MY QUESTION
Are roles that blend backend/devops skills or do developers need to be
Full Stack or DevOps?
Background/POV
I'm currently a junior full stack web developer that has only worked in the industry for about a year. With a genuine personal interest in becoming more self-reliant I committed to doing all the AWS Associate certs before Jan 2020. Stretch goal is the Software DevOps Engineer Professional; we'll see if I can sneak a professional in by then. Either way I'll be happy.
Thank you in advance for any forthcoming comments and feedback.
Latest comments (13)
Work at a small, non-tech company. You can be everything from fullstack developer to support to DevOps to DBA all in one job 😋 I was all of these things when I worked at a public school district. Once I started working in the private sector, I was shocked to hear that developers on my team didn't even know what a load balancer was 🤣
A friend was saying something similar. He said go with someone small. I'm struggling to think how to do this; never really worked for anyone that wasn't a startup/tech or a mid-size+.
I'm definitely not against it, so if you have any tricks, suggestions on how to pursue this path, because I think it's a mistake to hear this feedback from you and others offline and not at least strongly consider it.
Just look for jobs in the public sector - government, universities, school districts, utilities, transportation, etc. The biggest downside is that most of these places are small because they have small budgets, which in turn means smaller salaries and it's the reason you'll wear many hats at your job, because there's not enough budget to hire specialized people. Universities generally are the best to get in to, as they have great benefits and usually come with free tuition (or loan forgiveness if you have any student loans), plus their salary is generally a bit higher and you might have opportunities to teach as adjunct faculty.
Ok I'll definitely try that strategy. I'd definitely be interested in taking advantage of free tuition if that was in the offer. Plus from what I hear they get great vacation packages, so I'd take time with family over $$s any day.
Thank you!
You can also start a side project, provide valuable service online to anyone. It will not only give you the chance to wear all hats, but also the constant out-of-the-comfort-zone that only private initiatives can offer.
Side hustle I'm down for, but I've struggled to figure out how to get freelance work. It's definitely a difficult nut for me to wrap my head around. Always open to tips, because your idea would be great to build off of.
Well.... on the most basic level, a DevOp is just a Developer, who also Operates the developed solutions.
It never hurts to get some additional skills, but to answer your question... as a DevOp you usually are a Full Stack Dev with skills for Operations (deploy, configure, secure, little bit of network stuff ...)
Andreas that's so completely the thoughts I had in my mind when I decided to do the AWS certs. However I was so shocked that after I shared my goals publicly the very next 3 senior devs I spoke to said '...oh you want to go down the DevOps path then and not be a full stack developer'. My jaw dropped and I didn't know what to say. FYI Those conversations were the precipitating events that caused me to post my question here and I'm glad I did, because you and everyone else have really been helpful.
All developers should learn DevOps. DevOps is not a job title but a culture. It's a way of doing things. The sooner you can learn those ways the more effective you'll be.
So regarding this cert, if you can learn the skills and get the cert it will make you a more valuable developer in my opinion. Go for it.
Firmly agree here. DevOps isn't a job title, a set of tools, or even a methodology, it's a culture of automation, iteration, feedback, and improvement. Both devs and ops/admin guys would do well to learn how to tear down walls and get better, more stable code into production faster and easier.
So you also believe as I understand it that it's skills developers could embrace as part of an effort to widen their expertise?
100%
Thank you Jeremy. I was thinking like that until the feedback seemed to focus on diverting me from becoming a more knowledgeable full stack developer, but to a devops only career path. I thought I don’t want to be forced to be something other than being full stack. Makes me worry I was making a mistake.