DevOps engineers play a crucial role in keeping IT departments running smoothly and efficiently. The demand for these skilled professionals is growing rapidly, with the market expected to reach $17 billion by 2026.
If you're interested in becoming a DevOps engineer, read on to learn about the skills you need, your responsibilities, and what you can expect to earn.
Get ready to dive into a lucrative and exciting career of DevOps engineers.
What Is a DevOps Engineer?
A DevOps engineer is an IT professional who works with software developers, IT operations personnel, system users, and management to optimize the rollout of new updates and programs.
DevOps engineers are essentially the backbone of their IT departments — creating integrated, user-friendly systems quickly.
What Does a DevOps Engineer do?
To understand what a DevOps engineer does, you need to understand the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
The SDLC includes six phases of development, including:
Planning: When developers outline the project’s scope and requirements
Analysis: When developers research and analyze the requirements to implement them into the system
Design: When developers design the architecture of the project
Implementation: When developers build the system
Testing: When developers test the system’s code and resolve errors
Deployment and maintenance: When developers release the system and perform maintenance to keep it running smoothly
There are several approaches to the SDLC, including the Waterfall and Agile methodologies. In the Waterfall methodology, people work sequentially through the SDLC from planning to deployment and maintenance. In the Agile method, people work through the SDLC continuously.
What Skills Do You Need to Be a DevOps Engineer?
As DevOps engineers have diverse responsibilities at work, you’ll need many different skills to become one. This section will outline some of these critical skills.
Experience With Automation Tools
First, you’ll need to know how to use automation tools. Automation tools allow you to outsource repetitive functions to automation programs. Two of these automation programs include:
Experience With Version Control Systems
As a DevOps engineer, you’ll also need to become familiar with Version Control Systems (VCS). These tools help developers, and DevOps engineers track updates to their source code repository. They also resolve conflicts when multiple people add code at once.
If you come from a software developer background, you’ll already know how to use popular VCS tools like Git. Git is a free and open-source tool that integrates with repository hosting tools like GitHub and BitBucket.
- Git
Experience With Repository Hosting Tools
As part of the development team, you’ll know how to use repository hosting tools as a DevOps engineer. As the name suggests, repository hosting tools host code securely in the cloud. These tools also give developers access to pre-written code to speed up the software development process.
You’ll need to be familiar with three crucial hosting tools as a DevOps engineer, such as GitHub and GitLab.
Experience With Configuration Management Tools
As a DevOps engineer, you’ll also need to be familiar with configuration management tools. These tools help IT professionals consistently configure the different system or network elements. They also help developers reduce the time to deploy a new system. Two popular configuration management tools DevOps engineers use are Puppet and Chef.
Experience With Monitoring Software
As monitoring is a crucial component of a DevOps engineer’s job, DevOps engineers need to be familiar with monitoring software. Monitoring software allows you to watch infrastructure for any potential issues.
While every organization has its approach to monitoring, you may use monitoring tools like Nagios and Raygun.
Coding Skills
As DevOps engineers are a crucial part of the development process, you’ll need to be familiar with some of the most common scripting and programming languages to succeed in your role. There are two types of scripting languages: server-side and client-side. Some of the most popular client-side scripting languages include HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Some of the most popular server-side scripting languages include PHP, Node.js, ASP.NET, Ruby, Perl, Python, and Java.
Expertise in Containerization Tools
DevOps engineers in many organizations work with containerization tools. Containerization tools help developers package code and deploy it in small containers. Deploying code with containerization allows systems to run faster and more effectively between different environments.
To become a successful DevOps engineer, you should learn the basics of containerization tools like Docker and Kubernetes.
Experience With Project Management Tools
As DevOps engineers manage and oversee development projects, you need to know project development tools before becoming a DevOps engineer. Project management tools help people track projects using Gantt charts, checklists, and card-based filing systems.
Three of the most popular project management tools for DevOps include Trello, Atlassian Jira, and Atlassian Confluence.
Experience With Public Cloud Services
As DevOps engineers frequently work with cloud-based projects, you’ll need to be familiar with cloud-based services to succeed in your new role. Public cloud services are computing services that allow organizations to share networks, storage, and hardware. When organizations use public cloud services, they access their infrastructure through the internet.
Customer-Facing Skills
As DevOps developers need to work with system users, you’ll need strong customer service skills to succeed in DevOps. Specifically, you’ll need excellent active listening skills, good communication skills, conflict resolution skills, and a knack for understanding users’ needs.
Collaborative Management Skills
As DevOps engineers often work in small teams, you’ll need strong teamwork skills. Specifically, you’ll need to be great at giving constructive feedback, accepting feedback, brainstorming in a group, and working towards a common goal.
WordPress Development Skills
As WordPress powers 40% of all websites, you may need strong WordPress development skills to be part of a WordPress DevOps team. Specifically, you’ll need to learn how WordPress works and use hosting tools like DevKinsta.
Summary
DevOps engineers are in high demand and play a crucial role in companies with complex IT systems. With the right skills and knowledge, you can help run IT projects, improve team performance, and speed up development.
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