As most SREs how many incidents they’d have to respond to in a perfect world, and their answer would probably be “zero.” After all, making software and infrastructure so reliable that incidents never occur is the dream that SREs are theoretically chasing.
Reducing actual incidents as much as possible is a noble goal. However, it’s important to recognize that incidents aren’t an SRE’s number one enemy. What matters more than the number of incidents you experience is how effectively you respond to each one.