As organizations progress in their reliability journey, they may build a dedicated team of site reliability engineers. This team can be structured in two major ways: a distributed model, where SREs are embedded in each project team, providing guidance and support for that team; and a centralized model, where one team provides infrastructure and processes for the entire organization. Most structures will be some combination of these ideas, with some SREs focusing on specific projects and other SRE projects completed as an SRE team.
When looking at centralized models of SRE teams, there are further distinctions to make based on the role of each SRE. One perspective says every SRE should be a generalist, capable of performing every duty of the role. This has the advantage of being very robust - if each SRE can do any given job, any person’s absence won’t cause an issue. On the other hand, you could run into a “jack of all trades, master of none” issue, where your potential is limited. This is where the specialization perspective can help.