You’re in the final interview for a Senior Platform Engineer role. You’re at the whiteboard. The CTO leans forward and asks, "How would you design our observability strategy from scratch?"

You know the tools. You've done this before. Confidently, you dive straight in : "I'd use Prometheus for metrics, Loki for logs because it's cost-effective, OpenTelemetry for tracing...".

The CTO cuts you off. "I don't need a list of tools. I asked for a strategy."

At this moment, you realise that something is missin…

Introduction

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by systems—how they work, how they break, and how they can be made better. As a developer, I’ve always sought ways to streamline my workflows and take control of my tools. That’s why I decided to build my own Kubernetes cluster at home. Driven by my passion for systems and coding, I wanted to create a self-owned cloud. I also believe that individual control of digital infrastructures leads to a more balanced world. Setting up eve…