A skilled DevOps engineer can help you change the face of your product, outsmart your competitors, and even double your profits. However, hiring the right DevOps engineer is not always that easy.
That said, there are good reasons why you should hire a DevOps engineer. Because they can contribute to a business’s growth, you should know how to identify and hire the best engineer for your company.
What Is a DevOps Engineer?
In simple terms, a DevOps engineer is someone who bridges the gap between the development team and the operations team. Their job is to ensure that whenever the development team makes changes to software, it does so in a way that does not disrupt the business and that those changes are properly marketed and delivered to the target audience.
Some of their day-to-day tasks include:
- Identifying ways to strengthen the core structure of the software
- Setting goals and deadlines
- Ensuring both the development and operations teams adhere to objectives and deadlines
- Running and testing improvements to the software
- Automating time-consuming and repetitive processes
- Optimizing release cycles
- Reporting and fixing errors before new features or new versions are released
- Identifying security loopholes and deploying cybersecurity measures
- Monitoring customer experiences and tracking important key performance indicators
DevOps engineers accelerate the development and evolution of your software and make sure products are appealing to customers. This means they ensure that the time and money you’re investing in your team generates a return.
Why Hire a DevOps Engineer?
You need a DevOps engineer because they can literally change the game for you. The roles and responsibilities they assume can be critical to the effectiveness of your systems. If you don’t use the skills of a DevOps engineer, your business may face the following challenges:
- Slow and unreliable software releases: If your development and release processes are slow and prone to errors, it can delay the delivery of new features and bug fixes to users, lowering customer satisfaction rates.
- Communication and coordination problems: Without a DevOps engineer, different teams might not be able to communicate effectively. This can lead to conflicts, misunderstandings, and instability in a company.
- Difficulty in scaling business: DevOps engineers help build systems that enable a limited staff to handle high workloads efficiently. They continually optimize these systems so that you do not necessarily have to grow your team with the growth of the customer base. The absence of DevOps can limit the amount of work a company can handle.
- Increased risk of system failures: Lack of proper monitoring and proactive measures to detect potential issues can lead to downtime and system failures. This can negatively impact user experiences, and consequently, business activity.
Here are a few signals that indicate it’s time to hire a DevOps engineer:
- You have more than three developers.
- You built your basic product infrastructure and are now ready to make improvements.
- Your sales are growing, and you want to expand your reach within the target market.
- You’re spending way too much on cloud infrastructure.
- You want to improve cybersecurity measures for your business and your customers.
- Your development and operations teams have the same goals and tasks (i.e., they are getting paid for duplicate work rather than innovative work).
How to Hire a DevOps Engineer
There are several types of DevOps engineers. You have the option of hiring a DevOps engineer according to one of these four work arrangements:
- Part-time
- Full-time
- Freelance
- Contract
However, it’s not always advisable to hire a DevOps engineer on a contractual or part-time basis. Those working under these arrangements may not be available when you need them, not be as committed to your business as you want because they have other clients to worry about, and will not always be present in times of need—all of which may result in slow and inconsistent progress.
For that reason, it’s best to look for long-term commitments from DevOps engineers. The longer they work with your business, the better they will understand its goals and help it grow steadily.
The Upside to Using Freelance Talent
While full-time is the most favorable work arrangement for tech businesses, it can also be too expensive for early-stage startups. Qualified and experienced DevOps engineers are paid around $10,000 to $11,000 per month, which can be more than a new company can afford.
For this reason, it’s often more economical to hire freelance DevOps engineers from Guru. You pay only for the time they actually work for you rather than paying for their full-time availability.
To give you a rough idea, a DevOps freelance hourly rate is between $60 and $61 per hour. This means if they work for one hundred hours in one month, you’ll pay them $6,000 to $6,100, about 60% of what they would earn as a full-time employee.
