Breaking distributed systems for fun and profit | Kyle Kingsbury (Jepsen)

Well-known for his insightful and meticulous write-ups on testing distributed systems, Kyle (aka Aphyr) joins the show to chat about the origins of Jepsen, how he built a business around testing distributed systems, his writing process, favorite databases, and more. Segments: (00:00:00) Intro Highlight (00:03:29) From Physics to Software Engineering (00:07:47) The origins of Jepsen (00:09:41) Turning Jepsen into a full-time venture (00:13:14) Jepsen's testing philosophy (00:16:30) The consulting journey (00:19:16) Structuring a consultancy (00:22:32) Setting boundaries (00:24:32) Pricing misadventures (00:29:17) Pros and cons of being an independent consultant (00:32:08) Managing your time when working for yourself (00:38:23) Best part of the job (00:41:13) Early writing influences (00:45:25) LLMs and AI-generated content (00:48:17) “The period where you can trust what you read is actually very recent” (00:51:33) How to become a better writer (00:54:25) Developing a formal understanding of distributed systems (00:59:30) Common faults in distributed systems (01:01:17) The complexity of testing distributed systems (01:07:32) Communicating criticism effectively (01:10:26) Advice for distributed systems engineers (01:13:46) “Anybody trying to sell you a distributed lock is selling you sawdust and lies” (01:16:31) Failure mode documentation (01:18:52) The pitfalls of containerization (01:20:17) Lightning round - favorite databases Show Notes: - “Anybody who is trying to sell you a distributed lock is trying to sell you sawdust and Lies”: https://martin.kleppmann.com/2016/02/08/how-to-do-distributed-locking.html - Kyle’s excellent write-ups on testing distributed systems: https://jepsen.io/analyses - Kyle’s blog: https://aphyr.com/posts - Training courses that Kyle runs: https://jepsen.io/services/training Stay in touch: - sign up for our newsletter to get our favorites parts of the convo straight to your inbox every week :D https://softwaremisadventures.com/ Music: Vlad Gluschenko — Forest License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en