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DevOps- Opportunities and Pathway

Opportunities and Pathway for DevOps

Before reading this blog, check out the previous blog to understand the background and processes involved in DevOps

Now that we have some basic idea of what DevOps is, let us now delve deeper into this field to know more. In this blog, we can understand the skills required, the challenges in this field, the job roles one can expect, salary levels, and future-forecast. To make our understanding better, let us also find out a real-life example of the application of DevOps through the case study of Capital One.

Skill sets required

For DevOps, it is important to have both Technical as well as non Technical skills which are equally significant.

The technical skills that are important are:

Technical skills for DevOps

1) A basic understanding of Linux and scripting

Understanding Linux’s core concepts, such as file handling, system administration, text processing, and process management, is essential for a DevOps engineer. They should also be familiar with Linux server administration and Python scripting.

2) Understanding of Key Tools and Technologies

Some of the DevOps tools engineers should be familiar with include version control, continuous integration servers, configuration management, containers, and deployment automation. They should also be familiar with network protocols, testing and cloud quality tools, monitoring and analytics software, and infrastructure orchestration.

3) Cloud Knowledge

A DevOps engineer must have strong cloud computing skills, including network and database administration. They should also be knowledgeable about Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Azure.

4) Coding Skills

Coding and scripting skills are essential for DevOps. Node.js, as well as Java, Javascript, Ruby, Shell, Bash, and PHP, should be known to DevOps engineers.

5) Automation Information

The entire DevOps process should be automated, and every DevOps engineer should be skilled in automation. They must be familiar with infrastructure and setups, CI/CD pipelines, app performance monitoring, and other topics. It’s also essential to be knowledgeable about source code management (SCM) and open-source automation technologies like Ansible.

6) Testing Skills

DevOps engineers must be able to identify faults in software projects and products, therefore skill in automation testing is crucial. These IT specialists must to be knowledgeable about virtualization and adept at using testing programmes like Puppet, Chef, and Docker. They should also be able to execute tests for an entire DevOps automation pipeline and connect Jenkins and Selenium.

 7) Security Information

Security knowledge is necessary for all IT professionals, but especially for DevOps engineers. A few of the DevSecOps skills include code analysis, change management, threat analysis, security awareness training, and vulnerability assessment.

8) Capabilities for Active Monitoring

Proactive monitoring is a skill that a DevOps engineer must have in order to do their tasks. They must to be able to locate bottlenecks in the production system, implement security updates, and upgrade system versions. They must to be knowledgeable about monitoring software like Nagios and Splunk.

9) Containerization capacity

DevOps engineers must be knowledgeable about container-related tools in order to carry out their jobs effectively.  Several examples include Docker Engine, LXC, container registries, Docker Swarm, system-spawn, and Kubernetes.

10) Skills for Continuous Integration

A DevOps-recommended practice called continuous integration (CI) enables developers to merge software updates numerous times a day into the main branch. The ability to automatically integrate code updates from numerous developers into a single software project should be possessed by DevOps engineers.

11) Version Control Capabilities

A DevOps engineer needs to be proficient in version management since it helps them keep track of and manage software code changes. Key version control abilities include being able to use tools like Jenkins, Maven, and Git.

Apart from these technical skills, other important skills include: 

Non Technical skills for DevOps

 

Challenges of DevOps

DevOps is filled with a lot of scope and benefits, but it is not free of challenges, especially for traditional organizations. Large traditional organizations need to change the organizational structure in order to implement DevOps which can be time-consuming and at times confusing.

Traditional organizations work in a way where the employees are rules-bound and DevOps does not work in that way. There are no set rules or procedures that must be followed to work in the DevOps way. Hence, it will be difficult for those employees who expect orders from their bosses.

We know that DevOps involves collaborative work. But, a company that has freshly adopted DevOps might see clashes between the Development team and Operations team making their projects less productive.

 

Job roles for DevOps

There is a good amount of job opportunities for any individual who is looking forward to making a career in DevOps. The possible job roles which a DevOps professional can expect are:

Job roles for DevOps

  1. Build Engineer: It is a managerial position that is in charge of the development team which involves managing codes, deploying new builds, managing automation, and ensuring these deadlines are met.
  2. Release Manager: This managerial position works closely with build engineers and guides individual as well as overall release schedules. Build engineer and release manager are two sides of a coin where the release manager is on the front side.
  3. Automation Architect: An automation architect is responsible for researching and implementing different automation systems, ensuring there is ease in work processes by reducing obstacles. An automation architect should have quick problem-solving and critical-thinking skills.
  4. Security Engineer: Security is an important aspect that should be included at every stage of product development. A security engineer works closely with software developers to ensure that security is kept in mind while developing a product to ensure the safety of its users. Security engineers should be fluent with modern security systems, vector attacks, etc.
  5. DevOps Evangelist: A DevOps Evangelist is an authoritative position for companies that have not adopted the DevOps work approach but are looking forward to adopting them. The DevOps Evangelist is like a consultant who helps the organization develop a plan for DevOps implementation. The individual in this process must be good at presenting data and well-versed with the systems and processes of DevOps.
  6. DevOps Engineer: A DevOps Engineer oversees the platform used for DevOps operation. He/She should be familiar with the platforms used in DevOps and how to integrate them with existing business processes. The individual should also have good management experience.
  7. DevOps Software Developer: A software developer in DevOps is responsible for developing, testing, deploying, monitoring, and supporting a code. Hence, this individual must be fluent in coding, software, and automated testing applications.

 

Salary

Years of Experience Income levels
1-5 Years Upto 15 LPA
5-10 Years 15-40LPA
15+ Years >40LPA

 

 Storytime

Capital One is a well-known financial institution headquartered in Virginia, US. Right from its establishment in 1988, the banking company was always committed to adopting the latest technology for its faster work processes. It was known to operate like a tech company than as a banking organization.

It was in 2010, the company realized that customers were interested to use mobile or online services for their banking activities. Hence, the senior decision-makers decided to develop software to accommodate their customers. This decision created a base for the execution of the DevOps approach. Their objective was faster development and faster deployment. They started building automation test cases, migrated to the public cloud, and automated deployments and tests. In fact, Capital One was the first U.S. Bank to announce its migration to the public cloud. To achieve the best quality user experience, they adopted AWS (Amazon Web Services) which rapidly reduced the time needed to build new application infrastructure. The DevOps approach has given more freedom to its engineers to work on innovative ideas and the tools used by Capital One are flexible, and efficient.

Lesson learned from Capital One:

  • Speed is the new currency that is necessary for meeting changing customer needs. You can do that with the assistance of internal team collaboration and process automation.
  • You are encouraged to keep experimenting with new ideas by DevOps practices and team interactions. So adopt a fail-fast mentality, and you’ll quickly come up with a workable answer.
  • Even if your processes started out slowly, using continuous monitoring practices helps your organization produce excellent results and attain scalability.
  • The necessity to create and manage each team’s tech stack in separate silos is eliminated by the centralization of delivery tooling. It thereby lessens duplication of work and boosts resource reuse.
  • Flexible resource consumption is made possible via cloud infrastructure. As a result, you can scale easily when the need arises and avoid the lack of options.

 

Future Forecast

DevOps in the present day is a BIG NECESSITY for organizations, especially for the IT Software industry. DevOps is a booming opportunity for all interested candidates out there, not just for the current day but also for the future.

Globally, the market size of DevOps is about $6.78 Billion, as of 2020. For the next 10 years, it is expected to reach a whopping value of $57.90 Billion with about 24.2% CAGR.

Organizations are adopting DevOps for

  • Accelerating delivery
  • Increasing automation for software development and testing
  • Reducing IT Capital expenditure

 

References

 

 

 

DevOps- Background and Process
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