Hire DevOps Engineers: Pan the Gold Out

Having emerged 10 years ago as one of the methodologies in the agile framework, DevOps has paved the way for CI/CD and streamlined application delivery and release orchestration. The methodology pumps up the scale and speed at which we release versions of software applications, lead to the innovation and automation throughout the SDLC, and free the repetitive effort of the developers. Let us take a glance at the latest trend that would shape this industry in the next century before you decide to hire DevOps engineers.

DevOps (Development + Operations) engineers are expected to perform task in both fields rather than specializing in one domain (programming, design, operation, cloud configuration, test, etc.). In fact, this is a role who own multiple responsibilities and versatility within your team. If you would like to hire DevOps engineers, let us find out all the requirements that the candidates must fulfill. Here is the overview of the skills and qualifications of a DevOps developer.

• Infrastructure Management: It is complementary to hire DevOps developer that owns in-depth understanding of the latest infrastructure of cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.
• Storage & Network: Professional DevOps developers should have a dependable, scalable, and productive storage & network management. This is an important task because the business’s resources are always limited, so in case of ineffective management, cloud costs can account for up to 50% of your IT budget.
• System Admin: DevOps Developer also takes responsibility for delegating access to infrastructure along with System Reliability Engineers. You should hire DevOps engineers who can create and maintain file servers, application, and design architecture.
• Testing & Diagnostics: Although DevOps Engineers currently receive support from automation testing software, they should maintain the analysis and testing approach to troubleshoot issues.
• Virtualization: Competent DevOps Engineers should be excellent at cloud platforms, release management platforms, IT security, tool chain and virtualize the system for the team.
• Communication & Collaboration: Let us emphasize the DevOps’ mission of filling in the gap between developers and operation department. You should find DevOps programmers who work effectively in a team, know how to resolve conflicts, build relationships, address disagreements to benefit the organizations.
• Agile & Scrum Knowledge: Understanding project management methods will help DevOps engineers fulfill their responsibilities better. They can leverage agile to save on personnel, incorporate transparency into project management, and truly achieve the goal of streamlining software releasement with zeroing errors.

In addition, DevOps engineers play a crucial role along each step of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). So that 100+ solution platforms and tools have appeared along the way to support their responsibilities. It has become a comprehensive ecosystem with more advancement made daily.

With the comprehensive skills above, the budget to hire DevOps engineers is in the top five highest in the IT industry today. Since 2016, the US DevOps salary has raised from 25% and the figure on worldwide scale comparatively has been only 13% higher (source: StackOverflow.com). According to wearedevelopers.com, the median salary to hire DevOps developer in 2022 was $80.000 per year. Glassdoor estimated that the peak for this position in the US, UK, Germany, Australia, and Canada would be $150.000 per year.

However, the range to hire DevOps engineers can vary based on other factors than location. Experience is one of them. The salaries of entry level (<6 months of experience) are about 30% less then senior level (>5 years of experience). This data has proved the heated demand of hiring professional engineers to optimize cloud cost and development processes. By city, Paris offers the lowest DevOps engineer payment with $55,000 while San Francisco pays $143,000.

Based on 15+ experience in IT services, we can offer you the 4 best sources to find and hire DevOps developers. These are also popular methods utilized by business owners keeping up with the trend of using global resources.

• Partnering with ITO Companies: An IT Outsourcing company offer a wide range of resources, including professional DevOps programmers for hire. With this partnership, you can benefit from their experiences and well-established communication channel. We would like to recommend this option for those who would like to hire remotely in other regions beside Europe and America to save costs.
• Hiring DevOps engineer as freelancer: In this process, you can browser freelancing sites to acquire the most desired CVs. These sites will charge hiring fees from both sides: employers and employees.
• Service contract with Hiring Agencies: Recruitment agency can manage urgent requests, so you can focus on preparing the interview, skills tests, and job description. The cost for this service may be higher, but you will always have an on-going supply source of CVs.
• In-house Team Recruitment: In terms of cost and time, this is the longest option compared to the options above. However, if you have the appropriate budget and want to implement and develop DevOps in the long term, then an in-house team is suitable.