In today's world, with so much technical advancement, there are a lot of innovative fields and so many new roles are being created in the job market. DevOps Engineer is one such role. A DevOps engineer is one who fully understands the software development lifecycle and has a complete understanding of the different automation tools required for developing digital pipelines. It sometimes becomes a little difficult to exactly understand this role because it has come out of a dynamic workforce which is still evolving. However, it can be said that a DevOps engineer is a person for the resurgence of cloud infrastructure IT services. In fact, DevOps engineers can be from many different backgrounds in IT and may take up this role at different stages of their careers. 

This is so because this role combines different aspects of a technical role and an operational role in IT. A DevOps engineer works in collaboration with developers and IT people to supervise code releases. The DevOps engineers can be either a developer, who may develop an interest in network operations and deployment or system administrators who are passionate about coding and scripting so they shift to the development side where they can take up the improvement of planning of test and deployment. But what exactly are DevOps engineers' responsibilities? What do they do? This we will discuss in detail in this article. But before that, let us clearly understand what DevOps is.

What is DevOps?

The experience of managing the development, testing, and support processes of a software development project lifecycle and the best practices used therein have given rise to DevOps. We can say that DevOps is a methodology that has grown out of these experiences and practices. In simpler terms, DevOps is a software development strategy that fills the gap between the developers and the IT people. DevOps helps organizations in a faster release of small features and in incorporating the received feedback quickly. With DevOps, organizations can promote collaboration and communication between different teams like development, IT, and quality assurance. The practices used in DevOps help organizations increase their productivity and speed in managing development, deploying the tools, and integrating testing. 

Normally, development, testing, and support departments are accustomed to working in solos. Since different people manage these functions, it leads to gaps in the process as well as disputes and disagreements among the teams. This becomes the reason for a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication and conflict over setting priorities. This, in turn, affects productivity negatively which leads to customer dissatisfaction. With DevOps evolution and the introduction of the DevOps engineer's role, these gaps have been sought to be bridged. What DevOps does is it merges the routine works involved in the development, quality control, deployment, and integration of software development and makes them one set of processes so that such best practices and principles are created that shorten the development cycle and with which teams can continue to deliver software of the highest quality. DevOps solves the communication and collaboration issues between the development team and the IT operations team. In addition to all this, DevOps brings many technical benefits also like helping in detecting problems early and correcting them and aiding easy management of the project. It has advantages for businesses also like faster delivery and increased customer satisfaction.

Now, let us dwell on the DevOps engineer role:

DevOps roles and responsibilities

We know that DevOps engineering involves a role that was created to help organizations fully adopt the cloud infrastructure in hybrid environments and now this role is growing very fast. Let us look at what it encompasses.

1. Team

As we have already seen, a DevOps engineer acts as a bridge between the development and the IT operations teams (that is where it gets its name from). So, the first thing needed is that they have to be great communicators. Trouble arises when these two teams don't share each other's vision. The DevOps engineer plays a critical role by liaising between the two teams and helping them in having a shared vision. So, in a way, the role is similar to that of an IT project manager. The only thing is that he or she works with other professionals in the DevOps team who perform a similar role where each member plays their own part in the overall infrastructure. Although DevOps engineers may be required to work alone sometimes, they have to be excellent collaborators which is a primary requirement for bringing different teams on the same page. They need to further enhance the work of their opposite numbers in other teams for scaling cloud programs and creating workflow processes. 

2. Planning, testing, and developing infrastructure

In a day's work, the DevOps engineer role includes examining the individual functions of the cloud environment and if there is any urgent need, scaling them up. This may involve adding users to a cloud infrastructure, adding or altering workflow processes, adding permissions, and for fulfilling business needs adding complete objects that work like containers. The main focus is on configuring, documenting, optimizing, and supporting the infrastructure components. This means a DevOps engineer should be able to write code quickly or be able to write excerpts of code in different languages. They should also be quite familiar with testing in a virtual environment. Among all these, a prime role that DevOps engineers have to play is infrastructure planning. What differentiates a DevOps engineer from a cloud database manager is his or her capability of planning additions and integrations across multiple systems.

3. Security and automation

DevOps engineer is the person who is supposed to achieve automation and orchestration of tools and for this DevOps engineer needs to have a clear understanding of the automation tools. They must keep up with the latest developments in automation tools that they can employ to enhance efficiency. DevOps engineers are aware that much of the work being done manually by others can be automated. So, they are able to develop and deploy more code as compared to others. Talking of code, the ability to write secure code proves to be a big asset for DevOps engineers since they are supposed to support the people who use the infrastructure they build. They have to ensure the protection of the cloud against hackers and viruses. Therefore, their role becomes critical in writing the code and creating secure software from the very beginning.

Besides the above, DevOps engineers play some other roles too. They work as DevOps evangelists who act as leaders to implement DevOps. They are the ones who ensure that the quality of the product conforms to the requirements. They develop code and test it, And they release new features and make sure that after the release the product is stable.

We have seen the different roles that a DevOps engineer plays. Let us now discuss the various responsibilities that the role of a DevOps engineer carries.

DevOps engineer responsibilities

A DevOps engineer is required to work with varied teams for building the software and implementing them. He or she is a professional with experience and works with other professionals like developers, IT staff, and quality assurance people. So, a major requirement of DevOps engineers is the ability to multitask and handle diverse situations simultaneously. The responsibilities of a DevOps engineer are as follows:

• Documentation: 

The DevOps engineer is responsible for writing specifications and documentation for the server-side features.

• Development:

DevOps responsibilities include developing, coding, creating, and configuring IT solutions and maintaining them.

• Analyzing the systems:

The DevOps engineer evaluates the technology being used in the organization and makes plans and processes for making improvements in them and expanding them. 

• Setting processes for DevOps operation:

A DevOps engineer is responsible for defining and setting up processes for development, testing, releasing, updating, and supporting the DevOps operation.

• Cybersecurity measures: 

He or she is responsible for regularly performing vulnerability assessment and risk management and implementing the required cybersecurity measures.

• Project planning:

DevOps engineer takes part in the project planning meetings to share experience and knowledge about the system options, impact, risk, and cost and benefits. They also tell about the requirements of operations and the forecast of development.

• Maintenance and troubleshooting:

They are responsible for performing regular maintenance so that the production runs smoothly and to facilitate this they create maintenance requirements and procedures.

• Monitoring:

The DevOps engineers keep track of the processes throughout the lifecycle to ensure their adherence and wherever needed update them or create new ones for improvements.

• Managing the performance:

They analyze the gaps in performance and identify alternate solutions to enhance the performance and help in alterations and improvements.

• Automation:

When possible, DevOps engineer promotes automation and develops automated processes.

• Reviewing software code:

DevOps engineers possess the required technical skills to review, analyze, verify, and validate the code developed in the project.

• Coordination:

And lastly, they have the crucial responsibility of coordinating and communicating with different teams, within the team, and the customers to ensure a smooth flow of work.

A DevOps engineer is expected to have people skills because bringing different teams on a common platform is not an easy task and continuous communication plays a vital role in its success. He or she should be capable of conveying their message clearly to all concerned. They should also be able to anticipate the requirements that may arise. It is important for them to expertly fill the gaps in technology being used in the organization and for this they must clearly understand the way people, culture, and processes work together in the organization. To act as a bridge between the development and the IT team, a DevOps engineer ought to have both technical and operational skills. Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail are other qualities that would contribute greatly to your success as a DevOps engineer.  

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