Guide to Hire DevOps Engineers

Overview

In recent times, DevOps has emerged as an effective framework where software companies can deliver their applications quickly to their customers. As a framework, DevOps integrates application development with operations, thus optimizing the workflow between them.

As more companies adopt the DevOps framework, a DevOps Engineer can add value to their operations with their expertise. If you are looking to hire DevOps Engineers, here’s everything you need to know about what a DevOps engineer does—and how to hire the right one!

Who is a DevOps Engineer?

A DevOps Engineer is a technical expert who can introduce DevOps processes, methodologies, and tools into any software development lifecycle (SDLC). The DevOps engineer must possess advanced knowledge of both application development and operations. Additionally, they also need to possess interpersonal skills to coordinate work between these two teams.

Next, let's see when organizations need to hire a DevOps Engineer.

When You May Need a DevOps Engineer

Typically, companies may hire a DevOps Engineer when they want to streamline their application development and delivery process. In the competitive of business applications, product companies want to stay ahead by releasing high-quality applications at short intervals. As they operate across multiple development environments, companies need to think about factors like productivity and scalability. This means automating manual processes that are related to product development, building, deployment, and testing. 

A DevOps Engineer can benefit your company in the following ways:

• Implement automated processes that enable faster product development at lower costs.
• Build business resilience through stable deployment and integration with third-party tools.
• Enable seamless scalability of DevOps applications and infrastructure.
• Improve the security aspect of cloud-hosted applications.

Here’s why you must hire a DevOps engineer for your organization.

Why Hire a DevOps Engineer?

You need to hire a DevOps engineer when you are looking to adopt the DevOps framework in your organization. Alternatively, you could simply be looking for an effective way to release new applications quickly to your customers. A DevOps engineer can save you both time and money by building optimized cloud infrastructure and automating your development workflow.

Here’s what a DevOps engineer can help you with:

• Integrating new applications into the existing IT infrastructure.
• Deploying new product updates and fixes quickly to production.
• Ensuring that your critical systems are always running optimally.
• Optimizing your current workflow for improved efficiency.
• Monitoring the overall performance and resolving issues.

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What are the technical skills and competencies to look for when hiring a DevOps engineer? Let’s discuss that next.

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Skills and qualifications to look for in a DevOps Engineer

What are the technical skills and qualifications that hiring companies must look for in any DevOps Engineer? 

Let’s start with the technical skills:

• Experience in Linux administration
• Advanced knowledge of at least two open-source services like PHP, Apache, MySQL, Nginx, or PostgreSQL
• Knowledge of network protocols like TCP/IP, HTTPS, and UDP
• Bash or Python scripting skills
• Experience in AWS services including Amazon S3, EC2, IAM, and RDS
• Understanding of Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) tools like Terraform, Python, or CloudFormation
• Proficiency in CI/CD tools and pipelines like Jenkins and Travis CI
• Working knowledge of security tools like AWS and Linux security
• Knowledge of version control tools like Git or SVN

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Besides these technical skills, the DevOps Engineer must be skilled in:

• Working with automation tools like Puppet, Chef, Ansible, or Salt
• Networking concepts and system administration
• Deploying and managing applications on the Cloud
• Both frontend and backend development including cloud, desktop, and mobile applications
• Application security
• Containerization platforms like Docker and Kubernetes

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If you are operating an AWS cloud infrastructure, you need an AWS Cloud DevOps engineer skilled in automating the testing and deploying of AWS applications. If there is a shortage of qualified AWS DevOps engineers in your location, you can consider hiring an AWS DevOps Engineer (Remote) to work from another location. Across business organizations, there is a growing industry demand for an AWS-certified DevOps engineer or any other AWS-certified DevOps professional.

As a DevOps engineer must be able to work with other team members, hiring companies must evaluate the following soft skills:

• Problem-solving and effective communication skills
• Ability to explain complex technical issues in simple language
• Independent working skills along with collaboration skills
• Ability to adapt to constant changes

Are DevOps engineers expensive to hire? Let’s discuss that next.

How Much Does it Cost to Hire a DevOps Engineer?

The 2022 Stack Overflow Developer survey estimates that the average salary of a qualified DevOps engineer is $150,000 in the U.S. Globally, companies are hiring full-time DevOps engineers at a median salary of $80,000.

At the same time, there is a severe shortage of experienced and qualified DevOps engineers in the U.S. Hence, companies hire offsite DevOps engineers as contractors. According to YouTeam, the average hourly rate of DevOps engineers (from other countries) ranges from $48 to $56.

Alternatively, you can hire freelance DevOps engineers from the Upwork platform. Depending on their skills and experience, the hourly rate ranges from a low of $18 to as high as $250.

Next, let’s look at the top interview questions to ask to hire a DevOps Engineer.

Top Interview Questions to Ask When Hiring a DevOps Engineer

Here are the top 15 interview questions to ask when you are hiring a DevOps Engineer:

1. Which is the most challenging DevOps tool that you have used?
2. How is DevOps different from Agile methodology?
3. How does Amazon ECS differ from Fargate and EKS?
4. How do you go about optimizing a CI/CD pipeline in a few minutes?
5. How can you set up an Application Load Balancer (ALB)?
6. What are namespaces in the Docker microservice architecture?
7. What are the key differences between Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration?
8. Which are the leading DevOps tools that you have worked on?
9. Talk about some core benefits of the DevOps framework.
10. Explain the various phases of the DevOps methodology.
11. What is your best professional achievement when using the DevOps framework?
12. Which KPIs do you use to measure the success of any DevOps project?
13. What is the contribution of Amazon Web Services to DevOps?
14. Why do you need continuous integration of both development and testing?
15. How do you perform automated testing in DevOps?

Conclusion

As the DevOps methodology continues to grow in adoption across industry domains, more hiring companies will look for skilled DevOps engineers to implement this change. Depending on your hiring budget, you can either hire full-time DevOps engineers or remote professionals on contract.

Hope this has been an informative guide to hiring DevOps Engineers based on your specific requirements. At Cloudhero.es, we can help you hire our Enterprise Grade & experienced Global In-House DevOps engineers to work on your next project. Schedule an appointment with us today.