We Studied Requirements for 20 Top-paying DevOps Jobs, Here’s What We Learned.

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There are lots of job opportunities in the tech industry. There is also regular news about the scarcity of quality talent for these openings. Software engineering, UI/UX design, Data Science, and DevOps are some of the fields where companies desperately need top talent. DevOps is experiencing a rise in the number of opportunities available and is gradually becoming more competitive. This is not a surprise as 17% of respondents to this survey confirmed that their companies had fully embraced DevOps.

While developing DeployPlace, a deployment automation tool which will be handy for both DevOps and developers, we realized that there is a small cohort of high-paid DevOps jobs for advanced engineers. These DevOps roles are high paying but are not entry-level friendly, as it is hard enough for experienced tech personnel to get in shape for such roles.

For this article, we studied twenty top-paying DevOps jobs and came up with a list of points that can help you land that dream job. Before going in depth, here’s a list of the most common requirements from our study of these DevOps vacancies:

Experience as a Developer or Systems Admin Is Vital
Familiarity with DevOps Tools is Important
Knowledge of Cloud Technologies Helps
Soft Skills are as Important as Technical Skills
Security Skills are Good to Have

Experience as a Developer or Systems Admin Is Vital

DevOps roles are multidimensional, sharing similarities with other fields. DevOps is short for Development and Operations, so it is no surprise that it shares a lot with the Software Development and Operations field.

The concept of DevOps revolves around the need to merge the development and operations of software products, so the build and release process can become more efficient. By increasing the efficiency of the product development pipeline, products become easier to maintain and improve.

From the study, many DevOps jobs seek individuals with experience as Software Engineers, Operations Engineers or System Administrators. It is only logical to want people with such qualifications as they will understand the pain points of the product development process, and will tap into their experience to apply DevOps appropriately.

When trying to land a DevOps job, any lack of experience in these roles doesn’t rule you out, but it makes it harder to stand out from the crowd. To increase your chances, it is important that you understand the concept of DevOps, how to implement it and the problem it solves. Understanding the pros and cons of the various models of the Software Development Life Cycle is key to knowing why DevOps is needed in the first instance.

Besides understanding DevOps at a conceptual level, there is also a need for technical skills for the job openings. For example, the ability to write code in a scripting language like Python, and experience working with networks and databases are common requirements for the majority of DevOps roles.

Familiarity with DevOps Tools is Important

Experience as a Software Engineer or System Administrator is valuable, but you also need to know how to use DevOps tools. For Software Engineers, learning new tools is nothing new as there are many they have to learn every now and then. For System administrators, most of the DevOps tools are complementary to regular sysadmin tools, so learning a new one shouldn’t be an uphill task.

These top-paying DevOps jobs do not need you to be an expert at using tools, but the ability to learn them on the job is vital. Learning to use some tools before applying will be helpful as knowledge is often transferable.

For the tools in which you do not have so much proficiency, it will be valuable to understand the problems they solve and when to use them. Aside from increasing your chances of getting a job, having knowledge of these tools will boost your confidence and problem-solving skills.

As you put more effort into preparing for DevOps jobs, you’ll learn that most of the tools are strongly connected to one another. For example, Docker and Kubernetes, where Docker is a tool for containerization and Kubernetes is a tool for container orchestration or administration. Another example includes CI tools like GitLab CI and Deployment tools like Chef, where CI tools integrate the code changes into the code base and deployment tools release software into a production environment. In the aspect of creating automated deployment pipelines, knowing how to use a tool like DeployPlace (in pre-launch phase) will come also in handy.

Knowledge of Cloud Technologies Helps

DevOps and Cloud work hand-in-hand. The impact of their combination is immense as it makes agile methodologies easier to apply to the software development process. Cloud Computing is critical to the success of DevOps for many reasons, some of them are:

It’s centralized nature enables the effective development, testing and deployment of software
It makes it possible to build scalable software
Limits the level of security loopholes in software infrastructure

Many companies do not run on-premise data centers because of costs, so they resort to patronizing cloud service providers. This is undoubtedly the most popular way to host web services and apps, and it will be for the foreseeable future.

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There are many cloud service providers, but these are popular:

Amazon Web Services
Google Cloud Platform
Microsoft Azure

You need not be an expert at using services from these providers, but it helps to be comfortable using at least one of them. They all have similar products with different setup methods and some minor differences. These cloud service providers abstract low-level computing details, but an understanding of the basics of networking, databases and different software infrastructure will be valuable.

The Linux operating system powers about 96.3% of computers running on the Cloud, so it is no surprise that a substantial number of DevOps tools support Linux before other operating systems. Hence, you should strive to be comfortable working on the Linux command-line regardless of the number of available GUI tools.

Soft Skills are as Important as Technical Skills

From our study, many DevOps roles are core technical positions as they require previous technical experience as a Software Engineer or Systems Administrator. Hence, it is easy to rule out the importance of soft skills for these roles, but that will be a bad idea.

Many DevOps job openings need someone who can be considered a renaissance man. That is good at many things, not just with writing code or keeping services up and running. The top DevOps jobs will require you to manage small teams, organize meetings, and to contribute to the documentation process — to mention but a few.

Unlike many programming roles where you can sit at your desk and code all day, a DevOps role requires constant communication with the development and operations teams. So, excellent human relations skills will come in handy too.

Security Skills are Good to Have

DevOps or no DevOps, security is critical to the success of any product. Many companies overlook the importance of this aspect until it is too late. Taking up a DevOps role should increase your interest in security, because such roles require an understanding of things at the infrastructural level.

The rise of DevSecOps is a testament to the fact that security is a critical part of DevOps and many top-paying job opportunities consider having some knowledge of it as “good to have.” While you do not have to be a penetration tester, you should be abreast of the best modern security practices.

Conclusion

Since the idea of DevOps was introduced in 2008, it has skyrocketed and is now a buzzword in the tech industry. DevOps is not just a cool term anymore, because it works and many companies are looking for individuals capable of helping them implement its concepts.

There are lots of DevOps job openings, and for this article we studied the top paying ones. We took away some vital points from these openings which we have discussed, such as the need for technical and soft skills, and the ability to work with cloud-based apps, etc. We hope anyone looking to land these jobs can improve their chances by taking advantage of the points in this writeup.