Is DevOps engineering a good career path in 2024?

Ekene Eze · Improve this Guide

Making career choices could be overwhelming for beginners and experienced software developers seeking to advance their skills. This could be due to several factors, such as the abundance of options, the numerous resources on the internet, the steep learning curves, and so on.

However, before selecting a path, it is helpful to look at certain factors, such as your interests, strengths, and the future prospects of the career path, as these factors play a crucial role in determining your potential for success.

DevOps engineering is one of the most in-demand and highest-paying roles in the tech industry and, in recent times, has become the go-to choice for many people getting into tech and experienced tech professionals. As a DevOps professional, you’ll enjoy spectacular career growth filled with endless opportunities.

The DevOps philosophy involves bringing developers and operation teams together to improve the software delivery process.

This guide will detail DevOps and provide the necessary information to help you decide whether to pursue the Devops engineer career path and steps to ensure a DevOps career growth.

What is DevOps?

Derived from the combination of development (Dev) and operations (Ops), DevOps is a software development methodology that aims to improve collaboration between development and operations teams, increase the efficiency, security, and speed of software development and delivery.

Within DevOps, you’ll play an important part in the entire software development lifecycle - from initial planning to implementation. This means you’ll be a team player with excellent communication skills.

Is DevOps engineer career path right for you?

DevOps is a field that’s here to stay. The DevOps market grew to an incredible $10.3 billion at the end of 2023 and it is growing. Hence, securing a DevOps role is your first step toward a long-lasting career.

DevOps career paths are worth considering if you have experience in software development, networking, or operations. It involves automation, testing, monitoring, configuring, networking, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and requires a diverse skill set as discussed below. It is a bridge between development and operations teams.

These are some factors to consider before choosing the DevOps engineer career path:

• Interest in automation
• Enjoy collaborating
• Interest in infrastructure management
• Love for problem-solving
• Willingness to continuously learn new skills and technology

Interest in automation

Automation is an integral part of the DevOps career path. It involves writing scripts and code to automate repetitive tasks and enhance software delivery processes. By automating repetitive tasks and workflows, DevOps teams can increase efficiency, reduce errors, and accelerate time to market for software releases.

Enjoy collaborating

Collaboration is crucial in the DevOps career, as you will work with different people across several teams. The goal is to break down the silos across teams and ensure they all work together to achieve the same goal. Having great collaboration skills is crucial to being a DevOps engineer.

Interest in infrastructure management

Do you enjoy working on infrastructural rather than domain code? The plus side of infrastructural code is that it can be replicated across several infrastructures once it is set up, and you can transfer the knowledge to other organizations instead of domain code, where you would always need to learn the domain of the business you are writing code for.

Love for problem-solving

Choosing this field requires that you enjoy solving problems and can devise solutions to complex problems.

Willingness to continuously learn new skills and technology

DevOps is an evolving field, and there is always something new. To be up to date, you have to be willing and open to continuous learning. This involves taking courses, reading articles, and getting updates on things happening in the DevOps field and tech.

It is worth noting that working in DevOps involves working in high-pressure environments. You are constantly relied on to manage an organization’s IT and new and existing cloud systems, which can sometimes be overwhelming.

Also, there is a steep learning curve. As a tech beginner, it could be daunting and challenging to get into DevOps and adapt the DevOps culture, but as you go along, it gets easier.

DevOps in 2024

According to Statista, DevOps software engineering positions are among the top technical positions demanded by recruiters worldwide in 2023. Indeed reported that the average annual salary of DevOps engineer in the USA is $124,392.

DevOps has evolved over the last decade. Today, it is more than automating tasks and having engineers write scripts. It is now more about practices that can help to automate software delivery, improve business and the overall software development processes.

Certain trends are impacting the DevOps market currently and will also play a role in the future of DevOps. Some of them include:

• Microservices
• Cloud technology
• Automation and CI/CD
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Let’s look at these trends and how they indirectly influence your decision.

Microservices

This architecture enables the agile development and continuous delivery of software solutions. In a microservice architecture, applications are split into smaller parts known as microservices that focus on a single responsibility. Each part (microservice) is developed and deployed independently, and microservices communicate via events or API interfaces.

It is a common trend, and many organizations are adopting this architecture because of its benefits, one of which is adapting to market changes and shipping out features faster rather than the delays of modular monoliths. A DevOps engineer is critical to helping in the adoption and success of microservices.

Cloud technology

Cloud-native applications have become popular recently. They involve developing and deploying software applications and their dependencies in a cloud environment.

There are several cloud platforms, some of the most popular ones being AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). One advantage of using these cloud providers is that you don’t have to manage the cloud infrastructure but instead focus on developing your applications. You also pay for only the resources you use.

Containerization tools like Docker and Kubernetes have been made popular by cloud services and microservices. These tools are part of the toolkit of DevOps engineers.

Automation and CI/CD

Automation and continuous integration/continuous deployment are integral to DevOps. Organizations are widely adopting automation of their infrastructure and deployments because of its benefits including faster and more reliable application deployments.

Also, with the adoption of GitOps, an operational framework that takes DevOps principles and best practices for application development and applies them to infrastructure automation, the deployment process is even more efficient. DevOps professionals are the major catalysts for this and will remain relevant.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning

AI and ML have become integrated into our daily lives and automation tools are used to automate processes and routine tasks, monitor system health, and predict potential system issues. These AI tools need to be designed, maintained, and enhanced.

In the AI and ML field, it is the job of an MLOps engineer, but a DevOps engineer can upskill and switch roles to an MLOps engineer.

There is a concern that AI will replace DevOps professionals. However, I believe AI will complement the DevOps process, improve the software development lifecycle, and make better DevOps engineers.

Specializations in DevOps

The DevOps career paths are rewarding and successful. The DevOps career also offers a lot of growth opportunities, and as you have seen in the previous section, it is in high demand.

There are several DevOps career paths and devops career opportunities for both entry-level and experienced positions. Normally, working in DevOps starts with an entry-level position like a release manager or junior DevOps engineer.

As a DevOps professional, you can decide to go for any of these following DevOps skills and specializations:

• Automation expert
• General DevOps engineer
• System engineer
• DevOps architect
• DevOps release manager
• DevSecOps engineer
• DevOps test engineer

Automation expert

In the DevOps career path, you can work as an automation expert or engineer, depending on the organization. You can specialize in implementing automation solutions, continuous improvement, and software delivery. As automation plays a critical role, every DevOps engineer should be familiar with the automation process.

Automation experts specialize in implementing continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) within the software lifecycle to boost the efficiency of development and operations teams. Additionally, they design and integrate monitoring, dashboard, and incident management tools like Grafana, Loki, and Seq.

General DevOps engineer

This is one of the key DevOps career path. As a DevOps engineer, you work closely with developers and act as a bridge between other team members. You are involved in all aspects of the software development life cycle. You are also a bridge between operations and development teams. DevOps engineers need to be proficient with top DevOps automation tools and have knowledge of cloud platforms like AWS and Google Cloud. Usually a newbie in DevOps starts in this path as a junior DevOps engineer.

Systems engineer

This is another DevOps career you can assume as you become a DevOps engineer. As a system engineer, you are responsible for designing, deploying, and maintaining an organization’s IT infrastructure, including the hardware, software, networking, and operating systems.

DevOps architect

In this DevOps career path, a DevOps architect is responsible for designing and implementing the overall DevOps architecture and processes in an organization.

A DevOps architect is responsible for building the foundation upon which the entire process rests. The DevOps architect role is a more senior role than a DevOps engineer.

A DevOps architect is like the contractor of the DevOps world and ensures consistency of agile principles across the DevOps process and work closely with other senior DevOps engineers and professionals to ensure these principles are followed.

DevOps release manager

This is a DevOps career path where you are responsible for managing and overseeing software releases throughout the DevOps process. A DevOps release manager ensures software products are released on time, with high quality and reliability.

DevSecOps engineer

DevSecOps stands for Development, Security and Operations. Such engineers design and implement secure architectures for software and infrastructure, manage vulnerabilities, and protect against security threats.

DevSecOps engineers ensure that software applications and their supporting infrastructure are secure.

DevOps test engineer

A DevOps test engineer is responsible for implementing tests to ensure software products are high-quality, reliable, and scalable. They oversee all stages of the testing process, such as designing automated testing frameworks, identifying and resolving issues, and certifying compliance with industry standards.

Other DevOps roles include:

• DevOps Cloud Engineer
• Lead DevOps Engineer

Skills required in DevOps

DevOps engineers require both technical skills and soft skills, which may vary from organization to organization, as well as team structure, technologies, and tools. However, some common skills exist across the board.

• Knowledge of coding and scripting
• In-depth knowledge of container and container orchestration
• Knowledge of logging and configuration management
• Understanding of system administration
• In-depth knowledge of version control systems
• Knowledge of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD)
• Collaboration skills

Knowledge of coding and scripting

To build a DevOps career, you should know at least one programming language and be proficient in scripting to further automate tasks and processes that would be tedious and slow. You should also be familiar with software development principles.

In-depth knowledge of container and container orchestration

With micro-services popularity, applications can be shipped in containers and deployed to the cloud. It is possible with the help of tools like Docker and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes. A DevOps cloud engineer must have extensive knowledge of these tools and how to use them.

Knowledge of logging and configuration management tools

Monitoring is one of the core DevOps processes. In the DevOps career path, you are expected to have a knowledge of monitoring and logging tools. A popular one used is Grafana. You should be comfortable working with configuration management tools, automation frameworks, and Linux environments.

Understanding of system administration

A basic understanding of provisioning and managing servers, security monitoring, and networks is required in the DevOps career path. You will monitor the servers for security vulnerabilities and apply patches when necessary.

In-depth knowledge of version control systems and source code management

Version control is one of the DevOps tools, and required technical skills that a DevOps engineer should have. One of the common Version Control Systems(VCS) out there is Git.

Knowledge of continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD)

A DevOps professional is required to have a deep understanding of CI/CD. CI/CD involves the design and implementation of software delivery pipelines. It enables faster software release cycles. Some key DevOps tools include Jenkins, Azure DevOps, CircleCI, BitBucket Pipelines, GitHub Actions, etc.

Communication and Collaboration skills

As a DevOps professional, be prepared to work closely with cross-functional development teams. You are expected to have good communication and collaboration skills to be an effective team member. You should be able to clearly communicate your ideas to other developers, end-users and stakeholders.

How can I start my DevOps career?

The next question you might be asking is how do I start my career in DevOps. You can begin your DevOps career by obtaining a bachelor’s degree in computer science degree from a college.

You can also obtain DevOps certification from certified DevOps trainers. One of the popular DevOps certifications is the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer.

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