What Does a DevOps Engineer Do? A Career Guide
DevOps engineering, also known as DevOps, is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) principles to improve and streamline the software development lifecycle. It focuses on collaboration, communication, automation, and continuous integration and delivery.
DevOps engineers work to bridge the gap between development and operations teams, allowing for faster and more efficient software deployments. They utilize tools, technologies, and processes to automate tasks, optimize system performance, and achieve faster time-to-market for software products.
These engineers are responsible for various tasks, such as building and maintaining development, testing, and production environments; managing infrastructure and configuration; implementing and monitoring CI/CD pipelines; and collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure smoother development and deployment processes.
By integrating development and operations practices, DevOps engineering aims to enhance software quality, increase team efficiency, and deliver value to end-users quickly and consistently.
A DevOps engineer is responsible for optimizing an organization’s software, including software maintenance and server administration. Learn how to get the skills you need to be a DevOps engineer.
A DevOps engineer is responsible for leading and coordinating the activities of different teams to create and maintain a company’s software. The term ‘DevOps‘ is derived from “development and operations” and is a set of practices aiming to increase the efficiency of the software development lifecycle through collaboration.
A DevOps engineer’s end goal is to shorten the software development process, increase the frequency of software releases, unite operations teams and development teams, and facilitate more dependable releases.
Average salary for DevOps engineers
The average base salary for DevOps engineers in the US is $104,095 per year. When acknowledging additional pay like commissions or profit-sharing, Glassdoor estimates the total pay value to be $132,767 . DevOps engineers can work overtime or spend time on call, as software issues can come up at odd hours. DevOps Engineers can also work multiple jobs to double their income.
Roles of a DevOps Engineer
The roles and responsibilities of a DevOps engineer can vary based on the organization’s needs and the specific projects they are working on. However, here are some common roles and responsibilities of a DevOps engineer:
- Collaboration: DevOps engineers facilitate collaboration between development teams and operations teams, ensuring effective communication, shared goals, and a culture of teamwork.
- Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): They configure and manage CI/CD pipelines to automate the build, test, and deployment processes, enabling faster and more frequent software releases.
- Infrastructure Automation: DevOps engineers utilize infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools, such as Terraform or CloudFormation, to automate the provisioning and management of infrastructure resources, improving scalability and reducing manual errors.
- Configuration Management: They manage configuration files and tools like Ansible or Chef to ensure consistent and efficient deployments across different environments.
- Monitoring and Performance Optimization: DevOps engineers implement monitoring and logging solutions to proactively detect and resolve issues, optimize system performance, and ensure high availability and reliability of applications.
- Security: They actively participate in security practices, ensuring that proper security measures are implemented at all stages of the software development lifecycle. This includes vulnerability scanning, access control management, and compliance with security best practices.
- Cloud Services: DevOps engineers are proficient in using cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, leveraging their services to build scalable and resilient systems.
- Troubleshooting and Support: They are responsible for quickly identifying and resolving any issues or failures in the build, test, or deployment processes, providing support during incidents or outages.
It’s worth noting that while DevOps engineers possess a combination of development and operations skill sets, their exact roles and responsibilities can vary depending on the organization and its specific requirements.
What you will learn at TechLink Academy
At Techlink Academy, you can expect to acquire a range of skills to become a proficient DevOps engineer. Here are some key skills you can expect to learn:
- System Administration: Understanding and managing various operating systems, networking concepts, and system configurations is crucial for a DevOps engineer. You will learn how to troubleshoot and optimize system performance.
- Version Control: Proficiency in version control systems like Git is important for managing code repositories, branching, merging, and collaborating effectively with other team members.
- Scripting and Automation: Learning scripting languages like Python, Bash, or PowerShell enables you to automate repetitive tasks, configuration management, and infrastructure provisioning.
- Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD): You will gain expertise in configuring and managing CI/CD pipelines with tools like Jenkins, CircleCI, or GitLab CI/CD. This involves automating build, testing, and deployment processes.
- Containerization and Orchestration: You will learn about containerization technologies such as Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes to deploy and manage applications effectively.
- Cloud Platforms: Acquiring knowledge and experience using major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud is important for deploying applications, managing cloud infrastructure, and utilizing cloud services.
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): You will learn tools like Terraform or CloudFormation to provision and manage infrastructure resources programmatically, enabling efficient scaling and infrastructure automation.
- Monitoring and Logging: Understanding monitoring tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or ELK Stack will enable you to implement effective monitoring and logging solutions to ensure high availability and performance of systems.
- Security and Compliance: You will learn about security best practices, vulnerability scanning, access controls, and compliance requirements to ensure that applications and infrastructure are secure.
- Collaboration and Communication: Effective communication and collaboration skills are important for working with cross-functional teams and fostering a collaborative DevOps culture.
It’s worth noting that becoming a “perfect” DevOps engineer requires continuous learning, staying updated with industry trends and tools, and gaining hands-on experience through real-world projects. Techlink Academy aims to provide a comprehensive foundation in the key skills needed to excel in a DevOps engineering role.