As per a survey conducted by CodeInGame, a reputable online platform for developers, out of 15000 working professionals, a DevOps career is significantly gaining popularity among developers.
The survey reveals that DevOps engineer positions not only enhance the skill set of developers but also boost their job satisfaction.
In this article, we will discuss the reasons why developers should consider acquiring DevOps skills, and guide them through the relevant career path to derive the maximum benefits from this career option.
What is meant by DevOps?
In simple words, DevOps aligns Development and Operations processes to foster effective communication and collaboration between the application development and IT operations teams. A DevOps Engineer plays a crucial role in facilitating software development, release, and testing by bridging the gap between development and operations, thereby requiring a comprehensive understanding of both these domains.
In the realm of software development, DevOps practices can have a profound positive impact on efficiency, speed and security of the process. These practices promote practices such as continuous integration and deployment, configuration management, and real-time monitoring, which all contribute to a more agile response to address the rapidly changing market demands.
Advantages of DevOps: Time Efficiency
DevOps practices have the potential to promote better communication and collaboration between development and operations teams, consequently shortening the software development life cycle. The streamlining of the software creation, testing, and release process facilitated by DevOps provides organisations with a competitive edge in terms of innovation, quality and efficiency. The result is an increased level of productivity, improved business outcomes and high-quality product delivery within a much shorter time frame.
Incorporating DevOps practices enable developers to test and deploy code more efficiently, resulting in significant time savings. With frequent code deployment, developers can take advantage of DevOps benefits such as swift development cycles, productive collaboration, and high-performance software resulting in higher quality deliverables.
Advantages of DevOps: Swift Bug Fixes
Software updates are essential to incorporate the latest features to remain competitive in the market. But developers must carefully maintain the stability of the codebase while updating. DevOps engineers have a clear understanding of the codebase and can promptly detect any modifications, which allows them to send relevant code changes for testing without compromising overall system stability.
Systematically testing code components aids in promptly identifying any issues that arise. DevOps engineers can expeditiously locate and resolve problems, significantly reducing the time taken to resolve any issue. Thus, DevOps provides a reliable and efficient process for bug-free software delivery.
Advantages of DevOps: Enhanced Collaboration
Collaboration is key to DevOps engineers, and therefore, they actively participate in open communication with members of other departments, facilitating a more streamlined flow of information across the organisation. The emphasis on open channels of communication allows DevOps engineers to dismantle traditional departmental silos and foster better collaboration within the company.
The primary role of DevOps engineers is to quickly resolve issues and establish effective pipelines. Working in collaboration with other team members helps in the sharing of ideas and information, allowing us to achieve this goal efficiently. At the same time, DevOps engineers promote innovation and creativity aimed to elevate customer experience and satisfaction.
Advantages of DevOps: Enhanced Performance
Collaboration between DevOps engineers on codebases enables early detection and resolution of potential issues. Automated testing and continuous deployment allow code to be delivered promptly and efficiently, directly into production. This process ensures up-to-date application delivery while eliminating delays.
DevOps has proved to be effective in significantly reducing deployment time and infrastructure costs while increasing the success rate. This process also leads to faster recovery times, improved employee involvement, and better team performance. These benefits ultimately contribute to an overall performance boost in the organization. Check out our blog on how to create competent groups to learn more about individual team member success.
Career Opportunities in DevOps
In today’s fast-paced business environment, DevOps professionals are in high demand as they play a crucial role in managing the complete product delivery lifecycle, from automation to final deployment. DevOps engineering is a significant role for businesses that prioritize continuous innovation in their operational models. Therefore, engineers aspiring to pursue a career in DevOps have a wide range of opportunities available to them.
Requirements for a Career in DevOps
Educational Experience
A Bachelor’s Degree in either Information Systems Technology or Computer Science is the minimum educational requirement for most DevOps job postings. While this qualification suffices, some employers prefer to hire individuals who possess a DevOps certification, which signifies a higher level of technical expertise. Check out our blog on GIS developers to broaden your knowledge.
A complete comprehension of various DevOps technologies, including automation, source control, cloud technology, project management, continuous integration & deployment is a prerequisite for this role. Additionally, experience with Linux/Unix environments and its functionalities is crucial.
Experienced engineers in both IT and operations are best suited for DevOps engineering positions.
Essential DevOps Skills for a Successful Career
- Thorough understanding of the DevOps toolchain
- Ability to completely automate the DevOps pipeline
- Competence in writing clean code
- Proficiency in code integration
- Proficiency in security measures
- Proficiency in programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, PHP, and others is a prerequisite
Tools Essential for a Successful DevOps Career
The usage of the following tools can assist in establishing a successful DevOps career:
- Chef, Puppet, and Ansible serve as configuration management tools.
- Collaboration software platforms,
- Application lifecycle management software solutions,
- Tools for issue tracking,
- Tools for IaaS/PaaS/Serverless computing in cloud environments,
- Source control management systems,
- Package managers
- Tools for efficient continuous integration and delivery
- Tools for continuous testing procedures
- Tools for orchestration of software releases
- Tools for software monitoring
- Software for data analytics.
Roles and Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer
Architect of DevOps
The primary responsibility of DevOps Architects is to select the most suitable tools, methodologies, and procedures to build a productive DevOps ecosystem. They are also accountable for overseeing and assessing all technical operations.
Manager of DevOps release
In DevOps, a release manager is responsible for defining quality standards for software builds and ensuring effective management of the CI/CD pipeline.
Security Engineer in DevOps
In DevOps, Security Engineers are accountable for ensuring that secure practices are followed throughout all stages of the software development lifecycle. Configuration and Log Management tools are used by DevOps Security Engineers to accomplish this, making it easier and more secure to manage large-scale deployments.
Test Engineer in DevOps
The role of a Test Engineer in DevOps is to design and execute tests that verify that the code meets the quality standards set by the Release Manager. This includes defining test cases, performing tests, and documenting the results to ensure that the code is performing as intended. Creating and implementing tests is a key responsibility of a DevOps Test Engineer.
Summary
Starting a career in DevOps, like any other, involves taking on a junior role where developers gain experience in different tasks related to each stage of the DevOps process.
As developers gain experience and advance in their careers, they will be required to handle the entire software release process from idea to execution, as well as creating innovative tactics to ensure that their products outperform their competitors. DevOps is thus a demanding yet rewarding profession. To learn more, visit our page for Developers.
