So, I’ve wanted to write on this topic for a while as I think it deserves a little attention! I’ve heard numerous times that you shouldn’t have DevOps in your title or that job reqs shouldn’t be “DevOps Engineers”. This came up again at the DevOps State of the Union event that we hosted in Boston recently. There were definitely some very vocal folks saying that it just didn’t make sense to look for a DevOps engineer or hire a DevOps engineer. These folks make the following points:
– DevOps is a methodology not a job description – we don’t call our developers Agile engineers, they are just developers. They happen to follow the Agile methodology but they their job description isn’t to do Agile, it’s to create awesome products.
– DevOps should permeate an organization – having a DevOps group sort of missed the point of DevOps. DevOps should be embedded into the fabric of the company, not an adjunct to the development process. If it isn’t embedded how can you actually practice DevOps?
– DevOps does not equal tools – asking for a DevOps engineer with 5 years of experience in Chef or Puppet is sort of an oxymoron. Very few people have long-term experience with new, up-and-coming toolsets. So asking for that doesn’t make sense and again, it’s a methodology, not a toolset.
It was an interesting discussion and I’m curious to hear what other people think about this perspective. We see a number of job descriptions and cards that say DevOps engineer on them. I can completely understand why people would do that, but I also understand the criticism of that approach as well.
Before I sign-off, I’ll weigh in with my thoughts and hopefully we can add some discussion in the comments. As a proponent of DevOps, I’d like to see as many people adopt DevOps as possible. Strategically for businesses, I think it will make a significant difference in their operations. They will move faster, understand customers better, and be more efficient with the resources that they have. If it takes assigning a group or a title to bring DevOps into an organization, I think that they should do it. It’s a way to get started and work at embedding DevOps into their culture. I fully agree with the statements that DevOps isn’t a title or a tool, but I guess I’m practical about it too – some organizations will take different views on how to bring it into their company and have it take hold. In the end, I’m pro-DevOps, so if that’s how you need to make it happen, go for it! My guess is that over time, you’ll end up building DevOps into the fabric of the company and you won’t necessarily think of it as a job description or title, but just as a part of everybody’s job.
What are your thoughts – is DevOps a title? If so, why? If not, why not? I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments!
Great blog post, Raj, as I’ve seen others discussing the DevOps job title question. It seems inevitable DevOps will appear in job titles as it’s happening already at least for open positions (just do a search for “devops” engineer on Indeed or other job sites and pages of DevOps Engineer job postings appear.) It’s likely appearing in open job titles as a way to attract candidates interested and/or experienced in DevOps. Other tech jobs have equivalent descriptions in the title (such as open source developer) or in parenthesis as part of the tile “Java Developer (Agile)”. Whether DevOps stays as part of the title once the position is filled, time will tell.
Thanks, Mitchell! I think you are right on. DevOps is going to be a part of titles for the short-term, but as you say time will tell for the long-term. In talking with a lot of people, I think that the concern – which makes a lot of sense to me – is that by giving a person the DevOps title that the methodology doesn’t really take hold in everybody in the organization. I’m sure that there will be lots of different implementations, and it will be great to learn from them.
You’re absolutely right, Raj. DevOps can’t be limited to one or a few people who have DevOps in their title. It encompasses culture, behaviors, mindset, business processes and even how entire organizations operate.
I am not a big fan of using DevOps in the title but all that really matters is the results. If a company is successfully transforming their organization to the DevOps model then call yourself whatever you want, I don’t care. My issue is when I go into organizations and I encounter a team of “DevOps engineers” and I ask them where the developers are and they say they were not invented. Sometimes the title enforces the silo mentality.
Mike – thanks for the comment. I agree – results are what matter and if takes putting it in someones title to get there, then so be it. Side effect will be that there may be folks that don’t think that it is part of their job as you point out. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.
DevOps engineer, I like how it sounds 🙂
Seems like more and more companies are using the term DevOps for anything that has to do with application deployment and support. When companies have outages I see messages like “DevOps is looking in to the problems”. So maybe the “DevOps engineer” of the future is whoever is on call that day…
Here is my take on the devops title https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/devops-engineer-really-job-title-grant-bodie/