Things to consider while hiring DevOps developers

In the market of software development, more and more companies prioritize agile methodologies, and rightfully so. With a focus on such resolutions, you can reduce the overall development time of your projects highly and notice better communication between the stakeholders and team.

DevOps has been a major choice for many development teams due to improved collaborative and agile functionality guarantees.

Statistically, the DevOps market will potentially grow at a 20% CAGR by 2026. To make the best of the DevOps approaches for software development, you should hire the right team who knows key metrics like CFR (Change Failure Rate)- read this article from Instatus to know more on that.

Article Breakdown:

To hire expert developers with the right knowledge and skills, you need to consider various points first. In this post, we shall discuss tips on choosing the right team, starting with:

• The reasons why businesses hire DevOps experts.
• The fundamental role of DevOps engineers.
• Experience and knowledge of basic development/operation skills.
• A high amount of technical knowledge and experience.
• Automation-related knowledge.
• Soft skills for better communication and teamwork.
• Flexible in learning and adapting one’s skillset and knowledge.
• Having a good vision of the project and articulating it to the client.

Now, let’s discuss these in more detail.

Why Do Companies Need DevOps Support?

Multiple technologies hold high popularity in the software development landscape. One part of the main trinity of NoSQL-Cloud Computing-DevOps is the latter, which has steadily been growing as a standalone discipline.

In fact, 83% of IT leaders and decision-makers implemented DevOps practices to improve the business value as of 2021.

Companies have required this solution for years, especially with growing discontent with the outdated software development methodology. In 2007, with the introduction of DevOps, organizations started noticing lesser errors with their code deployment work and faster processes.

The agile methodology allowed them to have a better collaborative environment in the team and constantly communicate with feedback and partnership. As a result, both the production quality and processing time improved.

DevOps allows a better operative environment between different stages/disciplines in the production cycle to improve the diversified team workflow. The DevOps-specialized team members get access to the best automation tools for boosting reliability and processes.

Thus, more companies today are turning to this approach to optimize their production cycle and delivery.

Who is a DevOps Developer?

Before discussing how to choose the right expert for the work, you should know what they are responsible for. To refresh, the DevOps developers are professionals who are trained in this field and know various practices, like:

• A better understanding of software and hardware varieties
• Clearer knowledge of software licensing and all that it entails
• High-level programming language skills to create reports and assure automated task implementation
• Experience with handling different operating systems

Also, make sure to choose a team or particular experts who know the overall DevOps development process thoroughly. To know more about that, check out the Instatus’ post on DevOps Development Lifecycle and related phases.

Things to focus on while choosing the right DevOps Developers

For high-quality results with DevOps developers, you must carefully assess your team options. Consider their performance quality and deliverables, skills, and experience, among other factors.

You should prioritize the main points of concern while researching your choices.

1. Basic Operational and Development Skills

To note, the DevOps approach falls under the umbrella of both IT operations and software development. It relates to the supporting tools and methodologies that ensure continued interdisciplinary collaboration among the software developers. Moreover, it correlates to managing the cost of network administrators, DBAs, system programmers, and security specialists.

When you hire remote developers with DevOps knowledge, check that they are skilled in collaboration practices, coding, and scripting. Furthermore, they should have the proper knowledge of the core fundamentals of this process, like:

• Scripting
• Virtualization
• IT-related knowledge
• Comprehensive System development
• Continuous integration and delivery

2. Technical skills

While choosing the right team members for your project, also check their scripting and technical skills. In essence, the DevOps experts should know specific programming languages like Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python, and JavaScript. The DevOps professionals handle codework in these languages, so having skill in them is vital.

Besides having the ability to code manually, the expert DevOps engineer you choose should know how to monitor and change manual processes like DNS codes and IP addresses. Indeed, these professionals should know how to configure these processes and have a good understanding on different development paradigms like object-oriented, procedural, and functional coding.

See the different scripting languages, technologies, and tools they have learned and can use. Plus, notice if they utilize infrastructure skills for reading/writing design patterns.

3. Understanding of automation

While choosing the right team members for your project, also check their scripting and technical skills. In essence, the DevOps experts should know specific programming languages like Ruby on Rails, Perl, Python, and JavaScript. The DevOps professionals handle codework in these languages, so having skill in them is vital.

One of the main responsibilities of expert DevOps engineers is handling automation practices and tools through the project lifecycle. So, see if the experts you are considering have proper knowledge and experience with automation tools and techniques.

At this time, check that they know how to automate technical and business problem-solving appropriately. With quick coding, the best DevOps engineers can carry out full development and integration steps for these operations and systems.

Moreover, check whether they are aware of different automation tools and can pick the right ones that will work for specific projects. Also, they should have the ability to handle separate tests for integration and unit testing. With the knowledge of automation practices, they can handle this.

4. Soft Skills

Besides technical aspects and cloud computing knowledge, soft skills also set apart best DevOps engineers from mediocre ones. For starters, they should know how to communicate well while discussing strategies and solutions with the client and other team members.

Plus, they should have good teamwork skills. With proper interpersonal skills, expert DevOps engineers can supply the full information to all team members and avoid errors during the actual process. This naturally promotes a better agile development experience.

Plus, the DevOps engineers often have to make major decisions in the project lifecycle to ensure all sections are aligned. Therefore, decision-making skills are another soft skill they should have, besides patience, a service-oriented mindset, and good listening skills.

5. Flexibility with learning and adaptability

Another point you should consider when you hire expert developers with DevOps-based training is if they are flexible.

To preface, new technologies and practices are constantly coming up while the software development and IT markets expand. An expert that is set in their ways and only reuses the same technologies for all projects cannot provide unique and modern solutions for clients.

So, check if the DevOps developer you are planning to hire is open to constantly upgrade their skills and if they embrace change. The best DevOps developers keep up with the trends and are consistently learning and using new practices and skills. So, for the best results with your project, choose a professional with a cross-platform mindset with their services.

6. Visionary perspective

Besides technical aspects and cloud computing knowledge, soft skills also set apart best DevOps engineers from mediocre ones. For starters, they should know how to communicate well while discussing strategies and solutions with the client and other team members.

One key area where many companies and teams fail from the early stages of their projects is not having a proper plan in place. If you are not aware of the main objectives for the project or product, you cannot strategize the right practices to reach that goal.

The best expert DevOps engineers can accurately portray the central vision of the project for better collaboration between all team members. So, when you are choosing the right DevOps engineer for your work, see that your visions align.

Not to mention, check their attitude towards flexibility during the planning process. Adapting to the issues or requirements of clients is important to guarantee the best results with operational improvement.

The right DevOps engineer will be able to express their vision to clients, discussing the ideas they have that will profit the business best. Plus, they should know that new insights into the market and trends can show that the original plan might not be the right plan.

At this point, they should have an open and innovative attitude towards adapting the plan based on external factors.

Get the best knowledge and domain for DevOps-based Platform

The right type of professional with high-quality knowledge of DevOps practices and tools will be able to help you create the best DevOps project. They can use the tools' full potential and plan high-quality strategies with optimized results. Hire expert developers from the right agency after careful research.

To know more about DevOps-related details and create the best domain for your site, take the help of Instatus as well. You can create a dynamic status page for your platform- contact them anytime!