DevOps Engineer

A DevOps engineer combines development and operations skills to improve software delivery. They automate repetitive operations, prepare environments and help monitor running applications. Their role connects code changes with the conditions needed to deploy them to production and operate them reliably.

DevOps also describes a collaborative approach. It brings development, operations, quality and security teams together around the application lifecycle. Hiring someone with this job title is therefore not enough to establish this cooperation: the people they work with must share their priorities and difficulties.

The role varies by organisation. It may focus more on infrastructure, the delivery pipeline or service monitoring. The French competency framework for the administrateur système DevOps qualification describes settings including IT services companies (ESNs), cloud operators, software publishers and IT departments. These environments provide different working contexts; they do not define a single job description.

DevOps engineers, development and operations: who does what?

• DevOps engineers connect development and operations through automation, environments and the delivery pipeline.
• Developers contribute to building and testing software; preparing deployments requires discussions with them.
• Operations teams help keep services running; responsibility for monitoring alerts and addressing difficulties must be explicitly allocated.

To define reporting arrangements, specify who sets the role’s priorities and which teams the engineer works with. Also distinguish responsibility for carrying out a task from responsibility for deciding on a change. Security is part of this cooperation: it is incorporated into infrastructure and delivery with the teams concerned.

The role’s challenge is to reconcile application changes with service reliability. Teams must be able to deliver changes while retaining control of the environments and operations needed to keep services running. Automation and infrastructure as code help make deployments repeatable and reduce errors caused by manual interventions.

Hypothetical example: a team prepares each release by manually repeating a sequence of steps. It is considering hiring a container specialist. Before adopting this requirement, it examines which stages cause problems: environment preparation, testing or deployment. This examination may lead it to prioritise experience in automating delivery.

Monitoring is another challenge. Useful alerts and information about service status enable teams to investigate difficulties; their value also depends on the team’s ability to address them. Before adding more tools, clarify responsibilities and the decisions those tools should inform. This allows the role to fit into an organisation capable of making use of technical improvements.

• Automate repetitive operations involved in preparing and deploying infrastructure.
• Build and maintain the build, test and deployment pipeline with developers.
• Prepare the test and staging environments needed for releases.
• Describe infrastructure and keep it under version control to make deployment repeatable.
• Monitor deployed services and define alerts that call for action.
• Diagnose faults and help resolve them with the teams concerned.
• Incorporate security requirements into infrastructure and the delivery pipeline.

Useful capabilities combine an understanding of systems, automation and software delivery. Relevant training should enable learners to connect these subjects: preparing an environment, deploying an application, monitoring its operation and diagnosing a problem. Knowledge of a tool gains meaning within this chain of responsibilities.

The French administrateur système DevOps qualification attests to skills including cloud infrastructure automation, continuous deployment and monitoring. It provides a reference point for technical capabilities; it does not encompass every route that can prepare someone for a DevOps engineer role.

A vendor certification provides a more focused perspective. Microsoft’s DevOps Engineer Expert certification covers areas including version control, build and delivery pipelines, security and instrumentation. Its scope concerns Azure: use it to assess knowledge relevant to that environment, without making it a general entry requirement for the profession.

To assess a career background, start with the responsibilities the candidate has already held. A candidate from a development background may have developed deeper expertise in testing and delivery; a candidate from an infrastructure administration background may have worked more extensively on configuration and operations. These are points to examine in each person’s experience, without assuming skills from a previous job title alone.

To assess a candidate for a DevOps engineer role, adapt the following steps to your company’s responsibilities and environments.

1. Define the criteria before the interviews

Select the capabilities essential to the role: automation, delivery, diagnosis and cooperation with the teams concerned. Specify the degree of autonomy expected for each. Separate the knowledge needed on arrival from what can be learnt with support.

Assign an assessor to each subject. If you lack the technical expertise, involve a professional capable of examining the candidate’s choices. Ask the person responsible for recruitment to assess the scope and conditions for collaboration.

2. Examine a past achievement

Ask the candidate to describe a delivery pipeline or an automation project they contributed to. Have them clarify the initial problem, their personal contribution and the constraints they encountered. Invite them to explain both the solutions they chose and those they rejected.

Base the discussion on a diagram or an anonymised extract they can share. Ask how changes were tested and how the team made sense of faults. Look for an explanation that connects the work carried out with its use.

Treat a clearly defined contribution and understandable trade-offs as positive signals. Probe answers that remain focused on tool names or attribute the whole team’s work to the candidate.

3. Present a situation similar to the role

Hypothetical example: an application works in staging, but its production deployment fails. Give the candidate a diagram of the environments, the delivery stages and some monitoring information.

Ask what information they would look for first and which hypotheses they would examine. Have them explain how they would distinguish an environment problem from a problem related to the application change. Then invite them to suggest an improvement to the delivery pipeline.

Observe the sequence of investigations, how they account for missing information and how they explain their choices. Explicit reasoning is a positive signal. An immediate change without understanding the problem warrants further exploration.

4. Explore cooperation and decision-making

Ask how the candidate handled a disagreement with a development or operations team. Have them clarify what information was shared and how the decision was made. Explore how they explain a difficulty to a non-specialist.

Also discuss handover: ask how another person could take over their work. If the role includes coordination, examine a situation in which they helped colleagues develop. Do not equate technical expertise with management experience.

5. Cross-check observations

Compare the information gathered with the initial criteria. Distinguish a demonstrated skill, an answer requiring further exploration and a capability still to be acquired. Avoid letting a strong command of a tool mask a difficulty with a core responsibility.

If you take references, focus on contributions to the projects discussed, cooperation and autonomy within the assigned scope. Compare this information with the interviews. Finish with an explicit decision on the responsibilities you can assign and the support to plan.