Honestly, it didn't seem to be that different back then than it is now.
When I worked at smaller places, developers handled infrastructure and development. As the company grew, dedicated specialists came onboard to help.
Today, at smaller places, developers handle the cloud infrastructure, and as the company grows, they bring on dedicated specialists to help.
The biggest difference, I think, is that we have so many specialized products. We are no longer trying to figure out how to make a shoehorned relational DB scale, instead we start with a database designed for specific workloads.
When I worked at smaller places, developers handled infrastructure and development. As the company grew, dedicated specialists came onboard to help.
Today, at smaller places, developers handle the cloud infrastructure, and as the company grows, they bring on dedicated specialists to help.
The biggest difference, I think, is that we have so many specialized products. We are no longer trying to figure out how to make a shoehorned relational DB scale, instead we start with a database designed for specific workloads.