It is no secret that our era is an era of rapid advancement. Unlike the situation a century ago, today it is impossible to develop software or any other product during months or even years of work. In the context of an ever-accelerating digital market and instant consumer gratification, a lot needs to be done in just a matter of days. One of the biggest transformations in technology management of the last decade has been DevOps. Nowadays it is the hottest buzzword that you can see everywhere – on job ads, tech conferences, and corporate strategies – but few people understand what it actually means. This buzzword is much more than what meets the eye, as it stands for the complete transformation of the way software is delivered to its users.
The history of technology development was marked by the existence of two absolutely different departments of any corporation – development (software engineering) and IT Operations. Traditionally, software developers’ goals were constantly in opposition to the needs of operations teams as they were encouraged to deliver new features, innovate and introduce changes as fast as possible, while operation teams were supposed to maintain software stability and prevent any changes that could potentially cause problems. Thus, this opposition led to the situation where code would stay untested for weeks until it finally would reach operations. DevOps is an innovative solution that bridges this huge gap between two corporate functions.
With many American companies switching their infrastructure to the cloud and implementing digital-first strategies, there arose a huge demand for professionals that can combine their skills and expertise in these areas. Such giants as Amazon, Netflix, or Walmart applied these approaches to achieve unparalleled levels of competitiveness in their fields proving once again that the speed of software delivery positively impacts companies’ profitability. This is the reason why there is such fierce competition for this talent among many corporations from Silicon Valley to Wall Street – from big banks to healthcare startups.
Introduction: What Is DevOps and Why You Should Care
First of all, it is necessary to note that DevOps is a term that goes far beyond the realm of software development and engineering techniques. In order to understand this concept, you should forget about tools and look closer into DevOps philosophy and methodology. It is the combination of a cultural movement, set of practices, and architecture philosophy that aims to integrate the processes between software development and IT operations and automate them. Ultimately, this process enables organizations to produce, test and deploy their products faster than before.
In the traditional ‘Waterfall’ project management approach, software engineering was always separated into stages. Developers used to write tens of thousands of lines of code for several months and then just throw it over the wall to Quality Assurance and IT operations teams that tried to deploy it to a live production environment. As there was no interaction between them, operations team used to deploy code that it had never seen before and thus failed due to environmental discrepancies. Then, both sides of this process used to blame each other – developers accused operations team in misconfigurations, and IT accused developers in producing broken code.
By using DevOps principles, it is possible to get rid of this wall of confusion. Modern approaches involve full cooperation of cross-functional teams through every stage of the application life cycle, starting from the design and ending with deployment and post-release monitoring. In other words, software developers acquire knowledge about operational environment where the code will be running and operations teams bring infrastructure expertise to the beginning stages of the project. Thus, it helps to establish a culture based on cooperation, trust, and shared responsibility.
Core Pillars of the DevOps Approach
The creation of such a culture is hardly possible without a solid foundation based on a set of DevOps principles called the delivery pipeline. The first and the most important principle is Continuous Integration (CI). CI requires developers to frequently merge their code changes into a common codebase using the repository and initiate automated building of code along with running the automated tests for the code to check whether there are any conflicts or bugs in it. Thus, it eliminates the risks of getting the whole system down due to some minor issue at the development stage.
Next pillar is Continuous Delivery (CD) that ensures that code changes made earlier would be automatically ready for the deployment to the production environment. Some organizations might use Continuous Delivery (CD) model that involves automated release and deployment of validated code into a live environment right after completion of testing processes. By using CD model, companies are able to react to users’ demands or resolve critical security issues within several minutes or even seconds instead of waiting for the next quarter to release a new software update.
Third key principle is Infrastructure as Code (IAC). Traditionally, setting up servers was a manual process that involved operations teams configuring servers manually – installation of operating systems, network management, configuration of different settings. Obviously, this process was quite cumbersome, time-consuming, and often resulted in discrepancies between environments – development, testing, and production. Thanks to IAC principles, it became possible to treat server configurations, networks, and storage the same way as applications – with the help of description and automation.
Finally, an important element of any DevOps approach is Continuous Monitoring and Logging. After deployment into production environment, the process is not finished for good and companies need to monitor their systems and applications for various reasons. Thanks to powerful tools of logging, it is now possible to analyze the performance of systems and applications and find out if there are any security issues or performance problems before they appear in front of customers’ eyes. All this feedback can be later used for further improvement.
Reasons Why Corporate America Needs DevOps So Badly
The main reason of DevOps hype is the ability to increase the velocity of software development, its stability, reliability, as well as reducing costs significantly. First of all, in the digital age, companies have to be extremely quick in releasing the product to capture the market and earn money. Thanks to this methodology, organizations can implement updates and features into their application dozens or even hundreds of times faster than traditionally which gives them competitive advantage over other players in the market.
Furthermore, this approach ensures increased stability and reliability of any software produced. Frequent, small-scale code changes, heavy automated tests guarantee that any deployment would fail with little chance as everything is controlled by automation. In case, something unexpected happens, automated environment allows rolling back changes in a matter of minutes or even seconds and restore previous, stable version of the software. Thus, DevOps ensures maximum uptime and minimum system downtimes.
Cost efficiency and resource optimization is the third reason why corporate America cannot do without DevOps. Many tasks in traditional development and operations are repetitive, tedious, time-consuming and costly as they require lots of manual work – regression testing, infrastructure deployment, and troubleshooting. Thanks to DevOps tools, it is now possible to eliminate all these manual activities that save a significant sum of money that can be invested into more productive activities.
Lastly, but definitely not least, this methodology helps organizations to overcome corporate silos and promote cultural change inside organizations. DevOps promotes transparency, collaboration, and sharing responsibility which creates a positive culture. In this culture, any failure is perceived as an opportunity to improve the test pipeline rather than assigning blame to someone. That creates a psychologically safe space where everyone feels free to share opinions and ideas, thus fostering innovation.
The Role of a DevOps Engineer in Modern Technology
Given such a value that this methodology can provide, the position of the DevOps engineer became one of the most valued in technology sector. This is the job that is often misunderstood as someone who is an expert in operations and can code a bit or vice versa. However, a DevOps engineer is completely a unique and multi-disciplinary profession, sitting exactly in the middle between coding and operations. The task of this engineer is to manage the automation pipelines and infrastructure in order to deliver new software.
The day of DevOps engineer is quite unpredictable as there are many tasks related to this role. He spends a considerable time designing and configuring infrastructure, implementing pipelines, writing infrastructure as code, ensuring that all code changes go through rigorous testing and are then deployed into a live environment. Also, he acts as an advisor for development and operations teams explaining how they should collaborate and work in order to optimize the software delivery process and ensure the success.
DevOps Engineer Core Structure
| DevOps Engineer Core Areas | Key Responsibilities |
| Development | Scripting, APIs, CI/CD Pipelines |
| Operations | Cloud Networks, Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Provisioning |
| Security | Access Control, Compliance and System Protection |
DevOps Engineer Workflow Structure
| Development | Operations | Security |
| Scripting & APIs | Cloud Networks | Access Control |
| CI/CD Pipelines | IaC Provisioning | Compliance Management |
| Automation Logic | Infrastructure Scaling | Threat Prevention |
| Version Control Systems | Deployment Monitoring | Secure Authentication |
| Application Integration | System Reliability | Governance Policies |
To perform these responsibilities effectively, DevOps engineer should have certain technical skills that are specific to this profession. First of all, a professional should be good in script programming to be able to automate various tasks. At the same time, he should have an expert knowledge of any major cloud service providers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure. Also, he should have experience in such technologies as Docker, Kubernetes, version control systems like Git, and configuration management services like Terraform or Ansible.
However, there are also non-technical qualities that are required for being an effective DevOps engineer. Namely, he should be a good communicator who is able to listen to others and understand what they need to perform their tasks properly. He should translate technical details to developers and explain operational needs to programmers and be able to convince them that they should change their mindset. Therefore, soft skills also play a significant role in becoming a good DevOps professional.
Why the US DevOps Market Is Starved for Talent
As mentioned before, the DevOps market has a severe problem of scarcity of good DevOps engineers in the USA nowadays. The reason for that is simple – most of the companies in the country become software companies. No matter what kind of organization it is – manufacturing cars, providing financial services, selling groceries, etc. – nowadays it delivers software to its customers that is how it interacts with its consumers. Thousands of enterprises transform to software companies and the number of jobs increases rapidly.
Also, another reason for the scarcity of the talent is the broad range of skills that are necessary for the DevOps engineers. The person that would be hired has to understand the aspects of software engineering, operations, infrastructure management, cybersecurity, and project management at a fairly high level. Due to extremely high threshold and difficult learning curve, the number of such professionals remained really small. Thus, fierce competition takes place among organizations in America.
This fierce competition is the reason why the salaries in this area are so high. The statistics proves that the average base salaries for middle level engineers range from $120,000 to $160,000, for senior positions, cloud architects and DevOps managers – $180,000 to $220,000 or even higher. Considering that, many organizations provide these employees with stock options, performance bonuses, medical insurance, and fully remote working conditions, it is obvious that DevOps engineers are among the most valuable assets for them.
Talking about the future, the demand for DevOps engineers is going to increase even further. Emergence of technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning makes software even more complicated and hard to manage, which leads to emergence of new specializations – MLOps and DevSecOps. With the increasing importance of digitalization in business, the demand for engineers that manage these systems will increase significantly making it one of the best careers in the world.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Difference Between IT Systems Administrator and DevOps Engineer?
While IT System Administrator works in the realm of manual maintenance and configuration of servers, operations, and networking in order to maintain stability in his organization. At the same time, DevOps Engineer uses automated tools to deploy new code versions into a live environment and create automated test pipelines. DevOps engineers do not have to interact with the environment manually, but use configuration files and automate processes in order to avoid manual actions whenever possible.
Do You Need to Know How to Code to Become a DevOps Engineer?
Of course. Coding and scripting skills are an absolute must in becoming an effective DevOps professional. However, there is no need to be a software architect that writes complicated algorithms, UIs and applications, as well as there is no need to understand programming language in detail. Nevertheless, good command in such languages as Python, Bash, or Go is obligatory as it helps automate processes and deal with code when debugging and managing code versions.
What Is DevSecOps and How Does It Relate to Traditional DevOps?
While the traditional approach involved conducting manual security audits at the end of the software development, DevSecOps is a new advanced approach to this process. DevSecOps involves security testing, code auditing, and compliance control processes throughout all stages of software development cycle – starting from the idea of software conception. By doing so, companies avoid any security issues and vulnerabilities during deployment that leads to delays and losses.
Is It Possible for a Software Developer to Become a DevOps Engineer?
Of course. Developers are the best fit for becoming DevOps professionals. This is because they have all the necessary technical qualifications related to code development and management. Thus, they should learn such technologies as Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, etc. Also, they need to understand infrastructure management, security, and other concepts related to DevOps.
Is DevOps Only for Huge Tech Companies Like Google or Amazon?
Definitely not! Although these companies were pioneers of this methodology and continue to apply it widely, it is equally useful for organizations of any scale. On the one hand, the reason is that Google or Amazon used it in order to handle millions of customers and servers across the globe. On the other hand, startups use this method in order to scale infrastructure faster and release more software than others.
