Layer 8 Ops: Where Bugs Meet Their Match

If you’ve ever worked in engineering, you’ve probably heard of the OSI model, those seven layers that explain how data moves through a network. But at Autonoma, we like to think there’s an eighth layer: the human one.

We call it Layer 8 Ops.

It started as an inside joke. Whenever someone pushed a bug, forgot an environment variable, or shipped something wild to production, someone would drop a quick “Layer 8 issue” in the chat. No blame, no drama. Just a mix of laughter and instant debugging. We even have a sticker!

The thing is, over time, it stopped being a joke. We realized that this attitude, taking ownership, keeping humor in the process, and focusing on fixing instead of finger-pointing, was at the core of our culture.

We’ve built a team that thrives in chaos and finds clarity fast. From Simon keeping the architecture sane, to Eugenio chasing every opportunity, to Nico’s product sense keeping us grounded, to Tom, Sponge, Nacho, Chona, Pato, and the one and only Axel (our goat) pushing the limits of what we can build, everyone plays their part in making the impossible happen.

Euge, our sales wizard, somehow manages to translate all this madness into words that make sense to the world, with Maxi as the apprentice learning the craft. That alone should earn them both a Layer 8 medal.

So yeah, when we made the merch and put Layer 8 Ops on it, it felt natural. Because that’s what we are, a team that handles everything above the stack. The bugs, the coffee spills, the forgotten pushes, the fixes at 3am, and the laughs in between.

This is our version of operations, human, imperfect, determined, and always learning.

The Layer 8 Ops squad is just getting started. The next chapters? Bigger challenges, more automation, and a lot more fun.

Stay tuned. Layer 8 runs deep.