How to Turn DevOps from a Headache into a Growth Driver

As IT products evolve, teams inevitably face the challenge of sustainably scaling their infrastructure. This involves handling a range of critical components, including cloud (or on-premises) resources, professionally configured CI/CD pipelines, configuration management, service containerization, orchestration, backups, monitoring, logging, and more.

At some point, the need arises for a dedicated role to implement, configure, and maintain this infrastructure using a modern technology stack. There are several ways to address this challenge: hiring an in-house DevOps engineer, outstaffing individual specialists, or outsourcing the entire DevOps function. Each approach has its own nuances.

Challenges with Hiring DevOps Specialists

? Shortage of Highly Skilled Professionals: The market is experiencing fierce competition for top-tier DevOps talent. Large players such as Big Tech, banks, retail giants, and IT companies are all vying for the same limited pool of experienced engineers.

? High and Rising Salaries: As demand for these specialists grows, so do their salary expectations.

? Limited Experience: In-house DevOps engineers often have expertise limited to their previous projects, while the technological landscape continues to evolve rapidly.

? Inexperienced Candidates: Many candidates on the market lack the necessary depth of knowledge and experience, having gained their skills through online courses. Junior engineers sometimes present themselves as fully-fledged DevOps professionals.

? Difficult to Assess Expertise: Without deep technical knowledge, it's hard for employers to accurately assess the quality of a DevOps candidate during the hiring process, forcing them to rely on resumes and references.

Despite these challenges, many employers still prefer the perceived control and familiarity of traditional employment relationships. Some companies are unable to use outsourced personnel due to internal policies that explicitly prohibit it. They believe that having an in-house team allows them to manage risks and be more flexible. While this may seem logical, I personally find this view to be misguided. In my experience, commercial relationships (such as outsourcing) often prove to be more reliable than traditional employment, a conclusion supported by feedback from several of our clients.

The Advantages of Quality DevOps Outsourcing

For those who can outsource, there are numerous benefits to high-quality DevOps outsourcing. By "quality," I mean a provider that delivers 100% reliable and diligent service. Your main task in this case is simply to find such a provider.

For a product team bringing a solution to market, a minimum requirement is typically one senior-level DevOps engineer to handle the full scope of infrastructure implementation, development, and ongoing support. Surprisingly, the cost of outsourcing comprehensive project support is often lower than maintaining an in-house engineer. Additionally, clients benefit from an entire team of specialists with 24/7 service-level agreements (SLA).

Over years of practice, outsourcing teams have developed refined processes for managing projects. They allocate engineers based on their areas of expertise, ensuring tasks are distributed and executed efficiently according to a pre-agreed work plan. This leads to faster and more effective problem-solving.

Outsourcing teams often manage dozens of projects, giving them a wealth of experience with various tools and solutions. Their breadth of knowledge allows them to offer unexpected, yet highly effective solutions tailored to the specific needs of each situation.

Who Can Benefit from DevOps Outsourcing?

Of course, outsourcing contracts aren’t suitable for everyone. They are particularly appealing to product teams—especially startups, including those operating within larger enterprises. The key here is flexibility, independence, and decision-making authority.

To make things easier, we’re offering a free IT infrastructure health check. We’ll audit your current setup ("As Is") and provide a detailed plan for your ideal future infrastructure ("To Be"). Along with that, we’ll create a customized development roadmap.

This service is complimentary when you choose to outsource 24/7 support of your infrastructure to us, using DevOps technologies. Our solution is not only more efficient but also more cost-effective than hiring a full-time team.

If you'd like more details or have any questions, feel free to reach out.