DevOps has become the leading software development methodology worldwide. DevOps prioritizes the company and the customer, improving the speed of product delivery and software quality.

As DevOps grows in popularity, so does the demand for qualified DevOps engineers, which is music to the DevOps community’s ears.

In this article, we’ll explain why companies use DevOps and discuss the skills every DevOps engineer needs to successfully build quality software at fast speeds.

What is DevOps

DevOps is a software development culture that integrates development and operational operations to maximize product delivery speed. DevOps is an acronym that combines the terms “development” and “operations.”

Departing from the traditional software production paradigm in which a product passes through various specialized departments (development, QA, security, operations, etc.), DevOps reduces isolation and promotes close collaboration between other development teams. 

DevOps prioritizes continuous integration and delivery of new updates. DevOps engineers must cooperate and rely on automation systems to deliver products reliably and fast to execute complicated repetitive tasks.

Why Do Businesses Utilize DevOps?

DevOps supports businesses by fostering a collaborative culture that prioritizes high-quality development at rapid speeds. The DevOps development cycle is significantly shorter than the conventional cycle, resulting in faster deployment and cheaper expenses for the firm.

DevOps is also known to reduce recovery time, as the team constantly releases updates and patches to solve problems as they arise. Frequent updates also improve the user experience.

Many digital behemoths, like Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook, have adopted DevOps strategies to more effectively enhance their software.

Critical Abilities that Every DevOps Engineer Should Have

The most significant talents a DevOps engineer requires to operate successfully in a team and give their knowledge in all aspects of the DevOps development cycle are listed below:

Customer-centricity and a passionate mentality

Successful DevOps engineers have a passionate attitude toward their work. Developers who enjoy their work and stay active in the development process work more efficiently. They pay more attention to detail and dedicate themselves to carefully solving problems in software with creative solutions.

A DevOps engineer’s ambition must remain customer-centric. They must work not only to exceed their standards but also to impress the customer. A customer-centric approach involves working closely with stakeholders and product owners to deeply understand the project and focus the work on serving the end users.

Communication/Collaboration

Because DevOps culture avoids isolation by bringing development and operations teams together, engineers must work effectively with each other for seamless integration. DevOps encompasses various activities, including development, integration, testing, and delivery.

Each team member must be aware of the work of the others and how they contribute to and drive the product through the lifecycle. DevOps engineers with good communication, organization, and planning abilities may combine their talents and specialties to boost product delivery speed.

Soft Skills

Essential for every team member, soft skills include the following:

• Critical thinking
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Professional attitude
• A strong work ethic
• Adaptability
• Willingness to learn
• Reliability

The best DevOps engineers use these skills when solving problems with other developers. Each team member must be open-minded and respectful of other people’s ideas and criticism. And developers should be able to rely on and learn from each other in overcoming challenges.

Skills with Tools

The DevOps approach relies on a set of tools to manage the development and operation of the software.

DevOps engineers must be capable of managing software versions, ensuring continuous integration and delivery, monitoring software and development activities, testing features, and automating procedures.

Engineers must understand how each tool works and how they integrate it to maintain the development pipeline.

Automation Skills

DevOps culture relies on automating repetitive and routine tasks throughout the product lifecycle to free up developers for other pressing tasks with an emphasis on reducing software delivery times.

Automated processes also reduce human error and maintain the stability of the development system. Because of the benefits of automation, skilled DevOps engineers must be experienced and skilled in using various automation tools.

Coding Skills

Of course, just like software developers, DevOps engineers need to know how to code. However, unlike traditional software engineers who can get by with knowledge of a single language, every DevOps engineer works on multiple aspects of a product and needs experience using various programming languages.

In addition, many automation methods are based on writing Bash scripts or Groovy code for Jenkins pipelines. Other languages required for DevOps engineers include GoLang, Python, Javascript, Java, and Ruby.

Cloud Abilities

Cloud services like AWS, Azure, and GCP offer DevOps professionals a perfect software testing and code deployment platform. Consequently, integrating DevOps and the cloud increases automation capabilities and simplifies resource management.

DevOps engineers who rely on valuable cloud resources need knowledge of cloud platforms and cloud computing skills. 

Security Skills (DevSecOps)

In traditional development, developers think about security at the end of the product lifecycle to keep the final version secure. However, since the speed of DevOps development has increased dramatically, security has become integrated with the rest of the development process to ensure safe design from the start of the product lifecycle.

As a result of this transformation, security is now a joint responsibility of the DevOps team, also known as the DevSecOps team. Every engineer must have professional security skills to address and resolve problems as they arise.

Testing Skills

Continuous testing, like constant development and integration, is critical to DevOps operations. If developers work separately from the QA team, DevOps engineers need to be aware of testing processes and assist QA engineers in their work to improve product quality. 

If QA is combined with development, DevOps engineers should be well-versed in automated and manual testing tools. Engineers can continually improve software reliability by monitoring and improving product quality.

Do you need to learn more about QA? See here what QA testers do and what skills they should have.

Proactive Monitoring

Quality DevOps engineers should always be aware of product issues and pain points to organize their efforts better to fix them.

Engineers can track logs, find bottlenecks, troubleshoot security, and monitor production issues by knowing the monitoring tools.

Proactive engineers work not only to solve problems but to prevent them before they occur through careful, thorough development and testing.

Bonus Skill – AWS DevOps Certification

While the AWS DevOps certification is not a required DevOps skill per se, it allows DevOps engineers to use Amazon’s tools and services and its cloud infrastructure. It’s a valuable tool for the DevOps engineer, and the AWS DevOps certification can be obtained online.

Conclusion

With the skills listed above, an engineer can work well with others, optimize development, and quickly deliver secure, customer-satisfying code.

With a team of DevOps engineers with the skills listed above, a company can join the other 83% of IT executives who see how the DevOps paradigm will revolutionize the software development industry by providing faster speed, lower development costs, and better software.

What are your thoughts on the listed DevOps skills? Are there any that we’re missing out on? Let us know in the comments.