Best Stephen Townshend Podcasts (2025)

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Abomination (S01E19) 44:55

Play Pause

1d ago44:55

44:55

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* In the penultimate episode of the season, Ridge and Owen face down the dark inquisitor Solvadis in the town of Macklebie's Ridge. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/…

1
Operational Intelligence with Adam Kinniburgh (Episode 112) 31:17

8h ago31:17

31:17

Send us a text What is operational intelligence and how is it different from observability or BI? This week I'm joined by SquaredUp's VP of Innovation Adam Kinniburgh to answer that question and many more including... ❓ What is operational intelligence? 🙈 Relating observability back to customer, business, or revenue 😎 The value of giving stakeholde…

1
Leading Platform Teams with Dinesh Sukhija (Episode 111) 32:01

10d ago32:01

32:01

Send us a text How does leading platform teams differ from leading product teams? This week I'm joined by experienced technology leader Dinesh Sukhija to answer that question and many more including... ❓ What is a platform team? ⚽ Coaching engineers to focus on outcomes ☀️ Connecting platform initiatives to business goals ✋ Identifying the limiters…

1
The Convergence (S01E18) 34:42

10d ago34:42

34:42

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* As we close in on the end of the season, Ridge relives the moment that created them and Owen fights for his life as Kennick's machine begins to tear reality apart. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts …

1
Leadership Round One! (Episode 110) 19:59

17d ago19:59

19:59

Send us a text How has my first two years as a manager in tech been? What have I learned? What do I need to work on? This week I share my experiences over the past couple of years. I cover: 🔥 My recent close call with burnout 🫶 How I attempted to build a team culture 💪 The importance of tough conversations 🥱 How roles and responsibilities might be …

1
Past Reflections (S01E17) 50:49

19d ago50:49

50:49

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* Ridge travels back in time to a formative moment in their past. Owen tries to keep things together back in Eska Howel's laboratory and gets a visit from the future. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts…

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The Implications of AI on Observability with Aaron "Checo" Pacheco (Episode 109) 38:27

1M ago38:27

38:27

Send us a text How could AI help human beings negotiate the mountains of telemetry we collect to get simple and fast insight? This week I'm joined by Ottermon AI CEO and founder Checo Pacheco about the lifecycle of observability coverage and tooling within organisations and how AI is helping to find signals amongst the noise and reduce cognitive lo…

1
Smashing for Science (S01E16) 47:56

1M ago47:56

47:56

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* Decisions from the past come back to haunt our heroes as they return to Eska Howell's laboratory. Kennick then begins his mirror-time-travel experiments! Some mirrors were harmed in the making of this episode. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelb…

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Chaos Engineering with Kolton Andrus (Episode 108) 31:16

2M ago31:16

31:16

Send us a text What is chaos engineering and how is it being used in 2025? This week I'm joined by Gremlin CEO and founder Kolton Andrus to discuss... 🌪️ What is chaos engineering and what is its origins? 🪴 How has it evolved over the year? 🤖 The role of AI agents in SRE work 💰 Justifying the value of chaos engineering 🏃‍♀️‍➡️ How do I get started?…

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Flotsam and Jetsam (S01E15) 41:43

2M ago41:43

41:43

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* Kennick reveals his master plans for the three artifacts, Ridge and Owen rest and get better, and the party head out to Eska Howel's house to smash a bunch of mirrors... as the Titan screams from far above "FREE ME!" Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge …

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Team Topologies with Luke McManus (Episode 107) 23:10

2M ago23:10

23:10

By Stephen Townshend

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Complicated (S01E14) 1:06:53

2M ago1:06:53

1:06:53

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* Owen and Ridge infiltrate the Temple of the Opulent Oracle (with explosive consequences). Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika here…

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Contributing to Open Source with Wendy Ha (Episode 106) 43:52

3M ago43:52

43:52

By Stephen Townshend

1
Paper Mache (S01E13) 49:24

3M ago49:24

49:24

Send us a text *New episodes every two weeks!* Owen and Ridge get creative in their attempts to infiltrate the Temple of the Opulent Oracle. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika …

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Influencing Leadership with Nora Jones (Episode 105) 28:16

3M ago28:16

28:16

Send us a text As an #SRE how do you influence senior leadership to get support and priority for the things you care about? To answer this question I'm joined by Nora Jones, founder of Jeli and now Head of Pricing, Product Strategy and Growth at PagerDuty. Our conversation touches on... 🤝 How understanding needs to flow both ways (between engineers…

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Reforming the Reformers (S01E12) 1:05:21

3M ago1:05:21

1:05:21

Send us a text "Are we the good guys?" - Owen and Ridge. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika here: https://www.troikarpg.com/ Music by Stephen Townshend and Harrison Sommerville…

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Slight Reliability Podcast Retrospective (Episode 104) 27:28

4M ago27:28

27:28

Send us a text This week I do a retrospective on the Slight Reliability podcast. 👂 How many people listen to it? ❤️ How do I feel about the show? 🎉 What's going well? 🪴 What could be better? ❔ What's next for the show? If you want to check out the podcast that came before Slight Reliability, you can find Performance Time archived on YouTube here: h…

1
Innocent Fig (S01E11) 53:46

4M ago53:46

53:46

Send us a text A beautiful pig with dark eyes? What could possibly go wrong? Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika here: https://www.troikarpg.com/ Music is by Harrison Sommervill…

1
Burnout with Colette Alexander (Episode 103) 38:36

4M ago38:36

38:36

Send us a text Have you burned out at work? What was your experience? How did you work through it? This week I'm joined by the incredible Colette Alexander to discuss what burnout is, what it means, and we both share our personal experiences burning out at work. We cover... 🔥 What is burnout? ❓ Why does it happen? 🫀 What are the symptoms? 🥊 Fight, …

1
Sundries and Such (S01E10) 43:19

4M ago43:19

43:19

Send us a text Owen and Ridge visit the enigmatic Simmeon Sours' Sundries and Such to do a little shopping and track down a Temporal Binder... and encounter more than they bargained for. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.mel…

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Mobile Observability with Hanson Ho (Episode 102) 31:57

5M ago31:57

31:57

Send us a text This week I'm joined by the wonderful Hanson Ho to discuss the unique challenges and opportunities in making our mobile apps observable! We cover... 📱 The mobile/backend observability divide ✍️ The challenge of distributed tracing on mobile apps 🌏 The entire device runtime environment matters for your app 👤 The quest for user-centric…

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Weird Flex But Ok (S01E09) 52:20

5M ago52:20

52:20

Send us a text Owen joins forces with Chud and Mandy to compete in a body building competition while Ridge looks for answers to his past in the Hall of the Infinite Ledger. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You…

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Intro to Resilience Engineering with Michelle Casey (Episode 101) 39:36

5M ago39:36

39:36

Send us a text This week on the I'm joined once more by SRE leader Michelle Casey who gives a broad and shallow introduction to resilience engineering. We cover... 🏋️‍♀️ Reliability VS Robustness VS Resilience 🧩 What is a complex system? 🔢 Safety one/safety two 🧠 Mental models 😩 Human error ...and so much more. Resources from this episode: Four con…

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Ink and Ash (S01E08) 1:07:44

5M ago1:07:44

1:07:44

Send us a text New episodes released every two weeks! After conquering the Crimson Citadel, our heroes return to the city of Troika. They make new friends, drink exotic cocktails, grow stronger, get some body art, and *finally* take a well deserved rest. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie…

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Learning with John Allspaw (Episode 100) 48:17

6M ago48:17

48:17

Send us a text This week on the 100th episode I'm joined by DevOps and Resilience Engineering legend John Allspaw to talk about learning (especially from incidents). We discuss... 📒 Classroom VS situated learning 🤝 The myth of the perfect handover ITIL as a coping strategy to try and make sense of the organic, wild, and messy 🥕 How you cannot incen…

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Escape from the Crimson Citadel (S01E07) 47:11

6M ago47:11

47:11

Send us a text This week on Tales from the Humpback Sky our heroes (and Thalorg) scamper to escape the Crimson Citadel as it falls from the sky. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Tro…

1
Battle of the Bowels (S01E06) 53:44

6M ago53:44

53:44

Send us a text Our heroes delve into the depths of the Crimson Citadel to uncover it's disturbing secrets, and face their greatest challenge yet. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Tr…

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Focusing on What Matters with Trent Hornibrook (Episode 99) 29:28

7M ago29:28

29:28

Send us a text This week I'm joined by SRE leader Trent Hornibrook who shares a story about how he improved on-call early in his career, and then we explore the broader theme of focusing on the things that matter in observability, incident response, on-call, and beyond. We discuss... 🔌 Empowering engineers to implement change in your org 🧑‍🍼 Focusi…

1
Caught Red Handed (S01E05) 55:37

7M ago55:37

55:37

Send us a text Owen and Ridge get put in a waiting room, and respond accordingly. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika here: https://www.troikarpg.com/ All music is by Harrison S…

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The Root Cause Fallacy with Andrew Hatch (Episode 98) 32:22

7M ago32:22

32:22

Send us a text This week I'm joined by SRE leader Andrew Hatch from Cisco ThousandEyes to talk about a dirty word in the resilience community... root cause. In this excellent conversation we explore... 🌌 Is the root cause of every incident the big bang? 🦖 How the value of root cause degrades as complexity increases 🫣 That if the culture is not blam…

1
The Red Kurgen (S01E04) 1:10:56

7M ago1:10:56

1:10:56

Send us a text Owen and Ridge face down impossible odds in the grand arena, and Owen comes face to face with one of his own kind. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika here: https…

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Synthetic Monitoring with David Dick (Episode 97) 33:04

7M ago33:04

33:04

Send us a text This week I'm joined by David Dick from 2 Steps to (finally!) discuss synthetic monitoring. We cover... 🤖 What is synthetic monitoring? 🦾 What are the benefits and drawbacks to using it? ☢️ Non-web based synthetics (the tough stuff) 🍹 Combining RUM and synthetics 🫢 Does synthetics need an OTEL-like framework? ...and much more. You ca…

1
The Crimson Citadel (S01E03) 1:09:45

8M ago1:09:45

1:09:45

Send us a text Owen and Ridge board the imposing Crimson Citadel and experience crippling bureaucracy at its finest. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out more about Troika here: https://www.troika…

1
Man in the Mirror (S01E02) 54:31

8M ago54:31

54:31

Send us a text Owen and Ridge are given a quest by the mysterious Professor Eska Howell, and our two adventurers make the way to rescue his assistant, Kennick. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out…

1
A Broken Mirror (S01E01) 1:12:26

8M ago1:12:26

1:12:26

Send us a text Join Tom, Paul, and Stephen as they play the science fiction RPG "Troika" and embark on a multiversal adventure across time, space, and reality. Starring Tom Wardle (GM), Paul Harrop (Owen Sunderland), and Stephen Townshend (Ridge Mackelbie). Troika was created by the Melsonain Arts Council: https://www.melsonia.com/ You can find out…

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Tech Leadership with Milan Brown (Episode 96) 31:27

8M ago31:27

31:27

Send us a text This week I'm joined by Cin7 Engineering Director Milan Brown to unpack the challenges of technology management and leadership. We discuss... ✖️ Theory X vs Theory Y management 🗣️ Intention based leadership and communication 🏢 Conditions in an org for people to thrive 😵‍💫 How do you learn to manage and lead? 🫤 Managing people when yo…

1
Finding Tech Work with Leon Adato (Episode 95) 36:26

9M ago36:26

36:26

Send us a text This week Leon Adato and I break down the state of applying for roles in tech. We cover... 📝 What a resume or CV is and is not 🤝 Leveraging your connections rather than relying on applying cold 🪄 How most job descriptions are works of fiction 🦾 White-fonting to game AI resume assessment 🧪 Experimental ways we could recruit ...and our…

1
Getting a Start in SRE with Priyam Kumar (Episode 94) 31:09

9M ago31:09

31:09

Send us a text This week Priyam Kumar shares his story of moving from a massive organisation to a startup and the challenges and growth that came from that. We discuss... 🪖 War stories and examples of production incidents 🩹 The "hacks" we build to keep things running (and how maybe that's just normal) 😎 Keeping it simple... YAGNI (You Ain't Gonna N…

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SRE Leadership with Michelle Casey (Episode 93) 39:29

9M ago39:29

39:29

Send us a text This week Michelle Casey shares her insights as a 'head of' engineering manager in the SRE context. This was one of my favourite conversations on the podcast so far. We cover topics such as... 🤷🏽 Why move into leadership? 👁️ Learning from other leaders 💎 What is unique about SRE leadership? 👑 Women in engineering leadership ...and we…

1
Observability Maturity with Ádám Tóth (Episode 92) 30:09

10M ago30:09

30:09

Send us a text This week Adam and I get philosophical about what constitutes maturity in the field of observability. We tackle questions such as... 💸 Does your org treat observability as a cost centre or a value add? 🔥 Are you using observability reactively to solve problems? Or proactively to build better products and services? 👤 Is your observabi…

1
Head in the Clouds (Episode 91) 15:43

11M ago15:43

15:43

Send us a text In this episode I explore the challenges of achieving unified observability when integrating with SaaS products and services. I cover: 🌊 The new wave of mega-complex SaaS ⚗️ Challenges integrating SaaS with our observability pipelines 👩‍🦯 How the lack of SaaS autonomy limits the effectiveness of OpenTelemetry 💰 Paying twice to ingest…

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Non-Prod Reliability Engineering + 2024 Wrap (Episode 90) 18:13

1y ago18:13

18:13

Send us a text This week I check in and give an update on work, life, and my attempts at bringing to life SRE practices in the world of non-production environment management. You can find the official Slight Reliability podcast website at: https://slightreliability.com/ You can find Stephen at: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephentownshend…

1
Slight Reliability Episode 89 - Blameless Post-mortems with Karanveer Anand 26:06

1+ y ago26:06

26:06

Send us a text This week I'm joined by Karanveer Anand, SRE Technical Program Manager at Google to discuss blameless post-mortems. We cover: 🦅 The recent Crowdstrike outage and their public post-mortem 🚑 When do we do a blameless post-mortem? 😕 How do we do a blameless post-mortem? ✅ How do we make sure action items are followed through? 📰 The powe…

1
Slight Reliability Episode 88 - OpenTelemetry Revisited with Zach Michel 26:51

1+ y ago26:51

26:51

Send us a text This week Zach Michel from https://middleware.io/ and I discuss the state of OpenTelemetry and what it means to adopt it. We cover: 🌩️ Achieving observability in a SaaS world 🥫 Context propagation - the magic sauce of OTEL 🚪 The telemetry gateway concept and leveraging the OTEL collector 🪵 The state of OpenTelemetry logging 🫂 Making …

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Slight Reliability Episode 87 - Measuring the value of SRE with Artem Yakimenko 35:33

1+ y ago35:33

35:33

Send us a text In Episode 80 Niall Murphy talked about the need for SREs to be better at articulating the value of our work. In this episode I'm joined by ex-Googler and Engineering Director (SRE) at Culture Amp Artem Yakimenko about how we might achieve this. We discuss both quantifiable and qualitative approaches including leveraging the untapped…

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Slight Reliability Episode 86 - Evolving SLOs with Dom Finn 25:57

1+ y ago25:57

25:57

Send us a text In the world of SRE we constantly talk about defining SLOs, but what about evolving them over time? This week I chat with SRE Tech Lead Dom Finn about just that. We cover the relationship between reliability and user analytics, latency classes as a way to speak SLOs with business stakeholders, the role of NFRs and how the thresholds …

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Slight Reliability Episode 85 - Feeling SaaSsy 11:08

1+ y ago11:08

11:08

Send us a text This week I talk about the impact of SaaS-first technology strategies on the work of an SRE. I pose questions about observability, ownership, on-call, and how much control we have over reliability. You can find the Bleeding Tech blog on Medium: https://medium.com/@stownshend You can find Stephen at: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com…

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Slight Reliability Episode 84 - Clinical Troubleshooting with Dan Slimmon 27:40

1+ y ago27:40

27:40

Send us a text This week I chat with Dan Slimmon about applying the approach doctors use to treat patient symptoms during incident response. You can find Dan's blog at https://blog.danslimmon.com/ or connect with him on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danslimmon/ You can find the official Slight Reliability podcast website at: https://sl…

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Slight Reliability Episode 83 - An Unfulfilled Promise with Itiel Shwartz 30:32

2y ago30:32

30:32

Send us a text This week I hear about all things Kubernetes from Komodor CTO and co-founder Itiel Shwartz. We chat about the promise that was made when Kubernetes first entered the industry, the challenge of getting developers engaged and capable of working in Kubernetes, my hate/hate relationship with Helm but its important contribution to the Kub…

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Slight Reliability Episode 82 - CI/CD with Amin Astaneh 25:47

2y ago25:47

25:47

Send us a text This week I sit down and have a discussion with Amin Astaneh (from Certo Modo) about CI/CD. We cover the power of the standard change as a way to navigate ITIL while still implementing DevOps practices, what to monitor to make your CI/CD observable, single piece flow, testing in production, and so much more. You can find Amin on his …