Who should I follow to learn about Observability?

If you want to get good at **observability**, I’d follow people who think about the underlying problems (debugging distributed systems, reliability, developer experience), not just vendors posting product updates. ## Core observability thinkers - Charity Majors - probably the most influential modern observability voice. Follow her for ideas around high-cardinality data, debugging production systems, observability-driven development, and the limits of traditional monitoring. She co-authored Observability Engineering. [Charity Majors - CTO at Honeycomb](https://www.honeycomb.io/author/charity?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - Liz Fong-Jones - excellent for SRE practices, reliability culture, incident response, and practical observability patterns. She is also a co-author of *Observability Engineering*. [About the Authors - Observability Engineering, 2nd Edition \[Book\]](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/observability-engineering-2nd/9781098179915/colophon01.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - Austin Parker - follow for OpenTelemetry, instrumentation, tracing standards, and the ecosystem around portable telemetry. [About the Authors - Observability Engineering, 2nd Edition \[Book\]](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/observability-engineering-2nd/9781098179915/colophon01.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com) ## Distributed systems and SRE voices - Brendan Gregg - great for understanding performance analysis, Linux internals, profiling, and using data to diagnose systems. - Niall Richard Murphy - strong source for SRE principles, reliability engineering, and operational maturity. - Kelsey Hightower - less observability-specific, but excellent for understanding cloud-native architecture and operational simplicity. ## OpenTelemetry ecosystem - OpenTelemetry contributors and maintainers are worth following. OpenTelemetry has become a key standard for collecting traces, metrics, and logs across languages and platforms. - [OpenTelemetry](https://opentelemetry.io?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - start here if you want hands-on learning. ## Practical engineering writers - Gergely Orosz - his interviews and engineering deep dives often cover how large companies build operational systems. [Observability: the present and future, with Charity Majors - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvEjS4-2WJQ&utm_source=chatgpt.com) - Gene Kim - useful for the broader DevOps/SRE context that observability fits into. ## Companies and communities worth watching - [Honeycomb](https://www.honeycomb.io?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - strong source for modern observability thinking, especially around debugging complex distributed systems. [Charity Majors - CTO at Honeycomb](https://www.honeycomb.io/author/charity?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - [CNCF](https://www.cncf.io?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - follow cloud-native projects and discussions around observability tooling. - [Grafana Labs](https://grafana.com?utm_source=chatgpt.com) - useful for dashboards, metrics, logs, traces, and open-source observability workflows. ## A learning path I’d recommend 1. Learn the fundamentals: - Metrics vs logs vs traces - Distributed tracing - Cardinality - Sampling - SLOs and error budgets 2. Read: - *Observability Engineering* - *Site Reliability Engineering* - *Database Reliability Engineering* 3. Build: - Instrument a small service with OpenTelemetry - Send traces to a backend - Debug a deliberately broken distributed app 4. Follow conference talks: - SREcon - ObservabilityCON If you’re a **software engineer**, I’d bias toward Charity Majors, Liz Fong-Jones, OpenTelemetry, and Brendan Gregg. If you’re an **SRE/platform engineer**, add Niall Murphy and Gene Kim.

**Follow these experts to learn about Observability: Charity Majors, Cindy Sridharan, Liz Fong-Jones, Jaana Dogan, Ben Sigelman, and Austin Parker. They are widely recognized thought leaders shaping modern observability practices.** ## 🌟 Key Observability Experts to Follow Expert| Focus Area| Why Follow Them ---|---|--- **Charity Majors** (Honeycomb co-founder)| Observability engineering, production debugging| Co-author of _Observability Engineering_; strong advocate for developer ownership of production systems.[Medium](https://medium.com/eteam/15-observability-driven-development-experts-and-blogs-to-follow-a9868bf2f0c8) **Cindy Sridharan**| Systems design, SRE, observability theory| Writes deeply analytical essays on distributed systems and observability best practices.[Medium](https://medium.com/eteam/15-observability-driven-development-experts-and-blogs-to-follow-a9868bf2f0c8) **Liz Fong-Jones**| SRE, SLOs, reliability culture| Former Google SRE; now at Honeycomb, known for practical guidance on service-level objectives.[25 TOP TECH INFLUENCERS WITH PERFORMANCE MONITORING IN 2025](https://www.amraandelma.com/tech-influencers-with-performance-monitoring/) **Jaana Dogan**| Cloud infrastructure, observability tooling| Former Google engineer; contributor to OpenTelemetry and distributed tracing practices.[Medium](https://medium.com/eteam/15-observability-driven-development-experts-and-blogs-to-follow-a9868bf2f0c8) **Yan Cui**| Serverless observability| AWS Serverless Hero; focuses on tracing and monitoring in serverless environments.[25 TOP TECH INFLUENCERS WITH PERFORMANCE MONITORING IN 2025](https://www.amraandelma.com/tech-influencers-with-performance-monitoring/) **Ben Sigelman** (Lightstep co-founder)| Distributed tracing, OpenTelemetry| Co-creator of Dapper at Google; leading voice in modern tracing and observability.[25 TOP TECH INFLUENCERS WITH PERFORMANCE MONITORING IN 2025](https://www.amraandelma.com/tech-influencers-with-performance-monitoring/) **Austin Parker**| OpenTelemetry community| Maintainer and advocate for OpenTelemetry; shares practical tutorials and insights.[25 TOP TECH INFLUENCERS WITH PERFORMANCE MONITORING IN 2025](https://www.amraandelma.com/tech-influencers-with-performance-monitoring/) ## 📌 Additional Influencers Worth Following * **Kelsey Hightower** – Kubernetes and reliability engineering. * **Corey Quinn** – AWS cost optimization with observability insights. * **Tammy Butow** – Chaos testing and incident management. * **Alex Hidalgo** – Author of _Implementing Service Level Objectives_.[25 TOP TECH INFLUENCERS WITH PERFORMANCE MONITORING IN 2025](https://www.amraandelma.com/tech-influencers-with-performance-monitoring/) ## 🔎 Why These Voices Matter * **Practical \+ Theoretical Balance**: Some (like Charity Majors and Liz Fong-Jones) emphasize cultural and organizational aspects, while others (like Ben Sigelman and Austin Parker) focus on technical tooling. * **Community Builders**: Many are active in open-source projects (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana), making their insights directly applicable. * **Future-Oriented** : They discuss emerging trends like AI-driven observability, eBPF, and serverless monitoring.[2024 - Review of the Year](https://observability-360.com/article/ViewArticle?id=end-of-year-review-2024) ## ⚠️ Risks & Considerations * **Tool Bias**: Some experts are tied to specific vendors (Honeycomb, Lightstep, Elastic). Their advice may lean toward their ecosystem. * **Rapid Evolution**: Observability practices change quickly (e.g., AI integration, OpenTelemetry updates). Following multiple voices helps avoid a narrow perspective. * **Information Overload**: Observability spans metrics, logs, traces, and culture. It’s best to pick 2–3 core experts to start, then expand. 👉 If you’re just beginning, I’d recommend starting with **Charity Majors** (for cultural/engineering philosophy) and **Ben Sigelman** (for technical tracing foundations). Then add **Liz Fong-Jones** for practical SRE guidance. Would you like me to curate a **Twitter/X and blog list with direct links** so you can follow them easily?

To master **Observability** , it helps to follow the right industry leaders, practitioners, and organizations who are actively shaping standards like OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). The top experts, authors, and organizations to follow span several key categories: ### 1\. OpenTelemetry & Cloud-Native Pioneers * **Charity Majors:** Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb.io. She is one of the most vocal advocates for modern observability, high-cardinality data, and shifting observability left to developers. Follow her on LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter). * **Liz Fong-Jones:** Principal Developer Advocate at Honeycomb and a titan in the SRE and observability space. She frequently speaks and writes about SLOs, chaos engineering, and production safety. * **Austin Parker:** A key figure in the creation of OpenTelemetry and cloud-native observability standards. Great for understanding the foundational architecture of telemetry collection. ### 2\. Authors & Deep-Dive Practitioners * **Baron Schwartz:** Founder of VividCortex and author of various foundational performance and monitoring materials. He offers deep insights into metrics and database observability. * **Cindy Sridharan:** Author of the seminal book _"Distributed Systems Observability"_. Her blog posts and technical deep-dives on socio-technical systems, debugging, and observability patterns are essential reading. ### 3\. Essential Organizations & Communities * **OpenTelemetry (CNCF):** Following the official OpenTelemetry project handles on GitHub, LinkedIn, and their blog is vital since OTel has become the industry standard for collecting metrics, logs, and traces. * **Grafana Labs & Prometheus Communities:** Excellent sources for learning about dashboards, time-series databases, and the LGTM stack (Loki, Grafana, Tempo, Mimir). [Best Observability Certification to Take - DevOpsSchool Forum](https://www.devopsschool.com/forum/d/3989-best-observability-certification-to-take#:~:text=https%3A%2F%2Fgrafana.com%2Fworkshops%2F%20Grafana%20training%20is%20helpful%20for%20learners,*%20SRE%20Certified%20Professional%20%E2%80%94%20DevOpsSchool.%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.devopsschool.com%2Fcertification%2Fsre%2Dcertified%2Dprofessional%2Dsrecp.html.) ### 4\. Structured Learning Platforms & Resources If you are looking for structured learning paths rather than just social media feeds, check out: * **Learn Observability** (by keeping up with comprehensive engineering courses tailored for OTel and SRE). [Learn Observability - OpenTelemetry & SRE Course](https://learnobservability.com/#:~:text=Join%20newsletter%20%E2%86%92%20New%3A%20Vendor%20guides%20%3A,at%20startups%2C%20scaleups%2C%20and%20enterprise%20platform%20teams.) * **CNCF Training/Certifications:** Look into the _OpenTelemetry Certified Associate (OTCA)_ and _Prometheus Certified Associate (PCA)_ for formal milestones. [Best Observability Certification to Take - DevOpsSchool Forum](https://www.devopsschool.com/forum/d/3989-best-observability-certification-to-take#:~:text=https%3A%2F%2Ftraining.linuxfoundation.org%2Fcertification%2Fopentelemetry%2Dcertified%2Dassociate%2Dotca%2F%20This%20is%20a%20good%20certification%20for,Certified%20Associate%20%E2%80%94%20CNCF%20%2F%20Linux%20Foundation.) Are you looking to learn observability from a **developer's perspective** (instrumenting code), an **SRE/infrastructure perspective** (managing pipelines and clusters), or are you preparing for a specific tool or certification?

To truly understand observability (moving beyond traditional "monitoring" into high-cardinality telemetry, distributed tracing, and production engineering), you want to follow the practitioners, co-creators, and thinkers who literally shaped the modern definition of the space. Here are the top voices and where to find them: * ** _Charity Majors_** * _Who they are:_ Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb. * _Why follow:_ _Charity_ is arguably the loudest, sharpest, and most influential voice in modern observability. She practically evangelized "Observability-Driven Development" and has zero patience for old-school, rigid dashboard monitoring. Her blog and social feeds are masterclasses in how production systems actually behave. [15 Observability-driven Development Experts and Blogs to](https://medium.com/eteam/15-observability-driven-development-experts-and-blogs-to-follow-a9868bf2f0c8) * ** _Liz Fong-Jones_** * _Who they are:_ Field CTO and Developer Advocate at Honeycomb (formerly SRE at Google). * _Why follow:_ _Liz_ bridges the gap between high-level architectural theory and gritty site reliability engineering (SRE). They write extensively on OpenTelemetry, distributed tracing, and service-level objectives (SLOs). [Medium·Saiona Stoian] * ** _Cindy Sridharan_** * _Who they are:_ Distributed systems engineer and author of _"Distributed Systems Observability"_. * _Why follow:_ Cindy writes deeply analytical, long-form technical essays. If you want to understand the profound conceptual differences between monitoring, logging, and true observability rather than just listening to marketing pitches, her writings are essential. [Medium·Saiona Stoian] * **Jaana Dogan** * _Who they are:_ Distinguished Engineer at GitHub (formerly AWS and Go team at Google). * _Why follow:_ Jaana offers phenomenal systems-level perspectives on telemetry pipelines, performance, and how massive scale changes the way we reason about software health. [Medium·Saiona Stoian] * ** _Baron Schwartz_** * _Who they are:_ Founder of VividCortex and database/observability expert. * _Why follow:_ Baron focuses heavily on the metrics that matter, systems performance, and the practical economics of tracking data at scale without drowning in noise or high cloud storage bills. Would you prefer to start with **foundational reading/books** , **podcasts** , or specific **OpenTelemetry technical guides** to begin your deep dive?