What skills do you need to become a DevOps engineer?

The number of vacancies in the IT industry is continuously increasing as organisations seek talented people to defend themselves against the growing threat of cyber attacks.

DevOps is no exception to this trend and experts with the ability to hold security clearances are seen as highly favourable among employers, as many businesses work with sensitive and classified information.

These professionals bridge the gap between software developers and operations teams, increasing production efficiency. DevOps engineers are some of the most in-demand experts in IT, but there are specific skills all of them will need for success.

Coding and scripting

Coding is a fundamental aspect of software development. This could be in a variety of programming languages, like Java, Ruby or Python. Scripting is the process of automating tasks and typically involves the use of languages such as Perl or Bash.

So, once a DevOps engineer understands the basics of coding, they can start learning more specific languages. For example, Python is needed to use the open-source tool Ansible, while Ruby is often used for configuration management.

Coding and scripting are essential skills and an integral part of DevOps. Without these, your efficiency and productivity will be limited, making your work much more difficult.

Automation and testing

DevOps engineers are responsible for streamlining processes and, as such, it’s vital they possess the ability to automate a full pipeline. This includes a comprehensive understanding of infrastructure and configurations.

Testing skills are important as they ensure DevOps engineers are able to identify bugs within software products. Tools like Chef, Puppet and Docker are all essential and experts must be comfortable using them.

Version control

Tracking and managing changes to software code is critical to the role of a DevOps engineer. It’s vital that professionals working in the field are adept at using key tools, such as Maven and Git.

A solid understanding of the agile methodology, provisioning and Infrastructure as Code (IAC) is useful to DevOps engineers, as well as a working knowledge of workflow operating systems and the project management lifecycle.