Who is a DevOps Engineer? Roles, Responsibilities and Skills

A DevOps engineer, also known as a software engineer in DevOps, has become an essential part of modern software development teams. Their main responsibility is to help organizations streamline the process of software development and deployment by automating certain repetitive tasks.

While it’s not easy to pinpoint exactly what a DevOps engineer does on any given day due to the nature of their work, there are some general practices that many follow. 

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a set of principles that encourages collaboration and communication between developers and operations teams to improve the quality of software products. By working together, these two teams can identify problems faster and more accurately than ever before.

Who is a DevOps Engineer?

A DevOps engineer is a software engineer who has the responsibility of automating the software development process, from the initial coding to the deployment of an application. These professionals are responsible for managing and maintaining all aspects of their company’s infrastructure, including servers and networks. 

As such, they must be skilled in multiple areas such as automation tools (e.g., Puppet), cloud computing services (e.g., Amazon Web Services), configuration management tools (e.g., Chef), and databases (e.g., MySQL).

DevOps Engineer’s Roles and Responsibilities

1. Automating software development

DevOps engineers are responsible for automating the software development and deployment process. They push their code to a production-ready environment, which means every time someone pushes a new change to the codebase, it’s automatically tested and deployed. 

2. Testing processes

DevOps engineers also work on automating testing processes. Their goal is to minimize manual testing by using automation tools such as Selenium or Docker containers.

3. Automating the release process

DevOps engineers take things one step further by automating the release process, too. When you’re releasing large amounts of data or apps into production environments it’s critical that you can roll back changes if something goes wrong during deployment—or worse, causes damage at scale!

4. Ensuring error-free development & deployment 

Automating this process ensures that your company can recover quickly from any errors made during release day so there aren’t any lasting effects on revenue or employee productivity.

Top Core DevOps Engineer’s Skills

DevOps engineers have a well-rounded skill set, but some skills stand out. Here’s what you should know about each one:

1. Work efficiently

DevOps engineers often use the cloud to reduce costs and allow teams to scale quickly.

2. Streamline the software process

DevOps engineers help organizations streamline software development, release, and deployment processes by automating them.

3. Help improve process stability 

They are responsible for automating the software development and deployment process. This includes automating the release process, deployment process, and test process to improve efficiency and provide more stability over time.

4. Have a deep understanding of app development & operations

DevOps engineers are required to have a thorough understanding of both application development and operations. 

5. Effective communication & technical expertise

They must communicate effectively with other developers while also working well with IT staff members who may not have as much technical expertise. 

DevOps Engineers Salary

DevOps engineers are a crucial part of any team that needs to create its software. They bridge the gap between your business and its technology, making sure that the two are working together seamlessly.

DevOps engineer salaries can vary greatly depending on the company and its location. A DevOps engineer’s salary in a large city like San Francisco or New York City can be several times higher than one in a smaller city, but it’s important to remember that these cities are also more expensive to live in.

The average DevOps engineer’s salary is around $105,000 per year. However, that number varies wildly depending on factors like experience, location, and industry. 

For example, if you’re looking at companies that offer cloud computing services (like Amazon Web Services), you’ll likely find engineers with much higher salaries than those working for small businesses or startups.

In general, though, most people who work as DevOps engineers make an annual salary between $100,000 and $150,000 per year based on their experience level and educational background. 

This means that even if fewer companies are willing to pay top dollar for experienced talent than there used to be (which seems likely), there are still plenty of opportunities out there for skilled professionals who want to advance their careers in this field.

Top 5 Leading DevOps Certifications

There are tons of companies looking to hire DevOps engineers, and that means there’s an opportunity to stand out from the crowd by getting certified. DevOps certifications are a great way to get your foot in the door of this growing field. 

They show potential employers that you have the skills needed to thrive in an increasingly automated world, and they also help you develop those skills further by giving you access to training and support networks. 

1. AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

AWS has been around since 2006 and provides cloud computing services such as web hosting, storage, and other infrastructure services. 

The AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification is designed to validate your knowledge of designing and deploying systems on AWS. 

It covers topics like security, high availability, backup strategies, and performance optimization.

2. Google Cloud Certified Professional – Cloud Architect

Google Cloud offers a variety of services that can be used to build applications or host websites (e.g., Google App Engine). 

The Google Cloud Certified Professional – Cloud Architect certification helps validate your ability to design complex applications using Google’s tools and technologies. 

Key topics include architecture design principles, infrastructure deployment strategies, building scalable applications using microservices architecture patterns, etc.

3. Microsoft Azure Architect: Design & Deploy exam

Microsoft Azure is a platform for building and managing cloud-based applications using Microsoft-based technologies such as Windows Server or SQL Server databases (among others). 

A Microsoft Azure Architect: Design certification validates that you have the skills and knowledge to design, develop, deploy and maintain apps based on Microsoft Azure. 

The design & Deploy exam focuses on designing solutions on Azure that are secure yet cost-effective.

4. The Terraform Certified Associate DevOps 

It is a step towards becoming a DevOps Engineer. This certification tests your knowledge of DevOps and will help you get started on your path to becoming a certified DevOps Engineer.

The Terraform Certified Associate DevOps certification is designed to help you understand the concepts of DevOps, and how it helps businesses. The exam tests your knowledge of the following:

• Deployment tools
• Provisioning tools
• Configuration management tools

5. Docker Certified Associate

It is a certification that makes you an expert in using containers to build, ship, and run applications. The certification covers using containerized software images to run applications, managing container lifecycles, and performing container operations.

The Docker Certified Associate For DevOps Engineers exam tests your knowledge of the following topics:

• Container basics: what are containers? How do they differ from virtual machines?

• Image management: how do you use Docker images? How do you manage them? What is Docker Hub and how does it work?

• Deployment strategies: when should you use a container-based approach versus a traditional virtual machine approach? What are the pros and cons of each approach?

• Container orchestration: what are some popular orchestration frameworks for deploying containers?

Top 5 Useful DevOps Tools

We’re all about DevOps here at OneClick, and we’re always looking for ways to make our processes more efficient.

1. AWS 

We use this cloud hosting service for everything from storing data to running applications, and it’s a huge time-saver for us.

2. Jenkins

Jenkins is an open-source automation server that allows us to run scripts in parallel on multiple servers or computers. It also monitors each stage of the process and alerts us when something goes wrong.

3. Prometheus  

This tool collects metrics from our software development pipeline and stores them in a time series database. It’s great because it gives us an overview of how well our system is performing over time, so we can identify issues before they become major problems!

4. Datadog 

We use this tool to monitor systems performance, including CPU usage and memory usage across our entire infrastructure (both on-premises and in the cloud). This helps us keep tabs on what’s going on with our apps so we can make sure they’re running smoothly at all times!

5.  Vagrant 

A vagrant is a tool for managing virtual machines. It can be used to create and configure lightweight, reproducible, and portable development environments. Vagrant can work with any provider of virtualization solutions, including VMware vSphere, AWS EC2, DigitalOcean, libvirt/QEMU, LXC, Oracle VirtualBox, and Hyper-V.

How to Become a DevOps Engineer?

DevOps is one of the most in-demand careers in tech right now, but it’s also notoriously difficult to break into. If you’re just starting, here’s what you need to know about how to become a DevOps engineer:

1. Know Your Interest

Before you start applying for jobs as a DevOps engineer, make sure that you have a good grasp of the basics of coding. If you can’t write code, then there’s no point in applying for a job as a DevOps engineer!

2. Try Your Hands 

DevOps engineers are all about automation and consistency, so if you want to be successful at this job, then you must get used to working with automation tools like Chef or Ansible, or with continuous integration tools like Jenkins or TravisCI (if those don’t sound familiar).

3. Stay Up-to-Date with Technology Trends

DevOps engineers are often responsible for keeping their companies up-to-date on technology trends to help them innovate faster than their competitors do and that means staying on top of trends like cloud computing or AI/machine learning/deep learning. 

4. Get Certified

Grab one of the top certifications like AWS or Microsoft Azure. This requires taking courses and passing exams on the subject matter so that you can prove your skills and knowledge.

5. Get Experience

Start working as an intern for an established company where you’ll be able to learn from people who have been there before you and make mistakes along the way too! You can also get experience by doing freelance work or by participating in hackathons where you’ll work with other programmers who want to make something great together! 

To conclude

As you can see, being a DevOps engineer can be a rewarding career. You get to work with technology every day and see your ideas come to life. You’ll also have the chance to make a difference in an organization by helping it streamline its software development process or automate some of its tasks. 

If this sounds like something you might be interested in doing, don’t wait any longer! Start learning about DevOps now so that when those opportunities do arise, you’ll be ready for them!  

FAQs on DevOps Engineers