Human requirements

Writing

I hinted at this earlier, but the ability to write well is probably one of the most important job requirements. You must not only comment your code, but also document your infrastructure plans, changes, operations, and troubleshooting tactics in a format which is useful for other people.

I'm partial to the Diátaxis documentation system, which separates documentation into four simple quadrants as shown below: diataxis.png

On-call

As a sysadmin/SRE/DevOps, we're often tasked with being on-call, which means potentially working outside our regular work hours. Waking up at 3am to fix a production issue affecting millions of users is very difficult from a physical and mental perspective. There's no fun in that, but there are ways to minimize those types of incidents. An awesome company will institute sane scheduling and global distribution to avoid waking people up at ungodly hours. But when it does eventually happen (trust me, it will haha), they should allow you to make-up for lost sleep (i.e: you won't be expected at your desk at 9am).

I think the best way to keep your sanity is through preparation. Implement proper automation, failover, recovery, and backups at every level. When things are well documented, other teammates can pick up where you left off, revert changes, or troubleshoot the issue as if they were you. Don't make yourself so indispensable that you're the only one who can fix a production issue when it happens.

An awesome company is not always "on fire". If the roof is burning, you can be certain the house will eventually fall. But s^Hthings do happen, and it's literally our job to handle them when they do. Know what you're signing up for.

Alcohol

I don't want to get too preachy here, but it should be common knowledge by now that excessive alcohol consumption will have a negative impact on your work and life. I know this from first-hand experience, and that's why I don't drink at all anymore (8 years and counting). Some amount is probably fine. I can't say how much is acceptable, but I believe there's a significant negative effect from over-consumption. If you can stay away from it, you'll be doing your body, mind, family, friends, and coworkers a great favor in the long-term. Take it as a suggestion only, in the end it's always your choice how to lead your life.