Screaming in the Cloud
Screaming in the Cloud
Corey Quinn
Build vs Buy: The Hidden Costs of “Just Building It” with Ahmed Bebars
42 minutes Posted Apr 2, 2026 at 10:00 am.
Just because you can build it doesn’t mean you should. In this episode, Ahmed Bebars, Principal Engineer at The New York Times, joins Corey Quinn to talk about real-world cloud decisions, Kubernetes complexity, and the constant trade-off between building your own solutions and buying existing ones. From home labs to enterprise architecture, they unpack what actually works, and what engineers often get wrong.Show Highlights:
Intro
From Imposter Syndrome
Honest Community Feedback
EKS Versus ECS Debate
Home Lab Reality Check
Build vs Buy Long Game
Focus on Core Business
Uptime Tradeoffs and Standards
Networking and IPv6 Debate
0:00
42:55
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Show notes
Just because you can build it doesn’t mean you should. In this episode, Ahmed Bebars, Principal Engineer at The New York Times, joins Corey Quinn to talk about real-world cloud decisions, Kubernetes complexity, and the constant trade-off between building your own solutions and buying existing ones. From home labs to enterprise architecture, they unpack what actually works, and what engineers often get wrong.Show Highlights: (00:19) Intro(01:09) From Imposter Syndrome(06:34) Honest Community Feedback(09:29) EKS Versus ECS Debate(21:32) Home Lab Reality Check(22:40) Build vs Buy Long Game(28:04) Focus on Core Business(34:35) Uptime Tradeoffs and Standards(39:41) Networking and IPv6 Debate(41:28) Wrap Up and Where to FindLinks:Ahmed's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedbebarsSponsored by: duckbillhq.com