Between Code and Confidence: A Site Reliability Story Built on Prevention

When reliability is the goal, Bruno Alves is already deep in the details.

As a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE), Bruno lives at the intersection of infrastructure and code, quietly powering the systems that keep everything else running. His work might not always be visible, but it’s foundational. From automation to observability, his mindset is built around prevention, precision, and performance under pressure.

Data before disaster

When asked about what guides his day-to-day, Bruno didn’t hesitate**: metrics and logs**.

Metrics and logs are my compass. They help me identify issues before they impact users and assess service health in real-time.

In a world where milliseconds matter, this kind of insight is the difference between stability and chaos.

Automate the obvious

A big part of Bruno’s philosophy is that manual work should be a temporary state, not a permanent solution. That’s where automation comes in.

I automate routine tasks and create scripts for complex, less frequent operations. This ensures consistency across our infrastructure and allows the team to focus on what really moves the needle.

What people get wrong about SREs

There’s a common misconception that SREs are “just developers.” But Bruno sees it differently.

The SRE role isn’t about writing features or building products. It’s about bridging the gap between development and operations, ensuring that systems are reliable, scalable, and well-designed for real-world complexity.

We’re not here to build everything. We’re here to help make sure everything works.

That distinction is important, especially in large-scale environments where uptime, observability, and recovery time are as critical as the features themselves.

Infrastructure, codified

Bruno’s love for automation doesn’t stop at scripts. One of his favourite recent projects was migrating the entire monitoring setup to Terraform. Not only was it one of the best ways to level up his Terraform skills, but it also fundamentally changed how monitoring is managed across environments.

Instead of repetitive clicks and one-off tweaks, the team can now replicate monitoring configurations consistently: “Now we can guarantee consistent monitoring standards across environments, while maintaining the quality bar and reducing effort. It’s one of those changes that just makes everything work better.”

Staying calm under pressure

When pressure mounts, I follow the information flow, from user request to response. It helps me pinpoint where the real issue lives.

He traces each request from the user through the infrastructure, comparing current metrics with historical patterns to find the bottlenecks. It’s not always simple, but the process brings clarity when things get noisy.

The SRE mindset

Bruno understands he doesn’t have all the answers, but he knows which questions to ask. He builds trust in systems not by hoping things will work, but by designing them not to fail.

As an SRE, I live between code and infrastructure, using data-driven insights to ensure our services run smoothly. From automation to monitoring, every decision aims to improve reliability and reduce manual work.

His goal isn’t to be in the spotlight. It’s to make sure everything else can shine without interruption.