The IT industry is full of job opportunities for professionals seeking a promising career. It is one of the industrial sectors where radical changes take place in a flash. Many new job roles have emerged in areas like cloud computing, cyber security, big data analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT). As innovation would continue to reach new heights, it is time for professionals to think about future prospects before selecting any new career. One of the fields that promise steady career growth in today’s dynamic job market is DevOps.
Being a relatively new area, professionals are often confused between the different job roles available in DevOps. This article helps you understand what are the top DevOps job roles that companies seek to drive continuous delivery, high product quality, and streamline the development lifecycle. You’ll further know why it is recommended to take DevOps training to gain the most relevant DevOps skills.
Top DevOps Job Roles
If you are aspiring to start a career in DevOps, you should know about the various options available to you in this field. Let us take a look at some of the popular ones:
DevOps Engineer
DevOps Engineers are professionals who oversee the entire software development life cycle and introduce various processes, methodologies, and tools for effective code releases and deployment. They act as a bridge between development and IT operations and focus on unification and automation of processes by combining code, maintaining and managing applications. Their responsibility also includes managing the IT infrastructure that supports the software code in different cloud environments.
DevOps Consultant
These are professionals who have a strong understanding of the DevOps methodologies and tools. Companies hire them to solve a specific business problem or to train employees on how to use various DevOps tools. They guide the team members and share their findings regarding the issue that a company has and try to solve them using DevOps principles. After DevOps consultants familiarize themselves with a company’s processes, they use their expertise to optimize enterprise applications.
Test Engineer
The test engineers in a DevOps team are responsible for making the development and testing process more collaborative to ensure high software quality and faster time to market of the product. They achieve it by automating all their test cases and achieving full code coverage. Additionally, they automate all the pre-test activities, cleanups, and post-test activities and align the process with the continuous integration cycle. Automation testing tools like Selenium, TestComplete, and SoapUI are widely used by test engineers.
Automation Architect
The job of an automation architect is to collaborate with business leaders and establish a set of automation goals. Post that, they create a roadmap to oversee the enterprise-wide implementation of new tools and processes. They make various key decisions regarding which automation tools should be used, their maintenance, enforcement of corporate policies, and providing solutions for any problems in automation, security, and version control.
Infrastructure Engineer
Companies hire infrastructure engineers for the operation of secure and highly available computing platforms, networks, and servers. They deploy the release of new technologies along with designing, installing, and maintaining operating systems, networks, and hardware. At a broader level, they coordinate various tasks like site reliability testing, cloud migration, network infrastructure, process automation, and more.
CI/CD Engineer
CI/CD refers to Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, collectively called CI/CD pipeline is one of the best DevOps practices followed in organizations. CI/CD engineers are tasked with development of CI/CD pipeline – a set of practices that establish an automated way of building, packaging, and testing applications and further automate the delivery of applications to selected infrastructure environments. They select CI/CD tools that facilitate the execution of related processes.
Apart from the ones mentioned above, Site Reliability Engineers, Build Engineers, and Release Managers are some of the other relevant roles in the field of DevOps.
Time to Future-Proof Your Career
Digital transformation is inevitable for companies to stay ahead in a highly competitive market. With DevOps in great demand and the ongoing drive to transform industries towards digital, it is crucial for employees to reskill and future-proof their careers. The job roles discussed above are not just mentioned looking at the openings in various job portals. The reference is from a recent Enterprise DevOps Skills Report by the DevOps Institute. Here’s the percentage of the top six roles that companies of any size and vertical were recruiting for:
- DevOps Engineer – 39%
- DevOps Consultant – 22%
- Test Engineer – 18%
- Automation Architect – 17%
- Infrastructure Engineer – 17%
- CI/CD Engineer – 16%
The report also highlighted that while the demand for such roles was high, recruiters faced a lot of challenges in finding the right DevOps talent as many individuals do not have the relevant skills and capabilities needed. For DevOps aspirants, this is a great opportunity to gain expertise in this field and pave the way for a rewarding career ahead. You too can become eligible for these DevOps roles by mastering these skills:
- Automation know-how
- Functional knowledge
- Business skills
- Process skills and knowledge
- Knowledge of various automation tools
- Soft skills and achieving DevOps certifications
Looking for a one-stop solution to gain these skills? Your search will probably end in an online DevOps training course. As the field requires specialized skills, we would recommend you to learn about DevOps from an industry expert only. By taking an online course, you’ll keep up with all the latest developments in the DevOps industry as well as best practices to implement the DevOps strategies. So, take this crucial step soon and build a career in DevOps.
