What Is DevOps, and what does a DevOps Engineer do?

Benefits of Implementing DevOps

In today’s fast-paced world, organizations need a DevOps workflow that ensures optimal quality and timely delivery. DevOps can improve your business in the following ways:

• Improved communication: DevOps can achieve increased collaboration within the company because different departments and teams are working closely together. DevOps often lead to happier, and more engaged employees.
• Faster time-to-market: DevOps shorten the system development lifecycle, which makes it possible to release features faster, and incorporate feedback quicker. This gives everyone more time to innovate and create business value.
• More stable operating environments: DevOps help to automate the end-to-end development, ensure stable operating environments, and allows for timely detection and remediation of defects or errors.
• Greater quality assurance: The DevOps process helps to minimize errors and leads to fewer software failures. DevOps allows both teams to see the full scope of a project, plus, DevOps reduces human error by automating core development and deployment functions.
• More satisfied end-consumers: Ultimately, DevOps helps businesses better serve their end-consumers in the digital age.

In short, companies that incorporate DevOps practices can deliver products with maximum speed, functionality, and innovation.

What does a DevOps engineer do?

So, what is a DevOps engineer? A DevOps engineer is someone who understands the software development process and has knowledge of various automation tools for developing digital pipelines. DevOps engineers work together with software developers and operating teams to oversee the code releases and reduce the time and effort needed to deliver and secure applications.

DevOps Roles and Responsibilities

There are various roles, and therefore responsibilities, in DevOps. Depending on the industry and a company’s unique needs, the job description and required skill set can vary. Understanding that there is no one job description for a DevOps, here is a list of common DevOps roles and responsibilities:

• DevOps Evangelists are responsible for the success of all DevOps processes and people in an organization. They also initiate DevOps adoption and will proactively try and improve the team.
• Release Managers, also known as Release Engineers, oversee the coordination, integration, and progress of all project-related activities. They are responsible for releasing new features and ensuring post-release product solidness.
• Automation Architects, also known as Automation Experts, are responsible for orchestrating tools and turning repetitive manual tasks into automated actions that the team can run on-demand.
• Software Developers, also known as Software Testers, develop product code, but must also be able to write front-end and back-end code, launch unit testing, and ensure the code is bug-free before release.
• Quality Assurance Testers are responsible for the testing of releases, the documentation of bugs and errors, and ensuring that features align with design specifications.
• Security Engineers are responsible for keeping the releases safe and secure at all times by protecting the pipeline from potential attacks and ensuring the product complies with standards and regulatory requirements.

How to become a DevOps Engineer

Is DevOps easy to learn? DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. If you already have experience in either development, system engineering, or operations, you may find it helpful to start looking for ways to develop your skills in other fields. If you’re new to the field, you could consider starting by learning the fundamentals of the AWS Cloud, including the benefits, services, and security. The key to becoming a DevOps Engineer is to always keep learning and cultivating a marketable skill set. Whether it is easy to learn or not, depends on the person’s is interest to learn and ability to make connections across disciplines.

DevOps tools

There are various tools that DevOps engineers use to make collaboration and development faster and easier. Some of the most popular DevOps tools include Ansible, Docker, Git, Jenkins, and Selenium. At Pixel506, some of the AWS tools for DevOps that we use include AWS Route53, CloudFront, ECR, ECS, Fargate, API Gateway, and Elastic Load Balancer. Our team also makes use of collaboration and ticketing tools such as JIRA and Slack, and we use the Google Cloud Platform for different purposes.

Cultivate a career in DevOps

If you are wondering, ‘where do I find DevOps jobs near me?’, take into account that most DevOps engineers are working remotely these days. There are many career opportunities for applying DevOps expertise, and expectations are that this field will continue to evolve. At Pixel506, we are always looking for curious people to join our team ― feel free to send us your open application.

The DevOps process

Bringing in an experienced agency that can guide you through the journey, taking into account your organization and company culture, will help you make the transition to a DevOps approach. At Pixel506, we make sure that you always know what you should expect when working with us. We can implement DevOps with you, to help you automate code and testing, facilitate better workflows between development and operations teams, and automate processes. Our process consists of the following four phases:

• Discovery: First, we collect and analyze the requirements for your project. We talk with key stakeholders to get an in-depth understanding of your business and current workflows.
• Exploration: Secondly, we roadmap the product trajectory from concept to delivery. With your approval, we’ll start the implementation.
• Creation: During the third phase, we'll provide the engineering and technical teams to build your product with a DevOps workflow.
• Optimization: Our teams continue to deliver while remaining in constant contact with you to ensure that the final product not only meets but exceeds your expectations

Don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss how we can help you define your DevOps roadmap.

Key Takeaways

• DevOps is a software development strategy that shortens the systems development life cycle and provides continuous delivery with high software quality.
• Benefits of implementing DevOps include improved communication, faster time-to-market, more stable operating environments, and greater quality assurance.
• DevOps engineers work with software developers and operating teams to oversee the code releases and reduce the time and effort needed to deliver and secure applications.
• A successful transition to DevOps means a company-wide movement, a professional and experienced agency like Pixel506 can help you implement a successful DevOps strategy from start to finish.

Get in Touch with Pixel506

Pixel506 is a nearshore Costa Rica agency that helps companies with strategies, technology, and design. Our experts offer business consulting and can support you with your DevOps Automation. Get in touch with us and discover how we can push your company forward by building a productive and efficient DevOps team

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