New York

October 15–17, 2025

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November 3–4, 2025

London

June 16–17, 2025

Dressing to the 9s

Everybody wants high reliability, but the path isn't exactly clear. This talk is for people who need to know what works and what doesn't.

Speakers: Mark Robinson

June 25, 2025

Everybody wants high reliability, but the path isn’t exactly clear. This talk is for people who need to know what works and what doesn’t.

As Plaid has grown from a 2-person start-up to a 1000 person enterprise, our customers have been asking for ever higher levels of service and reliability. Every company is searching for ways to improve their uptime. But what does that actually mean in the real world?

In this talk, I will cover how Plaid thinks about reliability, how we tackle reliability issues, what has worked, and what hasn’t. We will cover strategies to improve reliability for each 9 your company is looking to add, how much you should invest in each step , and how to communicate expectations with your customers. We will also cover how you need to think about reliability and what reliability pitfalls will slow you down.

No matter where you are on your reliability journey, this talk is for anyone who is interested in providing an unstoppable service to their customers.

Key takeaways

  • When these strategies should be deployed and what strategies should be avoided.Key takeaways
  • What 99.99% actually means when it comes to selling services, because what engineers hear and what salespeople say is really different.
  • What strategies they will need to employ to hit 2, 3, and 4 nines.