DevOps Career

DevOps is a set of practices that aims to improve collaboration and efficiency between software development and IT operations teams. DevOps engineers are professionals who have the skills and knowledge to work across the entire software lifecycle, from coding and testing to deployment and monitoring. DevOps engineers are in high demand as more organizations adopt DevOps to deliver software faster and more reliably.

But how can one become a DevOps engineer? What are the skills and tools that are required for this role? In this article, we will outline some of the main steps that can help you start your DevOps career journey.

1. Learn programming languages. Programming languages are essential for DevOps engineers, as they enable them to automate processes, integrate databases, debug code, and write scripts. DevOps engineers do not need to be expert programmers, but they should have a working knowledge of the languages that their team is using. Some of the popular programming languages for DevOps are Go, Ruby, Python, and Node.js.
2. Study operating systems. Operating systems (OSs) are the software that run the machines and servers that host the applications and services that DevOps teams work on. DevOps engineers need to understand how OSs work, how to configure them, and how to use the command line terminal to execute commands. The command line terminal is a text-based interface that allows users to perform tasks faster and more efficiently than using a graphical user interface (GUI). Some of the common OSs for DevOps are Linux, Unix, and Windows.
3. Review networking security and protocols. Networking security and protocols are the rules and standards that govern how data is transmitted and protected over networks. DevOps engineers need to be familiar with networking security and protocols, as they are responsible for ensuring that the applications and services that they deploy are secure, reliable, and scalable. Some of the networking security and protocols that DevOps engineers should know are TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSL/TLS, SSH, VPN, and firewall.
4. Understand Infrastructure as Code. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice that involves using code to define, provision, and manage the infrastructure that supports the applications and services that DevOps teams work on. IaC enables DevOps engineers to automate infrastructure tasks, such as creating servers, configuring networks, installing software, and applying policies. IaC also helps DevOps engineers to ensure consistency, repeatability, and traceability of their infrastructure changes. Some of the tools that DevOps engineers use for IaC are Terraform, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, and CloudFormation.
5. Adopt Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment tools. Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) are practices that involve automating the processes of building, testing, and deploying software code changes. CI/CD helps DevOps engineers to deliver software faster and more frequently, while ensuring quality and reliability. CI/CD also helps DevOps engineers to collaborate better with their team members and stakeholders by providing feedback loops and visibility into their software delivery pipeline. Some of the tools that DevOps engineers use for CI/CD are Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, Travis CI, CircleCI, and Azure DevOps.
6. Invest in application and infrastructure monitoring. Application and infrastructure monitoring is a practice that involves collecting, analyzing, and visualizing data about the performance and health of the applications and services that DevOps teams work on. Application and infrastructure monitoring helps DevOps engineers to identify and troubleshoot issues, optimize resources usage, improve user experience, and ensure availability and reliability of their applications and services. Some of the tools that DevOps engineers use for application and infrastructure monitoring are Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Nagios, New Relic, and Datadog.
7. Study cloud providers. Cloud providers are companies that offer cloud computing services, such as servers, storage, networking, databases, and analytics, that can be accessed over the internet. Cloud providers help DevOps engineers to scale their applications and services without having to manage their own infrastructure. Cloud providers also offer various features and benefits such as security, redundancy, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. Some of the popular cloud providers for DevOps are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and IBM Cloud.
8. Learn cloud design patterns. Cloud design patterns are best practices and solutions that address common challenges and problems that arise when designing and developing applications and services for the cloud. Cloud design patterns help DevOps engineers to optimize the performance, scalability, reliability, security, and cost-effectiveness of their cloud applications and services. Some of the cloud design patterns that DevOps engineers should know are load balancer, cache-aside, circuit breaker, queue-based load leveling, and microservices.

These are some of the main steps that can help you start your DevOps career journey. Of course, there are many more skills and tools that you can learn and use as a DevOps engineer, depending on your specific role and project. The DevOps field is constantly evolving and changing, so you should always be ready to learn new things and adapt to new situations. DevOps is not only a set of practices and tools, but also a mindset and a culture that values collaboration, communication, feedback, automation, and continuous improvement.