10 Must-Have Skills for a DevOps Engineer in 2024

In today’s world, skills play a major role in every domain, which not only helps to enhance the resume of the candidate but also helps in landing a better role in their domains. DevOps is the methodology in the IT industry that is used to set the tools and practices. Hence, the DevOps engineer is responsible for the smooth operations of a company’s IT infrastructure.

There are multiple skills that the DevOps engineer should learn to enhance their capabilities and showcase their skills. Therefore, in this article, detailed knowledge has been provided about DevOps engineers and the top 10 must-have skills for a DevOps engineer in 2024.

Who is a DevOps engineer?

In the IT landscape, a DevOps engineer assumes multiple roles, requiring proficiency in both the development and operations aspects of software. This entails knowledge of coding languages, adept management of servers and networks, system setup, configuration, and the utilization of specialized DevOps tools for task automation. Effective communication and teamwork skills are paramount as DevOps engineers act as bridges between different teams, fostering collaboration and streamlining the software development process.

On the technical front, DevOps engineers must be familiar with diverse system structures, ensuring efficient setup and management. Additionally, expertise in developer tools and practices, such as version control systems like Git, conducting code reviews for quality assurance, implementing unit testing for individual code blocks, and adhering to agile development methodologies, is essential for a well-rounded skill set in the dynamic IT environment.

The Top 10 Must-Have Skills for a DevOps Engineer in 2024

There are various skills that a DevOps engineer should master to grow in their career. Some of the most important and must-have skills to become a successful DevOps engineer in 2024 are mentioned below.

1. Understanding and Knowledge of The Platform

Information technology consists of multiple services and associated tool sets to build, support, and deploy the applications. Most of the time, there is cross-training between the stacks. Hence, a successful DevOps engineer has great expertise in administering the stack that the business currently uses. There are three principal stacks: cloud structure, Linux server distribution, and Microsoft Windows Server. The Microsoft stack consists of OSes such as Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022. Linux is particularly based on the open-source OS kernel and can involve multiple common Linux distributions, such as Debian, Fedora, and Ubuntu. Public cloud options mainly include Microsoft Azure, which can complement Microsoft stacks.

2. Knowledge of Programming Languages

DevOps mainly involves getting code through development. Therefore, while writing low-level code is usually left to the development teams, the DevOps engineers need to gain knowledge and understand the source code. Some of the things a DevOps engineer performs are developing scripts and tackling integration, such as getting the code version to talk to the MySQL database to run the deployments on the operations side. The DevOps engineer needs to have knowledge of some programming languages, such as C++, Python, Ruby, PHP, and many more.

3. Maintains Security

Every DevOps engineer should learn about how to maintain strong security and privacy measures, as they play an important role in enterprise security both in operations and development. Therefore, on the development side, the teams of DevOps must develop secure code, keep in mind the potential security risks in open source software to perform vulnerability testing in the CI/CD pipelines, and many more, whereas on the operational side, a DevOps engineer must implement some security practices like encryption of data. Day by day, the responsibility is increasing with more formal security tasks such as managing antimalware and intrusion protection platforms.

4. Configuration management

In DevOps, the code is always changing, which takes version management skills and sound collaboration to assess the ever-changing user needs to assemble the right components. To better deploy the ever-changing code, the DevOps engineer embraces configuration management, which is always automated to accelerate the pace of version releases. DevOps engineers also use infrastructure as code to develop infrastructure from the code, such as scripts. DevOps engineers work with multiple tools, such as GitHub, Git, Perforce, and so on.

5. Deployment knowledge

The DevOps engineer provides the things to facilitate the releases on the operational side, which means they need skills in the realm of IT infrastructure and hardware, from servers and storage to OSes and networks. As the DevOps engineer knows the whole It stack, they can guide the provisioning and deployment of each release in the local data center or the public cloud. In DevOps, the project team has autonomy over the deployment of business applications.

6. Network Optimization

The workload of modern businesses depends on network resources and security. Almost all business workloads employ a network-focused client architecture, but even the web portals and other applications are accessed through the network, which makes the network a central part of any DevOps workload deployment and management process. Therefore, the skills of a DevOps engineer should also include a wide knowledge of network architecture and interfaces, as well as an understanding of workloads and latency requirements.

7. Troubleshooting

DevOps engineers are mainly involved in the day-to-day operations to offer substantial problem-solving support for the help desk and other staff, especially related to the particular DevOps workloads in the deployment pipelines, which can include remote deployment and support tasks such as deploying, troubleshooting workloads, and managing other necessary work that runs at remote locations. Troubleshooting is a process that can be extended to the traditional parts of the business infrastructure, such as storage, servers, and so on.

8. Tracking

A DevOps engineer should be the consultant who can evaluate the performance of releases, make the needed adjustments to provisioned platforms and resources, and also use multiple tools to measure the performance of workloads. The DevOps engineer must analyze the log results, derive the key performance indicators, and then share the content with the whole team and the project stakeholders to enhance the future of software iterations. There are some tools that are used to monitor the performance locally on public cloud platforms, such as Nagios, Sensu, Splunk, and so on. Performance management can also extend issue tracking and help desk support prioritize the tickets.

9. Integration

Modern software platforms are more about integrating with multiple platforms and services than writing low-level code. Therefore, the code integrates with existing platforms such as Redis, database systems, third parties, and Microsoft Exchange. These types of platforms are mainly business stacks, but DevOps engineers should know how to use them. Thus, the main goal of the DevOps engineer is to establish a good view of resources and services to get the assets to interoperate successfully.

10. Communication

Communication and team management are the soft skills that are important in every domain, as they help the DevOps engineer communicate and handle teams effectively. To become a successful DevOps engineer, the individual needs to be an expert communicator and capable manager, which means they can bring multiple professionals together in a productive manner to ensure rapid, continuous development that will achieve the best business results.

Conclusion

DevOps engineers possess a wide range of knowledge in both operations and development, including coding, infrastructure, and so on. The DevOps engineer integrates project functions and resources all across the product life cycle, right from building, testing, planning, and deployment to support. Becoming a successful DevOps engineer requires you to master diverse system structures, developer tools, and security practices. Moreover, strong communication and collaboration skills are key to building successful partnerships within the organization. By continuously improving on these important skillsets, you can position yourself as a valuable asset in the DevOps field. Therefore, in this article, comprehensive knowledge has been provided about the 10 must-have skills for DevOps engineers.

FAQs

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a software development methodology that involves the development and operation of software to increase the efficiency, speed, and security of software development and delivery when compared to traditional processes.

What is the role of a DevOps engineer?

The main role of a DevOps engineer is to resolve technical issues, provide technical support, perform the main cause analysis for production errors, and develop the software to integrate with the internal backend systems.

What are the top skills that are needed to become a DevOps engineer?

Some of the top skills that are needed to become a DevOps engineer are: familiarity with the platform; knowledge of multiple programming languages; integration skills; communication skills; and many more.