The Definitive DevOps Engineer Recruitment & Hiring Guide

SUMMARY

DevOps Engineers are among the most in-demand IT roles, making DevOps Engineer hiring to be a challenging task.

Finding and recruiting a DevOps Engineer with the right experience and skills requires a comprehensive hiring plan.

This Benchmark IT Definitive DevOps Engineer Hiring Guide provides a flexible framework to help you attract, recruit, and hire top DevOps talent.

Global Markets Insights reports the DevOps Market exceeded USD 7 billion in 2021 and is expected to register over 20% gains from 2022 to 2028. As automated software development and zero-touch automation technologies continue to gain popularity, the demand for DevOps tools is expected to increase. This will lead to a shift in the market landscape.

1. What is DevOps Engineering?

Just like its name suggests, DevOps connects software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). It combines business philosophies, practices, and tools that enable organizations to provide fast, frequent, and reliable software production. This practice automates software deployment and infrastructure changes, relying on communication and collaboration between IT development, operations, support, and management teams.

DevOps engineering is grounded in agile and continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) methodologies. CI/CD are two fundamental concepts in DevOps implementation where more traditional development strategies follow a linear course, wereas DevOps runs these stages simultaneously, creating a real-time feedback loop.

Depending on the size of your organization, when you invest in a strong DevOps engineer or team, you'll find that:

  • The components of your development and IT functions work better together
  • You can create faster deployments of new features, upgrades, security patches, and bug fixes
  • Internal processes can become automated and free up hours of time for other tasks

Table of Contents

2

What is DevOps Engineering?

PIllar Page Chapter Icons (50 × 50 px) (100 × 100 px) (1)

DevOps Market and Adoption Statistics

4

Trends in DevOps

5

DevOps Engineer: Responsibilities

6

DevOps Engineer: Salary Range

7

DevOps Traits and Skillsets

8

DevOps Engineer Recruitment Checklist

9

DevOps Job Description

10

DevOps Job Interview Questions & Notes

11

DevOps Sample Job Advertisement

2. DevOps Market and Adoption Statistics

The demand for DevOps has grown dramatically as startups, mid-market, and Fortune 500 firms seek efficiency across business units. DevOps positions are especially crucial in startups where these roles can help minimize headcount.

The 2021 DevOps market was over $7 billion and is expected to grow 20% between 2022 and 2028. The 2022 U.S. DevOps market is estimated at $3.8 Billion and accounts for a 41.4% share of the global market.

While the market is already strong, DevOps is becoming an even higher priority. According to Gartner, over 85% of organizations plan to adopt a cloud computing strategy by 2025. The intent is that 95% of new digital workloads will occur on cloud platforms, representing a 30% increase from 2021.

DevOps Adoption Statistics

In order to be effective, companies looking for successful DevOps implementation should be prepared to invest in a qualified in-house professional or team.

 Microservices Architecture separates applications into small independent units or services, allowing DevOps teams to work with greater agility and escalation across the software development lifecycle. A DevOps team can scale each application segment according to the need.

Microservices architecture enables developers to deploy small features or functionalities without disrupting the entire code base.

DevSecOps is the collaboration between technical teams and security experts. DevOps engineers work closely with security experts to ensure sensitive data remains safe while deploying and updating software applications. Applications and infrastructure security is becoming more critical as these technologies continue to advance.

In 2022, more companies are embedding security controls early in the software development lifecycle. DevOps teams must constantly monitor and remediate security defects during development phases to improve the speed of delivery and quality.

Serverless computing is a form of cloud computing where developers write code and run applications without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Over the past few years, serverless computing has been growing in popularity.

Serverless computing enables DevOps teams to reduce costs, increase productivity, and simplify continuous processes, is forecast to grow to USD 21.1 billion by 2025.

Container Technologies provide DevOps the ability to scale up and out. In Containers are currently used to host websites, databases, and other infrastructure components. It’s projected that DevOps teams use container technologies when deploying applications at scale.

Kubernetes are an example of open-source container technology to arrange systems and have become a growing trend. However, Kubernetes will expand further into the software development realm in 2022. With Kubernetes evolving rapidly, there is a slower learning curve.

"Microservices architecture is one of the most relevant DevOps trends for 2022, as it helps to provide greater development flexibility, scalability, and speed. It eliminates the need to suspend the entire application if a bug is found or a change is needed."

Automation and Artificial Intelligence is transforming the business sector and becoming a key element within the DevOps field. Automation and AI will continue to influence and penetrate all aspects of modern business operations, while also playing a considerable role in DevOps processes. Expect to see more adoption of automation tools to help DevOps teams manage and process enormous amounts of data.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) enables DevOps teams to manage infrastructure through automation. Instead of manually updating infrastructure, IaC automates the deployment and continuous operation of application and service infrastructures. It results in more time to focus on developing and deploying applications and services.

Hybrid Deployment unites the power of on-site infrastructure with cloud computing resources.
It allows in-house and remote team members to work together without impacting productivity
or collaboration. It does not require a full-fledged cloud migration. The work models require an
enhancement to on-site resources to create an alternate route to the cloud provider.

4. DevOps Engineer: Responsibilities

DevOps is a face-paced field with new tools and technologies emerging everyday. To be successful, a DevOps engineer should be a curious and willing lifelong learner. They should posses both the technical and soft skills required to manage people, processes, and operations simultaneously.

Some of the core responsibilities of DevOps Engineer include:

  • Understanding customer goals, requirements and KPIs and ability to monitor, measure, and report on them Implementing various development, testing, automation tools, and IT infrastructure
  • Organizing team structure, activities, and team's role in project management activities.
  • Managing and coordinating internal and external stakeholder communication
  • Establishing and implementing tools and required infrastructure
  • Defining and setting DevOps operation's test, release, update, and support processes
  • Ability to review, verify, and validate the software code developed in the project, including troubleshooting and bug fixes
  • Monitor and evaluate entire lifecycle processes; update or create new processes to improve and minimize wastage
  • Encourage and build automated processes wherever possible
  • Identify and deploying security (DevSecOps) measures by constantly performing liability assessments and risk management Incidence management and root cause analysis
  • Selecting and deploying appropriate CI/CD tools
  • Strive for continuous improvement and build continuous integration, continuous development, and constant deployment pipeline (CI/CD Pipeline)
  • Mentoring and guiding team members
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5. DevOps Engineer: Salary Range

According to a Glassdoor 2022 report, the estimated total pay for DevOps engineers is $119,208 per year. This includes an estimated base pay of $104,317 and an additional $14,891 average bonus pay. Bonuses can comprise cash bonuses, commission, tips, or profit sharing.

Salary ranges for DevOps engineer jobs fluctuate depending on the skills needed to operate various platforms and open-source projects. A Senior DevOps engineer makes an average of $135,571 per year. A lead DevOps Engineer's average salary is $136,077 per year.

Earning a computer science degree is an excellent first step to acquiring a DevOps engineer job. Additionally, there are plenty of courses (THIS IS A POTENTIALLY GOOD INTERNAL LINK, BUT DOES NOT CITE AND DEVOPS CERTIFICATIONS. NEEDS TO BE UPDATED TO INCLUDE THEM) and certifications available. Some of the top DevOps engineer jobs and salaries are:

6. Ideal Candidate Profile: Personality Traits and Skillsets of a DevOps Engineer

DevOps engineers a variety of technical and soft skills to succeed throughout their careers. Ideally, they should possess an insatiable intellectual curiosity and aptitude to learn. Essential skills required for a DevOps Engineer role include:

1) Intellectual Curiosity and Desire for Continual Learning:

Most DevOps technologies and toolsets didn't exist five years ago. The best candidates should be inquisitive, comfortable with change, and know how to acquire new skills.

The most successful engineers are always studying and evaluating new trends. There’s a barrage of new languages, frameworks, and methodologies to be filtered and sifted through. Successful DevOps engineers understand and adopt new methods of deploying software and managing systems as they are created and evolve.

2) Strategic Thinking and Communications Capabilities:

Strategic thinking and communication skills are always important, but especially in DevOps. Candidates should be able to map out the entire transformation and persuade and motivate the Dev and Ops teams to adopt new practices. DevOps is not just a technology tool, but a methodology to increase value across the enterprise.

The best candidates for leading a transformation are those who can build collaborative environments, embrace value stream mapping, identify obstacles, and develop meaningful KPIs.

Equally important is the ability to tailor the message to the audience. Solid DevOps engineers will adapt the use of technical jargon, so it's easily understood by their peers, supervisors, and customers. This allows the audience to interpret how it fits into their goals.

3) Process-driven Thinking

Strong candidates can not only produce results, but also create process templates that are reliable, repeatable, and adaptable. Successful DevOps engineers can offer templates for others to learn from and build on. They can be used across a variety of functions like architecture, deployment, testing, automation, or security,

4) Composure

As the saying goes, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. How a DevOps pro responds in those situations is crucial. The best candidates can demonstrate how they have maintained composure, created solutions, and developed roadmaps to keep the team on track.

5) Technical Skills

Ideal DevOps candidates should be proficient in source control, continuous integration, infrastructure automation, open-source technologies, cloud services, testing, and troubleshooting. Managing and configuring databases such as MySQL, and Mongo is also helpful.

The top DevOps scripting and coding skillsets include Python, Ruby, Python, Java, Javascript, PHP, Bash, and Shell. These technologies will dominate the market for the foreseeable future, making them essential skillsets for any DevOps professional.

6) Automation Skills

Automation is at the heart of the DevOps practice. Successful candidates will be able to automate the whole DevOps pipeline, including the CI/CD cycles, performance monitoring of applications and systems, and infrastructure and configurations.

7) Security Skills - DevSecOps

DevOps security risks are inherent given the speed of deployment the practice provides. Adding security at the end, or as an independent process doesn't always work. That's where a DevSecOps skillset provides a crucial advantage. DevSecOps considers application and infrastructure security from the outset and incorporates automated security barriers that workflow from slowing down.

Ideal DevOps candidates are familiar with the protocols and tools to continuously integrate security measures and prevent risks.

8) Cloud Skills

The cloud creates fewer delays as it provides DevOps automation with a centralized platform for testing, deployment, and production. Most cloud computing providers support DevOps systemically on their platforms, including continuous integration and development tools.

This integration lowers the cost of on-premises DevOps automation technology and provides centralized governance to create a more reliable DevOps process. In addition, cloud-based DevOps services help to reduce human error and simplify more repeatable tasks.

Additionally, by using cloud-based resources, it’s much easier to track the costs of resources and make the proper adjustments as needed.

Through a cloud-based environment, development, and operations teams can work much more collaboratively. This generates smoother and faster production processes and efficiently streamline multiple elements needed to get an app working in the cloud.

9) Testing Skills

DevOps Testing Tools are the software applications that help you test and automate the software development and deployment processes. It mainly focuses on configuration, integration, and delivery management needs for software development and deployment. DevOps testing tools also help teams automate processes like build, conflict management,
dependency management, deployment, etc. and helps reduce manual efforts.

Continuous and automated testing is essential to DevOps success. It enables constant and rapid
software delivery and runs across every step in the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Some of the top DevOps testing tools are:

  • Kobiton
  • mabl
  • Keysight Eggplant
  • Jenkins
  • Bamboo
  • JMeter

TOP DevOps Sills and Certifications will be some sort of chart:

Container orchestration automates much of the operational effort needed to run containerized workloads and services. It includes a wide range of things software teams need to manage a container’s lifecycle, including provisioning, deployment, scaling (up and down), networking, load balancing and more.

Infrastructure as code (IaC) uses DevOps methodology and versioning with a descriptive model to define and deploy infrastructure, such as networks, virtual machines, load balancers, and connection topologies. Just as the same source code always generates the same binary, an IaC model generates the same environment every time it deploys.

Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multiple locations, each location being a data center.

DevSecOps is a trending practice in application security (AppSec) that involves introducing security earlier in the software development life cycle (SDLC). It also expands the collaboration between development and operations teams to integrate security teams in the software delivery cycle.

 

Linux® is an open-source operating system (OS). An operating system is the software that directly manages a system’s hardware and resources, like CPU, memory, and storage. The OS sits between applications and hardware and makes the connections between your software and the physical resources that do the work.

CI/CD is a method to frequently deliver apps to customers by introducing automation into individual stages of app development. The main concepts attributed to CI/CD are continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment.

Specifically, CI/CD introduces ongoing automation and continuous monitoring throughout the lifecycle of apps, from integration and testing phases to delivery and deployment. Taken together, these connected practices are often referred to as a "CI/CD pipeline" and are supported by development and operations teams working together in an agile way with either a DevOps or site reliability engineering (SRE) approach.

Monitoring is tooling or a technical solution that allows teams to watch and understand the state of their systems. Monitoring is based on gathering predefined sets of metrics or logs.

Observability is tooling or a technical solution that allows teams to actively debug their system. Observability is based on exploring properties and patterns not defined in advance.

7. DevOps Engineer RECRUITMENT CHECKLIST

  • Kickoff: Set meeting or call with hiring manager and all internal and external stakeholders to fully understand the job and types of candidates desired.

A. JOB DESCRIPTION: DevOps Engineer

[Your company name] seeks a DevOps Engineer highly knowledgeable and hands-on in all aspects of the agile development process. The ideal candidate will be involved with complex tasks and projects, such as creating new technical solutions to ongoing development efforts.

The right candidate will work with clients and internal IT staff to analyze web system needs and goals, creating potential solutions. Strong knowledge of Java and AngularJS frameworks is essential, along with working in various cloud systems like Amazon. Unix and Linux experience is preferred. The DevOps engineer will work across departments to design systems solutions.

Responsibilities [Modify the list to match your requirements]

The DevOps Engineer will:

  • Assist with the development, design, and deployment of web systems and the operation and integration of systems into existing infrastructure.
  • Work closely with customers, IT professionals, and the executive suite to determine ongoing infrastructure needs for the company.
  • Know frameworks like Java and AngularJS and be able to incorporate these into systems development.
  • Have a strong knowledge of the agile development process.
  • Keep up to date on new systems requirements and developments, resolving issues as they arise.
  • Desired Competencies and Experience [Modify the list to match your requirements]
  • Successful candidates will have:
  •  [X+] years of related industry experience in development and operations.
  • Knowledge of the current and emerging operating systems.
  • The ability to work across departments, processing input and developing solutions.
  • Excellent communication skills.
  • Innovative thinking and problem-solving skills.
  • Intimate knowledge of design software and new design trends.
  • Understanding of tools and technologies [List specific tools and technology].
  • The ability to write secure code to protect applications from breaches.
  • Experience with infrastructure automation tools [List specific tools].
  • Strong testing skills.
  • A client-first mindset.
  • Strong collaboration skills.
  • Network awareness.
  • The ability to see the whole picture.

Education and Experience

  • Candidates for DevOps Engineer must have a bachelor's degree in computer science or a similar area of study.

Travel and Work Requirements

This position requires the candidate to be available during core business hours. The position requires the candidate to travel [X%] of the time.

Benefits [Adjust for your situation]

  • Full-time position • Competitive compensation with benefits
  • Paid time off and paid holidays
  • Remote friendly • Medical and dental insurance coverage
  • Casual dress code
  • Flexible schedule
  • Free parking
  • Currently operating under CDC guidance for COVID-19 risk mitigation

9. DevOps Job Interview Questions & Notes:

INTRODUCTION

DevOps requires a solid cultural and organizational shift for success. Collaboration between development, infrastructure, and the client is essential to allow for the rapid deployment of technology. We have developed this guide to provide value to you in the hiring process. These questions will provide insight into the candidate's understanding of the process and tools.

Check out all of hiring guides

Potential DevOps Engineer Job Interview Questions and Notes:

  1. Demonstrates the candidate's experience
  2.  It requires the candidate to define DevOps, its necessity or lack thereof in the process, and identify the primary beneficiary.
  3. Determines if the candidate knows how DevOps breaks down internal silos and helps stay ahead of the competition.

10. DevOps Engineer - Sample Job Ad

[Describe your organization] Provide an overview of your company, culture, perks and benefits, and career development opportunities. Include anything else that will get candidates excited about your company.

[Your company name] seeks a DevOps Engineer highly knowledgeable and hands-on in all aspects of the agile development process. The ideal candidate will be involved with complex tasks and projects, such as creating new technical solutions to ongoing development efforts. The right candidate will work with clients and internal IT staff to analyze web system needs and goals, creating potential solutions.
The DevOps engineer will work across departments to design systems solutions.

Responsibilities [Modify this list to match your requirements]

The DevOps Engineer will:

  • Work closely with customers, IT professionals, and the C-suite to determine workflows, infrastructure, testing, and deployment needs for the company.
  • Establish, maintain and evolve concepts in continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for existing and new services.
  • Know frameworks like Java and AngularJS and be able to incorporate these into systems development.
  • Write clean, stable, and safe code in short time frames and frequent increments
  • Have a strong knowledge of the agile development process.
  • Keep up to date on new systems requirements and developments, resolving issues as they arise.
  • Adjust to changes in the company's mission and strategies.
  • Stay current on industry trends and best practices for configuration management and automation
  • Collaborate with Engineering and Operations teams to improve automation of workflows, infrastructure, code testing, and deployment.

Successful candidates will have:

  • [X+] years of related industry experience in DevOps or Systems Engineering.
  • Knowledge of the current and emerging operating systems and DevOps practices.
  • Prior experience with [insert related tools, software, databases, scripting, and programming languages]
  • The ability to work across departments, processing input and developing solutions.
  • Intimate knowledge of design software and new design trends.

Education and Experience

Candidates for DevOps Engineer must have a Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field. Read the full job description for more information and to apply for the position.

The DevOps Engineer Hiring Guide

Hiring a new DevOps Engineer?

The DevOps guide covers:

  • The ideal DevOps Engineer's salary
  • The factors, traits, and skillset needed for success
  • Ideal job description for a DevOps Engineer
  • Technical interview questions for hiring managers
  • Internal recruitment checklist
  • Must-haves for a DevOps Engineer job ad

Set yourself up for hiring success.

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