on the spirit overtime.

Time and time again, I’ve witnessed so many casualties from failed attempts of going for the prized position of Software Configuration Management Engineer.  Oftentimes its not because the lack of skills to thrive in the job, but rather a deeper sense of personal accomplishment, pride, satisfaction, and overall warm fuzzy feeling that you’ve made the development team’s lives so much easier.   But the amount of headaches an SCM must endure from unappreciative development teams/developers can be endless.  SCM Engineers don’t really need free lunches (albeit extremely grateful) from teams, we are happy if we were just acknowledged, appreciated, and/or given a nod of respect.  Anyhow, I digressed…

Back to our overworked and highly stressed intern; the person suddenly quit one day last week without giving us the courteous 2 weeks notice.  Now the already overburdened team has to pick up the slacks left by the departure.   Luckily we have a solid enough infrastructure and processes that the void left by the departed intern was quickly distributed to and covered by the rest of the team.