In this post, we will be taking a look at the techniques and tactics you can use to hire a DevOps engineer without breaking your budget. Gartner’s study indicates that by 2025, over 85% of enterprises will adopt the cloud-first philosophy. We used to think senior software engineers were expensive, however, these days to hire a DevOps developer is the most expensive hire in the IT world. Not only are DevOps engineers expensive, but they can also be quite hard to find in light of the massive demand and lack of education at universities in DevOps practices, deep Linux administration and Cloud practices.
Additionally, most college students take the software engineer path instead of the DevOps engineer path.
So, how can you find and hire a DevOps engineer in these complicated times? You’ve come to the right place! In this blog we will guide you on how to successfully hire a DevOps developer.
You need a DevOps engineer with good skills in Automation, Infrastructure as Code ( IaC ), Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, Cloud Expertise, and a deep understanding of the Linux O.S (or windows / .net ecosystem). The DevOps engineer will also need other skills mentioned further in this article. Suppose you have a web application or digital product with multiple environments and services (back end and front-end).
Are you interested in improving your web development productivity or scaling your web application?
Are you planning to distribute your system and services?
If you answered yes to any of the above, you need a DevOps engineer with good skills in Automation, Infrastructure as Code ( IaC ), Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery, Cloud Expertise, and a deep understanding of the Linux O.S (or windows / .net ecosystem). The DevOps engineer will also need other skills mentioned further in this article.
In a nutshell, this is what DevOps developers do:
As a former DevOps engineer, let me explain what it is exactly what we do. Before the appearance of the DevOps term, we had Network engineers, Security engineers, System administrators (Unix and Linux admins), and Automation engineers. These positions integrating Cloud and DevOps practices have evolved into a single position: DevOps engineer.
Furthermore, DevOps are masters of Linux and know how to create highly distributed systems using the AWS cloud (or any cloud) with microservices, Kubernetes, Amazon ECS/Fargate, or just virtual on-premise servers.
Most importantly, they are the gurus of cloud services. They know how to integrate any AWS managed service, including Amazon RDS, Aurora, Amazon S3, or even a cloud networking issue (VPC Networking). Also, if you have an intruder in your systems, a server hack, or a classic Jenkins/WordPress hack, they are usually the ones to investigate and inspect the root cause, find the vulnerability, and provide the analysis and remedy.
This is what our DevOps developers in Mexico and Latam do best! – Hire a DevOps Developer now!
DevOps developers can also be in charge of Code release management and troubleshooting production deployments. They can also take on the tasks of a site reliability engineer, including maintaining servers, triaging server production issues, and attending to any server alert (they are usually on an on-call schedule). These sound like tasks for a DevOps engineer, right? Indeed, sometimes site reliability engineers do DevOps stuff, and vice versa.
Do you better understand now why it’s important to have a DevOps engineer within your organization? It’s common for bold software engineers or tech leaders to take on these responsibilities (DevOps tasks). Instead of randomly using your software engineer who was mostly trained in developing features, you should take your DevOps strategy to the next level and hire a DevOps engineer.
Read our blog on How to build a software development team.
Now that you understand how a DevOps engineer benefits an organization, let’s review their specific tasks.
Create, design, and maintain Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery pipeline in Jenkins, Gitlab, CircleCI, or AWS CodePipeline. A DevOps engineer can find ways to decrease the deployment time from hours to minutes! Do you need a deployment on the weekend? They can take care of this as well, as long as you schedule it in advance!
Bash and Python scripting automate your infrastructure, servers, containers, cronjobs, or any process that a DevOps engineer can codify.
DevOps can bring new production environments with Terraform or Cloudformation. Also, because of their good knowledge in Infrastructure as Code (IaC), they can maintain and deploy infrastructure through IaC tools.
DevOps can also handle security incidents including hacks, security audits, hardening of servers, and user security controls such as AWS accounts, SSH keys, Linux/Unix privileges, permissions, SSL certs, encryption, and API key encryption (Amazon KMS, for example).
Is DNS a problem? Server? Networking? Are emails not working? Probably an AWS DevOps Engineer can help. After all, he is the Linux guru. As a Windows or .net-based app, he should be good at maintaining Windows servers with similar responsibilities.
DevOps know how to interconnect different VPC networks, troubleshoot networking issues, deploy VPN services, and create virtual networks.
The DevOps engineer creates microservices architectures for your enterprise SaaS application. Our blog on how to dockerize a Python/Flask app may be helpful.
A DevOps developer can create a Kubernetes Cluster in production with Amazon EKS, Azure KS, or Google KS. We have created an article about creating a Kubernetes cluster on AWS that can help your DevOps engineer.
Are you a Fintech health-care, or do you care about application security following PCI, HIPAA, ISO27001, or SOC2 regulations? Great! They can help you with all the technical qualifications from security compliance, creating a VPN, hardening containers, adopting DevSecOps, Vuln assessments, patching vulnerabilities, and disaster recovery strategies.
DevOps engineers can work with Python, boto3, and AWS SDK for back-end and AWS development.
They can troubleshoot your web application, either Java, Node.js, Python, Go, or Laravel. Sometimes this falls more on the side of the Software engineer, but the DevOps engineer should be capable of understanding if it is a code issue or a DevOps issue and channeling it to the right tech team.
The DevOps engineer is not the DBA expert per-se (SQL query expert) but has proficient knowledge to troubleshoot, create and build database clusters. Ex. Mysql, RDS replicas, PostgreSQL, MongoDB sharding, etc.
It is important to remember that a DevOps developer might not cover all these tasks. Usually, 50-70% of the above functions are suitable for a good senior AWS DevOps Engineer.
An added value for a DevOps Engineer: getting into the top DevOps Trends. Read the full blog here.
Most DevOps engineers are focused on DevOps practices and these are some of their roles:
Read our blog about SRE vs DevOps.
Are the tasks and roles of a DevOps Engineer and a Software Engineer the same? Find out in our full blog.
The DevOps should have 2-3 years of Linux administration experience.
The candidate should also be very familiar with at least two open source services such as Apache, Nginx, PHP, MySQL, or PostgreSQL.
A DevOps developer should understand network protocols, such as TCP/IP,networking, TCP, UDP, and HTTPS.
The DevOps should be familiar with at least one Cloud and have 2-3 years of experience in Amazon S3, VPC, EC2, ECS, IAM roles, and RDS.
The candidate must understand the SDLC and have the ability to create and maintain CI-CD pipelines. Must be proficient in at least one CI-CD tool.
The DevOps should also know how to implement programs such as Terraform, CloudFormation, or Python. Knowing how to implement at least one should be mandatory.
For example: Java app, MERN stack, or Python / Django application.
The candidate should have experience handling security incidents and EC2 instance issues.
Any good DevOps should have basic knowledge of AWS security, Linux security, and hardening (Server / Containers).
The person should know how to manage at least one of the following three: Mysql, Postgresql, or Amazon RDS.
This includes Amazon Cloudwatch, Prometheus, Nagios, Zabbix, Grafana, DataDog, or New relic. The DevOps should be familiar with at least one of these tools.
DevOps culture includes the whole DevOps practices landscape.
To hire a DevOps developer, it’s important to look further than simply the person’s technical experience and skills. Companies need to look for DevOps engineers with the soft skills required to be successful in the position.
Here are some key skills you should look for.
Good communication is a key skill for a DevOps engineer, seeing as they can be asked to work remotely. Virtual communication can be tricky and therefore, DevOps must have the ability to overcome any communication issues that may arise.
When faced with a problem, a good DevOps should be able to quickly determine its cause and come up with options for how to solve it. The ability to listen and understand the needs of a team is crucial when it comes to clear and productive communication.
Tools such as Slack, JIRA and Zoom can be helpful for remote collaboration.
The ability to work in harmony with a team has numerous benefits. First off, it’s essential for the creation of a coherent product.
A DevOps engineer needs to understand how the team works and be familiar with each member’s activities and skills. Collaborating in an understanding environment will result in good workflow and efficient processes with respect to the project or product. It’s no secret that with the proper teamwork mindset, development productivity can increase significantly.
The DevOps field is always changing and evolving, therefore, DevOps engineers need to be adaptable. Learning new things in order to grow expertise provides for flexible development, which can positively contribute to any project or problem that needs solving. You can discover adaptability capacity when you hire a Devops developer by analyzing their knowledge, courses and experience.
In the process to hire a DevOps developer, the soft skills mentioned above can help you identify DevOps engineers with good leadership skills.
Developers face ongoing digital transformations and should therefore be able to identify problems and solve them, all while taking into account the team’s opinions with empathy and humility, as this is what allows for a productive work process. The right leadership style depends on how team members respond to essential changes in operations, technology, roles, and mindsets.
A good DevOps engineer can be defined in four aspects:
Make sure to consider the experience the candidate has with Linux or Windows servers. You want to hire a DevOps developer with at least 3-4 years of experience working as a DevOps engineer. Look for experience working with CI-CD tools and Cloud expertise. Also, your DevOps engineer should understand your programming language and platform.
Finally, determine if the candidate has the soft skills mentioned above, including communication, collaboration, the energy to change the SDLC within your tech team, and the ability to motivate your software engineers with new DevOps initiatives and practices.
In the recruitment process to hire a DevOps developer, here are some questions that will help you get off to a good start during the interview process.
Questions about Linux, operative systems, open source services, etc.
Ask about scripting and automation in Bash or Python. Depending on the scripting language, ask them a few questions about their preferred DevOps language. For the purposes of this example, let’s use Bash.
Select one IaC tool, Terraform, CloudFormation, or Python automation, and ask questions about IaC tool experience and best practices.
Verify the candidate’s knowledge on Kubernetes. Depending on the cloud, ask questions about Amazon EKS, Azure EKS or Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
Whether you’re using Node/React, Python, PHP, .NET, or Java, DevOps engineers should be familiar with how to deploy a web stack. It’s NOT a must, but you could potentially ask questions about specific configurations relating to your web stack.
This includes Mysql, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Amazon RDS and Aurora.
Are you looking to create a cloud-native architecture or hire a DevOps developer? If so, watch this video about patterns, principles, and a quick strategy to build a cloud-native architecture.
To hire a DevOps developer, remember these rates: Nearshore senior DevOps engineers charge rates ranging from US$7,000 to $9,000 per month. On the other hand, a middle-range engineer charges anywhere from US$6,000 to $7,500 and a Junior DevOps charges US$4,000 to $5,500. All of this being said, it always depends on the person’s technical expertise and on their number of years of experience working in the IT world or as a DevOps engineer.
USA-based DevOps engineers charge US$120,000 – $150,000 per year on average, while the same roles have salaries of US$66,000 – $80,000 in Mexico. That being said, these engineers have a similar culture and similar knowledge. Mexican DevOps engineers are, therefore, more liable and cost-effective than offshore engineers.
We help companies save 40% to 60% off DevOps costs when compared to on-shore DevOps engineers based in the U.S region.
** These rates include Benefits, taxes, and perks.
** They are an average per seniority level.
** These rates are in USD.
In order to create an optimal DevOps team, you need to choose the best talent to manage and organize your projects across customer value streams. Choosing the right people for each task delivers the best results in the long run.
Every DevOps team needs a leader who knows the business processes and has impeccable technical expertise. You can hire a DevOps developer evangelist to fill this position. It’s also crucial to provide the team with the right tools.
To learn more on how to build an optimal DevOps team, check out our article on DevOps team roles and responsibilities.
ClickIT is an excellent option to hire a DevOps engineer or team. As a software development company, we continuously provide our customers with top-notch solutions, counting on our reliable team to help you automate your applications, decrease time to market, and increase efficiency while reducing IT costs.
We also count on an extension of dedicated DevOps, including site reliability engineers, cloud engineers, DevOps architects, security engineers, automation engineers , and DevOps evangelists.
Eplexity is a cloud management and consulting firm offering automated cloud architecture, cloud consulting, and cloud-managed services. ClickIT helped this company conduct an AWS assessment covering the five AWS pillars. Eplexity achieved the client’s requirements, and now the microservice and serverless ecosystem is running seamlessly and with top cloud practices.To learn more about this project, read our case study.
Bebop provides DevOps services and manages the operations stage of many applications. We supported them by updating their Terraform templates in order to keep their production environments up to date and make them easier to manage and update. Now, the Bebop deployment processes with Terraform are more straightforward, the implementation times in the infrastructure are reduced, and managing the infrastructure is easier for new members. If you want to know more about this process,read our case study.
If you’re still unsure about where you can hire a DevOps developer or DevOps team, here are some reviews from ClickIT’s customers about DevOps projects so you can have a better idea of what to expect.
Card-Dynamics is a B2B platform that connects banks with e-commerce to update payment methods and create new users for merchants with verified banking information.
We had the opportunity to support them by building a PCI platform on AWS since our DevOps engineer has the necessary knowledge in Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery models, Container Orchestration, Infrastructure as code, Server provisioning, Cloud monitoring, Cloud security, and PCI Compliance.
They were thrilled by the results, given that the audit date was advanced by a month. They were also very satisfied with the communication workflow throughout the process.
Boundless is a venture studio focused on B2B SaaS and building multiple software companies while partnering with aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs.
ClickIT assisted them with staff augmentation in projects that involved numerous greenfield development opportunities and in managing DevOps with cloud providers such as AWS, writing frontend and backend code and operating various technologies.
One of the outcomes of this collaboration was the creation of multiple products including the launch of the MVP and the continuous improvement of it with additional features. The adoption of the DevOps culture also resulted in a great outcome. Furthermore, the fact that the team has the same time zone and workdays helps the company deal with logistics and overlap.
We know that hiring DevOps engineers can be complicated, however it’s not impossible. It’s best to have a DevOps developer within your organization, as they’re the gurus of cloud services and Linux. In order to hire a good DevOps engineer, you need to keep in mind that each DevOps has expertise and technical skills in specific languages. Also, don’t forget to consider soft skills in candidates which will ensure that they can effectively develop in the position.
Now that you know how to select the best DevOps engineers, you can contact ClickIT and find the proper DevOps developer for your projects. We have a pool of talented devs and our hiring process is quick and straightforward.
Hiring a DevOps engineer involves a few steps, such as identifying in their CV/Resume, excellent knowledge of Linux servers and Networking, good communication, leadership, DevOps certification, management of AWS services, and Cloud expertise.
And ask questions that prove their expertise in their interview.
You need a DevOps engineer, if you have a web application or digital product with numerous environments services and are interested in enhancing your web development productivity or planning to distribute your system and services.
DevOps engineers can be in charge of code release management and troubleshooting any production deployment. Also, they can do the tasks of a site reliability engineer.
Some sites can be beneficial to hire a DevOps developer, like freelance portals: Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, and Toptal. You can also directly contact a DevOps outsourcing company, such as ClickIT.
The average pay for a DevOps engineer depends on the level of position and the region. USA-based DevOps engineers demand $120,000 per year on average, while the same roles are $66,000 to $96,000 in Mexico.
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