What Should You Check When You Hire DevOps Engineers

DevOps is a movement that has caught on with the tech industry. Companies once differentiated IT development and operations, leading to time and cost overruns.

DevOps practices, the fusion of the two, have made IT processes efficient, leading to a high demand from IT companies to hire DevOps engineers.

Companies find many benefits in DevOps.

According to the DevOps trends Survey 2020 conducted by Atlassian, 61% of the companies surveyed said DevOps helped them produce high-quality deliverables, while 49% saw faster time-to-market delivery.

As a recruiter, you might have experienced that high-skilled DevOps engineers are not easy to find. They're in great demand, and then there are those posing as DevOps developers without the right skills.

So, here's a guide on how to hire DevOps engineers with the right skills.

It'll help you understand the must-have soft skills and technical skills of a DevOps developer, skills that are advantageous to the role, and tools that will help you quickly hire a DevOps developer efficiently.

What Should You Check When You Hire DevOps Engineers?

The responsibility of DevOps engineers is to manage the entire application development lifecycle seamlessly.

They have to deploy the company’s IT infrastructure and manage it, look into systems security, develop automation processes, add new features, look into application stability, bug fixing, and more.

To hire DevOps programmers for these diverse responsibilities, you must look for the following skills in an engineer.

1. Must-Have Technical Skills for DevOps Engineers

These are the must-have technical skills of a DevOps developer:

• Coding and scripting skills - Knowledge of scripting languages like Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Bash, Node, etc., will help write code to automate repetitive tasks.
• Experience in Linux administration.
• Specialization in cloud technologies like AWS, Azure, Google Compute Engine, etc.
• Knowledge of open-source software services like MySQL, Apache, PHP, Nginx, etc.
• Thorough understanding of network protocols - TCP/IP, IP, HTTPS, etc.
• Experience in Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CI/CD) in Jenkins, Gitlab, AWS, etc.
• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and work experience.
• Security skills - the ability to quickly deploy security solutions in case of hacks, deploying timely security audits, and skills to use security controls like SSH keys, SSL certs, AWS accounts, etc.
• Knowledge of the use of DevOps tools like Git, Docker, Jenkins, Nagios, Maven, Terraform, and others.

2. Nice-to-Have Skills for DevOps Engineers

While the must-have skills cannot be compromised, these additional skills in a DevOps programmer will bring value to the company.

• A top DevOps engineer will have skills in using scripts to deploy and manage servers on different platforms.
• Adept at deploying Agile software methodology.
• Experience working on Kubernetes clustering with Amazon EKS, Azure KS, or Google Kubernetes Service.
• Testing skills with a good understanding of tools like Chef, Puppet, etc.
• Have the necessary skills for creating native cloud architecture.

3. Soft Skills to Look for in a DevOps Engineer

DevOps engineers don multiple hats as developers, testers, troubleshooters, auditors (security), etc. - they're a lynchpin between diverse teams.

Technical skills are not the only criteria for such a dynamic job role. The soft skills of the developer matter too. Here are few soft skills for DevOps engineer you should look for.

• Communication

An essential soft skill for a DevOps engineer is being a good communicator who can work with teams better, understand the project requirements thoroughly, get the work done from people with various skills, and effectively resolve problems.

•  Collaborative Teamwork

DevOps engineers need to work harmoniously with a team. An efficient engineer understands each team member's skills, abilities, and activities and collaborates to get the desired results.

They enable a good working environment to ensure timely deliverables. For example, one of the valuable returns of a DevOps developer is to deliver quick feedback to developers to improve the development process.

Simultaneously, the engineer works with QAs to improve the speed, efficacy, and testing output.

• Adaptability

As technologies evolve continuously, DevOps engineers must adapt to the changes, learn new things, and deploy them positively for the project.

A DevOps engineer’s adaptability can be tested by analyzing their knowledge, certificates acquired on the latest technologies, and experience working on them.

• Leadership

Hire DevOps programmers with good leadership skills. The complexity of teams, the diverse opinions, and evolving changes all call for a leader who can work with responsibility, humility, and empathy and is steadfast.

All these seem overwhelming. It need not be when you have iMocha Talent Acquisition solutions.

Hire DevOps Engineers with iMocha

One of the best talent acquisition tools, iMocha is unique with its ability to test technical skills without much human intervention. To hire DevOps freelancers with special skills requirements, iMocha serves as the perfect assist for you.

It helps recruiters by reducing the time for hiring and giving an accurate analysis of a candidate for data-driven decision-making. Apart from technical skills, the live interviews and intelligent analysis reports will also assess a candidate’s soft skills.

Differentiate Primary Skills from Secondary Skills

A particular DevOps job might require some skills more than others. With iMocha, you can conduct a pre-interview test by setting the parameters only for the primary skills you seek in a candidate.

The iMocha skill test library contains various DevOps tests created by subject matter experts (SMEs). The assessments emphasize testing the candidates’ applied skills.

Some of iMocha’s DevOps tests include:

• DevOps Salesforce test
• DevOps AWS test
• Puppet and Chef test
• Maven Test
• Git Test

Live Interview Coding

iMocha's unique feature of live interview coding with patented AI-LogicBox will ease the interview process for you and the candidate.

You can test the candidate’s coding skills in real time with AI-LogicBox, designed to test coding skills in Salesforce, AWS, Azure, and DevSecOps, among others.

Overall, iMocha is the perfect tool for recruiters to test their technical skills, assess their soft skills, and hire DevOps engineers. All this requires your limited time and effort, with the platform taking care of the rest.

Conclusion

Finding DevOps engineers is a challenging task for any recruiter. They're in high demand, and accurately assessing their skills requires diligence.

The knowledge and tools provided in this guide will help smooth out the recruitment process and help you make the right decision. When hiring a DevOps developer, we highly recommend referencing our comprehensive best practices guide. 

FAQs

Q1.What questions should I ask a DevOps engineer?

Questions to DevOps engineers should revolve around system securities, cloud computing, coding and scripting, CI/CD, infrastructure planning and development, DevOps tools, experience in Linux administration, testing, etc. Read on to this blog to know interview questions that you can ask to DevOps developer. 

Q2.When should I hire a DevOps engineer?

DevOps engineers are specialists who streamline the software or application development process to quick deployment.

Their unique skill sets in automating bug fixes and distributing infrastructure require hiring them early in the software development process. Read on to this blog to know more about how to assess & hire DevOps developers. 

Q3.Can you hire DevOps developers as freelancers?

Yes, you can hire DevOps freelancers, given the engineer brings the right skill set for the job and has the flexibility to work with teams in your time zone.

Q4.What is the difference between a DevOps engineer and a DevOps consultant?

A company hires a DevOps engineer to overhaul IT practices and procedures regarding software development, operations, and deployment. Refer to this Job description for senior DevOps engineer to get idea about roles and responsibilities of the DevOps developer.  

On the other hand, a DevOps consultant evaluates a company’s DevOps culture and processes and suggests tips, strategies, plans, and tools for implementing DevOps in the company.