In recent years “DevOps” has become sort of a buzzword across all types of industries within the IT umbrella. It is worth noting that DevOps ideally consists of a blend of philosophies, practices, and tools rather than strictly deploying and maintaining CI/CD pipelines for example. DevOps can be thought of as the glue that holds your product together through the entire Software Development Life Cycle that includes planning, creating, testing, and deploying.
Because it consists of such a wide range of application critical functions, it should be no surprise that DevOps professionals have become sought after in recent years. I’ll admit the title of this article may be a little misleading, as a dead DevOps engineer probably won’t provide your organization much value (unless of course they were able to implement a ton of automated systems before they shuffled off this mortal coil…).
So, lets talk a little more about what a DevOps professional actually does, and how to become one if it sounds like a role that would be a good fit for you.
It is helpful to first think of DevOps as abiding by 3 guiding principles:
Empower the exchange of information shared thought processes
Shorten and amplify feedback loops
Create a culture that fosters continuous experimentation and learning
More specifically, a DevOps engineer looks to improve multiple areas of the aforementioned SDLC using a mix of practices, tools, and technologies. A DevOps engineer attempts to reduce the communication gap between developers, system admins, and programmers all working on the same product but maybe not sharing the same information.
It is also important to remember that a DevOps engineer is able to take a 10,000 foot view of both the product and the company, so that they can see in the grand scheme of things how any issue could potentially affect the entire company.
Finally, a DevOps engineer should be able to write smaller pieces of code in various languages to quickly make and test changes. An example of this could be adding permissions or processes to an existing cloud/tech stack to meet evolving business prerequisites.
So you know a little bit about what a DevOps engineer does and you think it sounds neat enough to pursue. What are some of the concepts and skills you should acquire? Well, as with anything tech related the fine details depend upon where you are working and what type of product you are working on. However, there are a few concepts you should be familiar with that can apply to multiple areas.
Some of these concepts include but are not limited to source control, continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD), and some of the common technologies that surround them. You should also have an idea of what the Agile development methodology is and how it is used in modern organizations.
Once you become familiar with some of these concepts and technologies, you will be able to more readily adapt to different demands and requirements of an organization based upon where you end up, and you can start actually building and deploying game-changing applications.
Of course you can’t make a decision if you don’t know how you will be rewarded for your efforts and hard work. According to 2022 research the average salary for a DevOps engineer in the United States is around $117,000, with the range usually being between $100,000–135,000. Just like with anything else this can vary and be more or less depending on your experience, skills, certifications, soft skills etc. So do your best to continue making yourself valuable so that organizations have no choice but to pay you handsomely.
I hope this was helpful in allowing you to understand what the field of DevOps is and will give you an idea if it is something to pursue. The nice thing about it is that it is a blend of skills all mashed into one title, so if you have a few well refined skills already (like programming and debugging for example), then making a transition to DevOps should be relatively simple since you already have a solid foundation.
Let me know if you have any questions or feedback, they are both much appreciated.
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