For better or worse, the world of technology is a fickle beast. That holds especially true when it comes to emerging technologies. Businesses have only recently begun adopting new frameworks that introduced more flexible programming methodologies. Concepts like Agile, Scrum, DevOps, and CI/CD are taking over the digital economy.
The demand for DevOps experts is rising quickly. The term DevOps, short for Development and Operations, it refers to making software development and deployment more efficient by eliminating the conflicts between development and operations teams.
I believe that companies incorporating DevOps practices are simply getting more done at a faster pace, providing software solutions rapidly. In turn, this allows them to prevent and resolve production issues—a desirable achievement, since this results in better customer experience, feedback, and communication.
According to InformationWeek, DevOps will be in high demand in the future. This indicates that DevOps engineers will remain in high demand throughout the forecast period. Before we explore how to become a DevOps engineer, it will help to address the question:
What is a DevOps engineer?
A DevOps engineer is like a plumber who fixes pipes and toilets, but instead of fixing pipes and toilets, he’s fixing software.
A DevOps Engineer is an IT professional who has an in-depth understanding of the software development lifecycle. They need to understand why the organization had to move from one model to the other, the shortcomings of the previous model, the benefits of the new model and so on.
DevOps engineers collaborate with the development and operation teams to deliver high-quality products in as short a time as possible.
A DevOps engineer also must know how to use various automation tools for developing continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines. This demand position requires a special set of DevOps skills, which we will explore more in-depth later.
There are various stages in a CI/CD pipeline. The first stage is the planning stage, which includes writing an algorithm for your product. The next stage is the building stage, where the algorithm is transformed into a product that can be used.
The product is then tested in the testing stage, where all bugs are found and corrected. The product finally goes to the deployment stage, where it’s introduced to the end-users. Once the product is deployed, it needs to be monitored continuously, which is a new concept recently introduced into the DevOps lifecycle.
DevOps engineers focus more on the monitoring stage compared to the previous stages. It’s essential to monitor the product continuously to catch new bugs, fix them, and push the corrected version back to the client. This is done to ensure customer satisfaction once the product is deployed into the real world. DevOps engineers collaborate with the development and operation teams to deliver high-quality products in as short a time as possible.
DevOps Engineer Roles and Responsibilities
A DevOps engineer works with both the development and operations teams to create and implement software systems. Therefore, they need to collaborate with software developers, quality assurance professionals, and other IT staff.
A DevOps engineer’s main roles and responsibilities include:
- Write documentation for the server-side features.
- Develop, install, test, configure, and maintain IT solutions.
- Communicate operational requirements and development forecasts with everyone in the team.
- Develop plans and processes for improvement and expansion of the current technologies being used.
- Deploy updates automatically into the production environment using configuration management software.
- Perform routine application maintenance and troubleshooting measure to ensure the production environment runs smoothly.
- Perform gap analysis to identify performance enhancements, identify alternative solutions, and assist with modifications.
DevOps Engineer Career Path
A DevOps engineer can also venture down other career paths, such as:
- DevOps architect
- Automation engineer
- Software tester
- Integration specialist
- Security engineer
- Release manager
DevOps Engineer Salary
A DevOps engineer salary may vary based on the number of years of experience and certifications you have. Here’s an estimate from Glassdoor on the salary trends of a DevOps engineer in the United States and India:
- The average salary of a DevOps engineer in Nigeria is N12,000,000 per year.
- The average salary of a DevOps engineer in the United States is $105,107 per year (as of mid-December 2021).
- The average salary of a DevOps engineer in India is INR 700,000 per year.
