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Over 60% of organizations have already adopted DevOps practices, according to Puppet’s State of DevOps report. Even so, hiring the right professional to put that culture into practice remains one of the biggest bottlenecks for technology teams.
This article is here to help with that. We’ll cover what a DevOps professional actually does, what to look for when hiring, where companies usually go wrong in this process, and how to make a decision that truly fits your business.
What does a DevOps professional do?
DevOps isn’t a role with a single, well-defined function; it’s a set of practices, culture, and responsibilities that varies quite a bit from company to company. That alone explains much of the confusion around hiring.
A DevOps professional works at the intersection of development and operations. They manage the infrastructure that keeps the product running, automate repetitive processes, ensure that code moves from the repository to production quickly and safely (that’s where the well-known CI/CD pipelines come in), and monitor everything so that issues are caught before they escalate.
One thing worth getting clear before opening the role: DevOps is a culture, not just a job title. The DevOps professional is the one who puts that culture into practice within the team; they’re not there to replace developers but to bridge the gap between them and make the delivery pipeline smarter.
Why having a DevOps on your team matters
The numbers help put things in perspective. According to Google DORA’s Accelerate State of DevOps 2022 report, high-performing teams deploy far more frequently and recover from incidents in hours, not days. Along the same lines, organizations with a mature DevOps culture recorded 51% fewer change failure rates.
Translated into day-to-day business terms: more frequent releases, a product that evolves consistently, less rework, and infrastructure that doesn’t go down at the worst possible time. For teams working on software development, this professional has gone from a nice-to-have to a necessity.
It’s no surprise, then, that 29% of IT teams have recently hired a DevOps engineer, making it the most in-demand role in the field, according to Brokee data based on industry research.
What to evaluate when hiring
On the technical side, the professional needs hands-on experience, not just theoretical knowledge, with the tools you use or plan to use. The most relevant ones today are:
- Containerization: Docker and Kubernetes
- Infrastructure as code: Terraform, Ansible, or similar
- CI/CD pipelines: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins
- Cloud: AWS, GCP, or Azure, ideally with certification
- Monitoring: Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, or equivalent
- Basic infrastructure security (DevSecOps)
On the behavioral side, three things make a big difference and rarely show up on a résumé:
Communication. A DevOps professional needs to translate technical context for non-technical stakeholders, product leads, managers, and sometimes clients. Those who can’t do this create silos, and silos undermine the entire value proposition of the role.
Continuous improvement mindset. A strong professional isn’t satisfied with “it works.” They document, revisit processes, and are always looking for what can be automated or simplified.
Autonomy with accountability. DevOps professionals often operate with a high degree of autonomy over critical infrastructure. You need someone who makes well-grounded decisions, not someone who needs sign-off at every step.
Common mistakes in the hiring process
Some companies go into the hiring process without enough clarity, and that comes at a cost.
- Confusing DevOps with SRE or Sysadmin. These are different roles. A Sysadmin handles the maintenance of existing infrastructure. An SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) is more focused on reliability and typically works in larger-scale environments. DevOps has a broader scope, centered on integrating dev and ops. Hiring the wrong profile for the right function leads to frustration on both sides.
- Opening a role without understanding your current infrastructure stage. If you don’t have CI/CD pipelines yet, the professional will be starting from scratch — and that requires a more senior, autonomous profile. If your infrastructure is already structured, you might need someone to evolve and monitor it, not build it from the ground up.
- Evaluating only technical skills. Worth repeating: a technically brilliant DevOps professional who doesn’t communicate well with the rest of the team will create collaboration issues that end up costing more than any infrastructure bug.
Staff Augmentation as a strategic alternative
Hiring well takes time. And in tech, time is an expensive variable.
For many companies, especially those accelerating their digital transformation or without a structured technical hiring process for evaluating DevOps professionals, specialized outsourcing solves the problem without compromising on quality.
That’s exactly where NextAge’s Staff Augmentation comes in.
The model was built for companies that need high-performance professionals without the complexities of direct hiring. Professionals are validated both technically and behaviorally before joining your team, which significantly reduces the risk of a bad hire. On top of that, NextAge has internal Tech Leads who ensure operational efficiency and cultural alignment with the client’s team from day one.
The contract is straightforward, onboarding comes with a discount, and the client stays focused on what matters: the product. NextAge handles productive capacity and technological evolution.
For anyone who needs a DevOps professional now, with confidence and without the runaround, it’s worth a conversation.
Have questions about how to structure this process? Get in touch.
