A quote by Adam Nowak, Development Process practice Lead, states about DevOps that,

“In a time-to-market oriented business, DevOps with its open and agile attitude, helps organizations deliver business value quicker, adapt to change easier, and render people less afraid of it, as they trust that there is always a process to navigate the chaos”.

One single quote to define the power of DevOps. 

Did you know that LinkedIn listed DevOps Engineer as the most in-demand job role in the IT industry? At present, the usage of DevOps methodology is over 74%, while the enterprise-level adoption is at 24%. The widest challenge that companies are facing today is finding the right candidates with the perfect blend of DevOps skills and knowledge. 

Salaries as high as USD 180,000 and a wider skill gap have resulted in huge demand for DevOps Engineers all over the world. This has also increased the number of candidates going for DevOps Engineer training to make a career in the most in-demand IT role.

Going down the article, you will come across who a DevOps Engineer is and the roles and responsibilities.

Who is a DevOps Engineer?

When the term says DevOps, it is a blend of Dev and Ops; where ‘Dev’ refers to development and ‘Ops’ refers to Operations. DevOps is a software development technique that bridges the gap between developers and IT professionals. DevOps methodology enables organizations to release small features very quickly. The quote mentioned at the beginning of the article states all the powerful features of DevOps. It lets organizations adapt to changes with ease and shortened lead time between fixes. 

A DevOps Engineer is a professional who understands the Software Development Lifecycle and possesses an in-depth understanding of different automation tools for developing CI/CD pipelines. 

As a DevOps engineer, you are required to work with developers and IT professionals to look after the code releases. You can move into DevOps even if you are a developer interested in deployment and network operations or a system administrator who is interested in scripting and coding and transition into development to improve the planning of test and deployment. 

Some of the popular tools you should master as a DevOps engineer are:

• Git and GitHub – for the version control system (meant for source code management)
• Selenium – related to automation testing
• Kubernetes – as a Container Orchestration tool
• Jenkins – to be used for automation servers, comes with plugins designed for developing CI/CD pipelines.
• Puppet – for Configuration Management and Deployment
• Docker – as a Software Containerization Platform
• Ansible – for Configuration Management and Deployment
• Chef – for Configuration Management and Deployment
• Nagios – for Continuous Monitoring

Roles and Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer

As a DevOps Engineer, you have to play a role that is a mix of technical and managerial. So it is crucial for you to have excellent communication skills and coordination skills as well to bridge the gap between both the teams and integrate different functions to deliver the responsibilities to meet customer satisfaction. 

Some of the key roles that you need to play as a DevOps Engineer are

• DevOps Evangelist- a leader accountable for implementing DevOps
• Automation Expert- an IT pro accountable for performing automation and orchestration of tools
• Release Manager- responsible for releasing new features and validating stability of post-release of product
• Security Engineer- to maintain the security of the product
• Quality Assurance- to make sure that the quality of the product meets its requirements
• Software Developer/Tester- to develop or write the code and test for its success

Key Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer are:

• Understand well the requirements of customers and project KPIs
• Implement different development, automation, and testing tools, as well as IT infrastructure. 
• Plan the structure of the team, their activities, and roles in project management activities
• Manage external interfaces and stakeholders
• Set up tools and infrastructure according to the customer requirements
• Define and set up development, test, update, release, and aid processes 
• Acquire the technical skills such that you can review, verify, and authenticate the software code developed during software development
• Troubleshoot methodologies and techniques and fix the code bugs.
• Control the processes during the software development lifecycle for its alignment and update or build new processes for enhancement and eliminate wastage.
• Encourage and create automated processes for tedious tasks
• Identify and deploy measures for providing cybersecurity by consistently performing vulnerability checks and management of risks.
• Root cause analysis and incidence management
• Maintain coordination and interaction within the teams and with customers
• Select and deploy relevant CI/CD tools
• Mentor and train the team members
• Maintain consistent improvement and create continuously integration, development as well as constant deployment CI/CD pipeline
• Measure and control KPIs and customer experience
• Maintain periodic reports on the progress of development to the management and customers

With the aforementioned points of responsibility, it is clear that a DevOps Engineer plays a crucial role in integrating the project functions and resources during the product life cycle right from the first step of planning, going along building and testing through deployment to support.  

Skills Required

To become a DevOps Engineer, there is a certain skill set that you need to acquire. They are:

• In-depth knowledge of working on infrastructure based on Linux 
• Sound knowledge of programming languages that may include Python, Ruby, Java, and Perl
• Database configuration and management like MySQL, MongoDB, etc.
• Thorough understanding of troubleshooting
• In-depth knowledge of different tools such as Git and GitHub, Jenkins, etc., along with cloud services and open-source technologies
• Experience in working with Agile and DevOps methodologies

Conclusion

By now, you might have discovered the crucial role of a DevOps Engineer. If you wish to transition your career to DevOps Engineering, you will need to acquire the skills required. 

To do so, the best way is to take up an online training course. Some of the top features of an online training course are self-paced learning, choice of different learning modes, doubt sessions, job assistance, and a certificate of course completion that validates your skills and knowledge.

Enroll now!