How to become a DevOps Engineer in 2023 – Are you currently studying or pursuing the world of DevOps ? Do you want to become a competent DevOps Engineer? Congratulations, you landed on the right article ! You should know that becoming a DevOps Engineer is not an easy matter like snapping your fingers. Understanding from various IT fields is needed to be able to engage in the DevOps world. For that, consider some of the following tips to become a DevOps Engineer.
How to become a DevOps Engineer in 2023
What is a DevOps Engineer
DevOps Engineer is a profession in the world of IT (especially in the field of application development) who has an in-depth understanding of the software development life cycle (software development life cycle).
A DevOps Engineer needs to understand why a company has to move from one legacy application development model (such as Waterfall) to another (in this case DevOps).
If you have decided to have a career as a DevOps Engineer, you should also know that your job requires collaborating with various teams, such as Developers, System Administrators or IT Operations, Information Security, and other IT staff who have in-depth knowledge of various tools in developing pipelines to manage deployments. and application development process.
As the adoption of DevOps culture in various companies around the world has increased recently, making the DevOps Engineer profession increasingly sought after and needed by the industry. How come? Statistically, the demand for DevOps Engineers has increased by around 40-45% in the job market in the last 3-4 years and the numbers are growing rapidly.
Even so, the DevOps Engineer profession is a challenging job that requires sufficient expertise and experience as well as in-depth knowledge in the field.
DevOps Engineer Roles and Responsibilities
A DevOps Engineer will work closely with the Development (Developer) and IT Operations teams to create and implement software systems. Therefore, they need to collaborate and synergize in doing the work.
The main roles and responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer include the following.
- Write documentation for server-side features.
- Develop, install, test, configure and maintain IT solutions (both hardware and software).
- Communicating operational requirements and development forecasts with everyone on the team.
- Develop plans and processes for upgrading and expanding the technology used.
- Automatically apply updates to production environments using configuration management software.
- Perform routine application maintenance and troubleshooting actions to ensure a smooth production environment.
- Perform analysis to identify performance improvements, identify alternative solutions, and assist modifications.
Tips to Become a DevOps Engineer
Now that you know what a DevOps Engineer is and their various roles and responsibilities, let’s now see what are some tips for becoming a competent DevOps Engineer.
Knowing One or Several Programming Languages
One of the basic and crucial skills to become a DevOps Engineer is having knowledge of programming languages. Whether it’s the task of debugging code, integrating application code changes, automating development and deployment processes, or anything else, a DevOps Engineer must be proficient with the programming languages used in the company where you work. That way, you understand what changes are made by the Developer so you don’t go blind when deploying to production.
You can consider programming languages like Python, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript (Node.js), Java, C#, etc., to enter the DevOps world.
Understand Version Control Systems
As a DevOps Engineer, knowledge of Version Control Systems such as Git is a must. Imagine, you will work with many different people and teams from different parts of the world, of course there will be a need to combine code from a number of people into a centralized repository.
Version Control System allows and helps you to have your application code in a centralized repository. This system can help developers combine the code they write with centralized source code, return to previous commits, and collaborate with other developers in developing applications.
In addition, the system can also help manage source code for software teams by tracking all code modifications. This way, errors can be easily handled using the Version Control System. An example of a popular Version Control System tool is Git, where the well-known VCS hosting providers are GitHub , Gitlab, Bitbucket, and so on.
Understand the Linux Operating System
Having a familiarity and knowledge of operating systems like Linux is essential for a career as a DevOps Engineer. Linux is an OS that is highly recommended for DevOps Engineers to explore because most companies use network equipment and server devices that generally have a Linux operating system.
While you don’t have to be a Linux expert, you should at least have a general understanding of the operating system for better results. The knowledge that you must have is about the main OS concepts, such as process management, I/O management, thread and concurrency, memory management, and so on.
Knowledge of Software Configuration and Deployment
As a DevOps person, you must know how to configure and deploy software. DevOps Engineers are responsible for running things smoothly so knowledge of all processes from configuration to Deployment is essential.
Additionally, DevOps Engineers are required to automate the deployment process and administrative tasks to improve reliability, consistency, and accurate number of releases. Then, a DevOps Engineer must also have knowledge of cluster management and containers to realize an effective deployment. You can use tools like Chef, Puppet, Ansible, Docker, and Kubernetes to configure and deploy applications in a production environment.
Read Also: What is the Future of Software Developer [2023 and Beyond]
Recognize the Concept of Infrastructure as Code
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) is a practice that allows the deployment process to be easier and more automated because you can produce the desired environment according to your needs and requirements.
As its name suggests, Infrastructure as Code allows you to manage your IT infrastructure as code using configuration files. Unlike the past, now the IT Operations team can define the stack as a configuration file declaratively and then the file can be deployed multiple times. With practices like this, deployment is fast and can happen instantaneously with every commit.
There are various IAC tools commonly used by professional DevOps Engineers, such as Terraform , SaltStack, AWS CloudFormation, and many more.
Understanding of CI/CD Pipeline
Understanding of Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery/Deployment (CI/CD) processes is the most important thing for a DevOps Engineer. CI/CD practices can be considered as part of a software release process which is commonly referred to as a delivery pipeline.
Continuous Integration deals with the integration of code by the Developer into the main branch of a centralized repository. This process helps Developers for cost reduction, efficient work, etc. Meanwhile, Continuous Deployment is an extension of Continuous Integration by automating the deployment of validated code to a production environment. With the help of Continuous Deployment, software release becomes more efficient and easy.
There are various tools that you can use to implement CI/CD pipelines, such as Jenkins , CircleCI, Travis CI, GitLab, etc.
Mastering Network and Security Concepts
A DevOps Engineer is responsible for handling multiple servers, connections, data transfers, etc. Therefore, they must have knowledge of network concepts to manage IT workflow.
Apart from the network, a DevOps Engineer also needs to pay attention to the security side of the entire company’s IT environment at every stage, be it development, testing, deployment, or others. You can create multiple security policies for the entire company, manage and control network access, and automate security processes so that all infrastructure and processes can be kept safe.
So, those are the things and tips you need to know to become a DevOps Engineer. Hopefully by reading this article, you will be more prepared and willing to learn more deeply, OK?
Actually, there are many other things that DevOps Engineers need to master. We call it automation, monitoring, logging, cloud, and many more.
You can learn all of the above by studying at our learning path, namely the DevOps Engineer . Take the classes and become a competent DevOps Engineer!