Is DevOps a Good Career? Explore Your DevOps Career Path

DevOps Market Trends

Global Market Insights estimates that DevOps will grow at a 20% CAGR from 2023 to 2032. These high figures are major factors in the increased need for accelerated delivery, cost efficiency, and reduced software development cycles. The DevOps job role greatly influences business success by streamlining tasks and aligning strategies with current and future trends.

AI incorporation into DevOps has further transformed the software development lifecycle by allowing informed decision-making. The professionals can leverage the potential for pattern detection and resource allocation. Another key trend is Infrastructure as a Code, which automates software architecture's repetitive and time-consuming tasks. It also contributes to encapsulating code files.

Become an expert in automation of configuration management, inter-team collaboration, continuous development and deployment, and IT service agility in our DevOps Engineer program. Get hands-on experience by implementing capstone projects in multiple domains. Enroll NOW!

Is DevOps a Good Career?

DevOps is an advantageous and promising career path in today's tech-driven world. Here’s why:

1. High Demand in the Market

Bridging the gap between the Development and Operations teams, skilled DevOps engineers are in high demand among businesses. With the impressive market growth discussed and wide-scale adoption of the practice, the job outlook is blooming. Further, the implementation in multiple industries also contributes to its adoption.

2. Lucrative Salaries

The salary range of a DevOps engineer in India is INR 6 lakhs to INR 13.7 lakhs per year, with the average being INR 9 lakhs per year. To offer further insights, the average salary of a DevOps engineer in the United States ranges from $92,000 to $150,000 per year, with the average being around $1 lakh per year. These salaries are in addition to additional income.

3. Career Growth Opportunities

DevOps professionals get to choose and progress into various career options. It also allows continuous learning and skill upgrades with exposure to multiple domains. The candidates can bring their previous experience to transcend into cloud computing, automation, cybersecurity, continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) and other fields. The career option exhibits flexibility and adaptability to change industries as well.

4. Increased Work Satisfaction 

Being in a dynamic role that requires constant updates with technology and advancements, professionals seeking career growth witness satisfaction. The growth and sense of achievement are often associated with the requirement of communication, the ability to work out the challenges in tasks and the development of a problem-solving attitude. These and other job-specific necessities enhance the will to perform better.

5. Work With Cutting-Edge Technologies

Having discussed the technological trends such as AI, ML, Infrastructure as a Code (IaaC) and the presence of multiple others, the career choice offers the opportunity to work with all of them. It allows for learning cutting-edge tools, methodologies and processes, providing personal and professional growth. Implementing the learnings for career progression further ensures active learning and an open mindset.

6. Collaborative and Dynamic Work Environment

The job role involves close interaction with different teams, including development, operations, Quality assurance, and business. It develops communication and teamwork skills and helps understand and evaluate the big picture.

7. Global and Remote Opportunities

Wide and multiple industry-based roles offer global and remote work opportunities across MNCs. Earning the knowledge and certifications with a demonstrated skillset helps grab the role for career growth. Further, the flexibility to join the industry of choice and work at any location adds to the adoption of this career field.

DevOps Offers a Definite Career Path that Promises Steady Growth

DevOps is a highly rewarding and promising career path in today's tech-driven world. Here’s why:

As a DevOps engineer, you must possess extensive knowledge of the software development life cycle (SDLC). You also must be an expert in implementing various DevOps automation tools and processes to resolve complex operations problems. A successful DevOps engineer must learn to juggle between different tasks like coding, integrating, and testing.

If you set out to build a career in DevOps, your career path in DevOps can see you start as a Release Manager, then move up to DevOps Test Engineer, DevOps Cloud Engineer, and finally, a DevOps Architect.

The average salaries for these roles are $81,000 for a Release Manager, $115,000 for a DevOps Test Engineer, and over $130,000 for a DevOps Cloud Engineer or DevOps Architect. According to PayScale and Glassdoor salary statistics, a DevOps engineer can earn an average of Rs. 6.5 lakhs in India.

Tech giants like Accenture, Barclays, and Facebook always seek proficient DevOps professionals. Skilled DevOps engineers are among the highest-paid IT professionals in the industry today. However, the remuneration is usually higher for those with more DevOps skills and advanced DevOps certifications.

However, there is a lack of skilled talent because a DevOps career is rewarding but challenging. At the most basic level, it requires full ownership of one’s roles and responsibilities and the capability to innovate as a technical solution provider.

Meeting this challenge requires sound, industry-recognized training in DevOps for anybody looking to build a career in this growing field. Simplilearn, one of the world’s leading providers of online DevOps training, offers full-stack online DevOps courses that can help you realize your big IT dreams and jump-start your career in DevOps.

A DevOps PG Program can get you started in a new DevOps role. In contrast, their DevOps Engineer Master’s Program, which includes a series of courses, will take you to the role of a DevOps architect or DevOps cloud engineer.

Key Responsibilities of DevOps Expert

With rapid advancements in DevOps methodologies, roles and responsibilities and new designations in the domain are emerging quickly. Though the skills and duties of DevOps experts overlap frequently, companies tend to list these roles separately.

As a highly effective DevOps engineer, you should have the following DevOps skills, which embody the DevOps mindset:

• Knowledge and application of a wide range of tools and technologies in software development
• Comfortable with higher testing and deployment frequencies
• Experience with operation in the production environment
• Knowledge of IT systems
• Experience with data management
• Determination to achieve business outcomes
• Ability to identify and eliminate organizational silos by embracing team collaboration and communication
• Need for efficiency and the ability to use automation tools toward this end
• Understanding of process reengineering
• Knowledge of the production environment
• Project management skills

Technical Skills Needed to Build a DevOps Career

To take the DevOps online training course, you must have a technical background and a bachelor’s degree in computer science or information technology. You will also need the following technical skills to be a DevOps engineer:

• A thorough understanding of Linux fundamentals, Web Development fundamentals, and Java fundamentals. As most DevOps projects are Linux-based, knowing the Linux environment and the relevant scripting languages like Python, Pearl, or Ruby is essential.  (If you have a technical background but no specific skills in Linux, Web development, or Java, you can take our courses to learn those skills and prepare for a DevOps career.)
• Knowledge of DevOps automation tools like:
• Continuous management (Puppet, Chef, and Ansible)
• Continuous integration (Travis CI, Jenkins, and Bamboo) 
• Continuous testing (Test Complete, Docker, and Tricentis Tosca)
• Continuous monitoring (Nagios, Sensu, and Splunk)
• Understanding of the CI/CD process
• Understand IAS (infrastructure as code) models to solve deployment problems

Simplilearn’s basic and advanced online DevOps training courses provide the knowledge and skills needed to excel in this field and lay the foundation for a successful career.

Certifications That Add Value to Your DevOps Journey

Now that you know the answer to ‘Is DevOps a good career?’ are you willing to adopt the same? If yes, then to embark on the career path for DevOps, here are different certifications that can contribute:

AWS DevOps Engineer - Professional Certification

The AWS DevOps Engineer is a short-term certification course designed to help you dive into application development, maintenance and delivery on AWS. The program focuses on skills like CI/CD infrastructure, testing and security integration, containerization, and microservices. Candidates can expect access to AWS skill builder labs for an in-depth understanding of the concepts and live online training from AWS-authorized instructors.

DevOps Engineer Masters Program

Enroll in the DevOps Engineer Masters program to learn about AWS and Azure from IBM professionals. The program comprises official Azure content and includes hands-on projects for practical learning. Aiming to improve your skills, it will focus on familiarizing candidates with Terraform, Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, Prometheus, Microsoft Azure DevOps methodologies and more.

The program offers access to the Microsoft Learn portal and earns an MS-branded certificate, enhancing your resume. Including the Google Cloud hands-on labs and access to capstone projects in three domains, the program also offers Simplilearn’s JobAssist to make the enrolled candidates market-ready for recruitment.

Professional Certificate Program In Cloud Computing And DevOps

Get guidance and in-depth knowledge about the concept of DevOps with the Professional Certificate Program In Cloud Computing And DevOps program from Simplilearn, E&ICT Academy, IIT Kanpur, AWS and Microsoft Azure. To help gain fundamental clarity, it focuses on building learners' skill sets for an impressive DevOps career path. Hence, it comprises over 30 hands-on projects, more than 20 tools and integrated labs.

In addition to the offers, the program includes Simplilearn’s JobAssist and the latest AI advancements with an exclusive Generative AI masterclass. The program focuses on skills such as Infrastructure, Code (IaaC), disaster recovery, autoscaling, multi-cloud deployment, and cloud workloads.

Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer Expert AZ-400 Certification

Ace your preparation for the Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer AZ-400 certification exam with expert guidance. The professionals designated as Microsoft-certified trainers will help you gain confidence in the concepts of instrumentation strategy, compliance plan, SRE strategy, and security. The program includes an Azure exam voucher as well.

The practice labs and projects focus on the application capability of skills, making the candidates job-ready. The program also includes access to the Microsoft course and an official course completion badge/certificate hosted on the Microsoft Learn portal. The skills emphasized in the program include designing and implementing source control, configuring processes and communications and others.

Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions Expert Program

Gain familiarity and hands-on knowledge with this program. The DevOps Solutions Expert course content is aligned with the AZ-900, AZ 400 and AZ 204 exams. Including exam vouchers for any one course, the program provides access to official Microsoft Learn materials. The program comprises over 30 in-demand skills and more than 20 services, increasing the chances of a practical career path for DevOps.

The skills focused in the program are License management strategy, configured repositories, Azure content delivery network, Azure resource manager and much more. This program includes self-paced videos and class recordings.

How to Get Started in DevOps?

You can start on your learning path with the DevOps basics. This course offers a real-world, practical understanding of continuous development and deployment, configuration management automation, inter-team collaboration, & IT service agility.  You can begin from home or the office since Simplilearn’s programs are online.

Rafael Andres Canelon landed a new job as a GIS developer and kickstarted his programming career after taking our Professional Certificate Program in Cloud Computing and DevOps. Read his inspiring story in our Simplilearn PGP DevOps Review here.

DevOps Career Path and Opportunities

The different career paths for DevOps that are possible to explore with expertise are:

DevOps Engineer: These professionals deal with the implementation and execution of product lifecycles. They work in collaboration with software developers.

DevOps Cloud Engineer: Knowing cloud-specific technology, they deal with cloud-based systems in organizations. They ensure the smooth working of development teams with effective cloud solutions.

Security Engineer: Posted in DevOps-based companies, they deal with security-based functions, tasks and issues. They ensure protection from cyber threats to the data and systems.

DevOps Testing Engineers: It is the Quality Assurance role where professionals are accountable for the quality of the delivered product. They need to evaluate the products based on all the key parameters.

DevOps Automation Expert: These professionals generate and maintain continuous integration infrastructure. They handle dashboards and alert systems to monitor the issues or discrepancies for instant improvement.

Conclusion

People working in the following roles will benefit the most from DevOps certification:

• IT Team Leaders and Technical Project Managers
• Systems Administrators and IT Managers
• Architects
• Software Developers
• Cloud Engineers
• Deployment Engineers
• Operations Support

As businesses embrace DevOps for the speedy delivery of software features and security updates, your career as a DevOps engineer has excellent prospects for growth. As one of the world’s leading e-learning platforms, Simplilearn offers certified and industry-recognized courses in DevOps to make you industry-ready from the word ‘go.’ The Microsoft Azure DevOps Solutions Expert Program, will teach you a complete set of DevOps skills and concepts through a combination of academic excellence blended learning technology.

FAQs

1. Is DevOps a high-paying job?

With the average salary being INR 9 lakhs per year in India, DevOps can be considered a high-paying job. Further career and monetary growth can also be expected with skill up. 

2. Is DevOps 24/7 a job?

Yes, DevOps must constantly monitor the built infrastructure, making it a 24/7 job. The duties are assigned on rotational shifts.

3. How long does it take to become proficient in DevOps?

The duration varies depending on one’s background, ability to dedicate focus hours during learning and other factors. However, with regular practice, core concepts can be understood and applied within a few months.

4. Can I transition to DevOps from a non-technical background?

While the transition is possible, the task will require dedication and time to learn from the basics. If you are ready to enter the industry, begin your journey with expert guidance.

5. What is the future scope of DevOps in the IT industry?

With the high market demand, better results from integration among different industries and incorporation of technological advancements in devOps, the future scope in the IT industry is promising.

6. What is the demand for DevOps professionals globally? 

The demand for DevOps engineers is growing rapidly, with a 20% CAGR from 2023 to 2032.

7. Will DevOps be replaced by AI?

While AI can augment certain aspects of DevOps, it's unlikely to replace it entirely. DevOps is a cultural and organizational shift emphasizing collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement across development and operations teams. AI can enhance DevOps practices by automating repetitive tasks, optimizing processes, and providing insights for decision-making. However, human intervention and expertise remain essential for interpreting data, making strategic decisions, and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within DevOps teams.

8. Will DevOps survive?

DevOps has proven valuable in improving software delivery processes, enhancing team collaboration, and accelerating application time-to-market. DevOps will likely remain a crucial framework for achieving these objectives as organizations prioritize agility, scalability, and innovation. While the specific tools, technologies, and practices associated with DevOps may evolve, the core principles of collaboration, automation, and continuous improvement will likely endure.

9. Do DevOps need coding?

While coding skills are not strictly required for all DevOps roles, they can be highly beneficial. DevOps professionals often work with infrastructure-as-code tools, configuration management systems, and automation frameworks, all requiring scripting or programming knowledge. Proficiency in Python, Ruby, or Shell scripting can facilitate tasks such as automating deployments, configuring infrastructure, and orchestrating workflows. Additionally, understanding code repositories, version control systems, and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines is essential for implementing DevOps practices effectively.

10. What is the next big thing in DevOps?

The next evolution in DevOps will likely involve further integrating AI and machine learning (ML) technologies to enhance automation, predictive analytics, and decision-making processes. AI-powered tools and algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data, identify patterns, and provide actionable insights to optimize software delivery pipelines, improve system reliability, and mitigate risks. Additionally, advancements in areas such as GitOps (Git-based operations), infrastructure as code (IaC), and cloud-native technologies are expected to play a significant role in shaping the future of DevOps by enabling greater scalability, resilience, and agility in software development and operations.