DevOps Career Path for 2024

In the last 2 years, listings for DevOps jobs on Indeed has increased by 75 percent. In a recent survey by Puppetlabs, half of its 4,000+ respondents (from more than 90 countries) said that their companies look for DevOps skills when hiring.

What is DevOps?

To help you start with DevOps, here is an insightful DevOps tutorial that covers DevOps basics, and other key concepts.

DevOps can be thought of as a set of concepts and practices involving both operations and development engineers, where they participate together throughout the entire life cycle of software, from the design stage to the development stage till the production support.

There are various tools and practices involved in order to convert this concept into reality. But before diving right into understanding these tools, let’s consider some of the advantages of DevOps.

We have already started reaping the benefits of DevOps and the results are:

• Faster delivery of features
• More stable operating environments
• Improved communication and collaboration
• More time to work on future products or services instead of worrying about bugs and fixes

It is due to the high effectiveness that DevOps brings to the table that all the big names in the market are already implementing it, and oh boy! It has done only wonders so far.

DevOps Engineer Career Path

So far, we have understood the importance of DevOps and know the fact that there are a lot of companies that want this to be implemented in their environments. Naturally, this opens up a lot of DevOps Engineer jobs across various roles. Let’s talk about that for a while.

Since 2013, jobs related to DevOps Engineers have always seen a rise and if the SD Times report is to be believed, then this jump is around 225 percent on Indeed alone.

DevOps Engineer Salary

The jobs listed under the DevOps Engineer category aren’t just any jobs. According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a Lead DevOps Engineer can be between US$137,000 and US$180,000. Of course, there is a variance in DevOps Engineer salary based on the role and experience that an individual has, but one thing is sure that there are a lot of openings across various industries for DevOps Engineers.

Salary estimate for DevOps Engineers in INR, according to Indeed:

Source: Indeed

Source: PayScale

This image clearly highlights the fact that the DevOps career path is extremely fruitful in the long term.

Source: PayScale

These statistics clearly indicate that if you are on the DevOps Engineer career path, then there are a variety of options on your table with respect to the company that you want to work with.

Source: PayScale

Roles and Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer

I guess by now you’d be convinced about the financial side of things. Now, let us talk about what can be the various roles and responsibilities that you have to undertake if you follow the DevOps Engineer career path.

Various job roles in DevOps are as follows:

• DevOps Architect
• Automation Engineer
• Software Tester
• Security Engineer
• Integration Specialist
• Release Manager

If you choose the DevOps Engineer career path, then there are a few basic things expected from you. As a DevOps Engineer, you:

• Are expected to test, build, design, deploy and maintain continuous integration and continuous delivery processes using tools like Jenkins, Maven, Git, etc.
• Must understand all the best tools and technologies, and when the time comes he/she should be able to choose the best one that best fits the business requirements.
• Should have the ability to automate, test, and deploy the code and monitor it.
• Need to work in close coordination with the development and operations teams such that the application is in line with the expected performance according to the customer’s requirement.

Skills Required for a DevOps Career Path

To have a successful career as a DevOps engineer, it’s important to develop both technical skills as well as soft skills. On the technical side, you’ll need proficiency with various programming languages, infrastructure automation tools, configuration management tools, and more. Some key technical skills include:

• Programming Languages: Languages like Python, Ruby, Go, and JavaScript are commonly used in DevOps workflows. Knowing at least one well will serve you well.

• Infrastructure as Code: Tools like Ansible, Chef, Puppet, and SaltStack allow you to define and manage infrastructure and applications in code. These are important for automation and reproducibility.

• Configuration Management: Git is common for source code management, but also allows infrastructure to be version-controlled. Tools like GitLab are popular.

• Containerization: Docker and Kubernetes are leading technologies for packaging and deploying applications. 

• Cloud Technologies: Skills with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Pplatform are valuable as more workloads move to the cloud. Understanding cloud-native approaches is key.

• Monitoring and Logging: Tools like Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, and Splunk allow collecting and analyzing metrics and logs, as well as critical for observability.

In addition, soft skills are equally or more important for DevOps roles. Strong communication, collaboration, and problem-solving abilities are a must to bridge development and operations teams. Attributes like adaptability, curiosity, and continual learning are valued as technology surroundings evolve rapidly. An entrepreneurial mindset is beneficial in DevOps, where change is constant.

How to begin your journey on the DevOps Engineer career path?

So far, we have seen what DevOps is all about and what can you expect in terms of salary and job roles, so you must be a little bit intrigued to know how to begin with DevOps and blossom your career!

Well, you don’t have to worry! Here at Intellipaat, we have got you covered! We have carefully designed courses that will help you easily learn, understand, and implement these concepts, and the best part is that you can avail this training at your own pace. Also, you don’t have to worry about the timings to contact us as we are available 24/7 for your support; this is a service we offer so that everyone associated with us can enjoy the seamless learning experience.

Watch This Video On Top 10 DevOps Tools

DevOps Interview Questions

If you are ready with your concepts and you are wondering how you can clear interviews for some DevOps jobs, we can hook you up with the frequently asked DevOps Interview Questions. This is not an all-inclusive set, so we do recommend you to revise your concepts properly. However, the questions would help you get an idea about what to expect in these interviews. Before appearing for any interview prepare your resume in a good manner.

Frequently Asked Questions