How to Hire a DevOps Engineer: The Ultimate Guide from ProCoders

As the field matures, organizations are placing greater emphasis on soft skills like communication, adaptability, and problem-solving, which are crucial for fostering a collaborative DevOps culture. The demand for skilled professionals surges, and businesses face several challenges in finding and hiring the right person or people. 

This article offers a comprehensive guide on how to find DevOps engineers, considering the ever-evolving market dynamics and the changing nature of the role. If you’re still struggling with additional hiring costs, slow candidate recruiting, and the general lack of the right talent for the right money, this guide is definitely for you!

How to hire a DevOps engineer who aligns with your organization’s needs and goals? Let’s find out!

What Does a DevOps Engineer Do?

A DevOps engineer is a professional who works at the intersection of software development and IT operations, focusing on streamlining processes, automating tasks, and improving collaboration between the two teams. Their primary goal is to facilitate continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to ensure faster and more reliable software releases.

Ready to Elevate Your Software Development Process? Hire Skilled DevOps Teams with ProCoders for Seamless Operations.

Get Started!

We’re prepared to launch

Let’s get started

Our Offices:

Portugal office

Av. Defensores de Chaves 15 6b
1000-091 Lisboa, Portugal

Headquarters Office

Sepapaja, 6
Tallinn, Estonia, 15551

U.S. based Office

6345 Meeting St,
Prospect,KY 40059

DevOps Engineer Roles and Skills to Consider the Rates-Value Balance

Let’s dig deeper into the specific role of DevOps professionals, so you can gain a better understanding of how this specialist can be valuable to your company.

DevOps Roles 

Understanding these roles will help you evaluate their value and balance it against the rates they command. Key roles include:

• Infrastructure management: DevOps engineers ensure that the infrastructure is scalable, reliable, and secure by using various tools and technologies, such as Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
• Design and implementation of CI/CD pipelines: They create and maintain automated pipelines for building, testing, and deploying software.
• Automation: A significant part of the DevOps role is automating repetitive tasks and processes, including infrastructure provisioning, configuration management, and deployment.
• Monitoring and performance optimization: They set up monitoring systems to track the performance and health of applications and infrastructure. Engineers also analyze this data to identify bottlenecks, optimize resource usage, and ensure the system’s stability and reliability.
• Incident management and troubleshooting: When issues arise, they are responsible for diagnosing and resolving them quickly by working closely with development and operations teams to identify the root cause, implement fixes, and prevent similar issues from occurring in the future.
• Collaboration and communication skills: A key aspect of the DevOps culture is fostering collaboration and communication between development and operations teams. The professionals of the craft play a crucial role in breaking down silos, sharing knowledge, and ensuring that both teams work towards a common goal.
• Continuous improvement: Such engineers are always looking for ways to improve processes, tools, and technologies. They stay up-to-date with industry trends and best practices and actively work to implement them within their organization.

Technical Skills

To fulfill these roles, experts must possess a range of technical skills that contribute to their rates-value balance:

• Expertise in various programming and scripting languages (e.g., Python, Ruby, Bash).
• Familiarity with CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, Travis CI, CircleCI).
• Proficiency in configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible, Puppet, Chef, Terraform).
• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift).
• Knowledge of cloud platforms and services (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Understanding of monitoring and logging tools (e.g., ELK Stack, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog).
• Familiarity with version control systems (e.g., Git, SVN).

Soft Skills You Will Win with

In addition to technical skills, engineers must possess soft skills that enhance their value and contribute to the rates-value balance:

• Problem Solving: Ability to analyze complex issues and develop practical solutions.
• Communication: Effective verbal and written communication to facilitate collaboration and information sharing among team members.
• Adaptability: Willingness to adapt to new technologies, processes, and changing requirements.
• Teamwork: Ability to work effectively in cross-functional teams, collaborating with developers, operations staff, and management.
• Time Management: Efficiently manage multiple tasks and priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Attention to Detail: Ensuring accuracy and precision in their work, particularly when dealing with complex systems and processes.
• Learning Agility: A commitment to continuous learning and staying updated with industry developments.

Now that you are aware of the skills professionals should possess, how do you ascertain whether your specific candidate has them? At ProCoders, we are constantly improving our hiring process and are ready to share our experiences with you. 

We’ll delve into this in the next section.

Don’t Let Manual Tasks Slow You Down. Transform Your Development Process with a Top-Tier DevOps Team from ProCoders.

Contact us!

Let’s work hand in hand for progress!

Let’s get started

Our Offices:

Portugal office

Av. Defensores de Chaves 15 6b
1000-091 Lisboa, Portugal

Headquarters Office

Sepapaja, 6
Tallinn, Estonia, 15551

U.S. based Office

6345 Meeting St,
Prospect,KY 40059

How to Identify a Good DevOps Engineer and Reveal Background 

Identifying a good pro involves evaluating their technical skills, soft skills, and relevant experience. Here are some steps to help you identify a good candidate and reveal their background:

• Review their resume: Look for relevant experience in the aforementioned roles, including the tools and technologies they’ve worked with. Also, check their education and certifications related to DevOps, such as AWS Certified DevOps Engineer, Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert, or the Google Cloud Professional DevOps Engineer.
• Assess technical skills: In the interview process, ask questions about their experience with CI/CD tools, configuration management, containerization, cloud platforms, monitoring, and version control systems. Include practical exercises or coding challenges to test their proficiency with these tools and technologies.
• Evaluate soft skills: Gauge their problem-solving, communication, teamwork, adaptability, time management, attention to detail, and learning agility through behavioral questions and scenarios.
• Inquire about past projects: Ask about the different types of projects they’ve worked on, focusing on their role, the challenges they faced, and the solutions they implemented.
• Check for a culture fit: Determine if the candidate shares your company culture. DevOps engineers need to be comfortable working in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and be open to learning and implementing new processes.
• Ask for references: Request references from previous employers or colleagues to get an insight into the candidate’s work ethic, technical abilities, and interpersonal skills. This can help corroborate the information provided during the interview process.

By following these steps, you can identify a good DevOps engineer who possesses the technical and soft skills required for the role, has relevant experience, and can adapt to your organization’s specific needs and processes.

Onboarding and Training: Tips to Adapt Successfully

A well-planned onboarding and training process will help them quickly adapt to your organization’s culture, tools, and processes. Here are some tips for a successful onboarding and training experience:

• Prepare in advance: Before your new DevOps engineer starts, ensure their work environment is set up, including their workstation, necessary hardware, software, and access to relevant systems.
  If you don’t want to take care of this, there’s a way out – using staff augmentation to hire offshore development team. By using this approach, you won’t need to prepare equipment and expand office space. The outstaffing company you work with has already taken care of such technicalities.
• Assign a mentor or buddy: Pair your new employee with an experienced team member who can provide guidance, answer questions, and offer support during the onboarding process.
• Provide clear expectations and goals: Clearly outline your expectations for the new engineer, including their responsibilities, key objectives, and performance metrics.
  In this case, staff augmentation makes your life easier again. You don’t have to think about the career to offer to your new employee. All you have to do is assign tasks.
• Offer comprehensive training: Create a training plan that covers essential tools, technologies, and processes relevant to their role. 
• Introduce them to the team: Facilitate introductions with team members from development, operations, and other relevant departments.
  This is especially important when you hire remote developers as they need to create a bond with the team and feel safe to contact any of its members, knowing who to talk to in a particular case.
• Regular check-ins and feedback: Schedule regular check-ins to discuss progress, address any concerns, and provide constructive feedback. These meetings will help identify potential issues early and ensure your new DevOps engineer remains on track with their objectives.
• Use suitable tools: Take the time to implement an employee management system, as this will not only help with the onboarding process, but will also iron out creases in all of the other aspects involved in running teams consistently. From facilitating communication between employees and managers, to making the payroll process less of an ordeal, this type of system has multifaceted advantages.

This investment of your time and resources in employee integration will pay off in the form of improved productivity, collaboration, and long-term retention.

Talking about investments, how much do you think it costs to hire an expert?

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a DevOps Engineer? 

Hiring the right people involves considering both the rates they command and the costs associated with the technical recruiting process. Let’s explore both aspects in detail:

DevOps Engineer Rates

The rates for DevOps engineers can vary greatly depending on factors such as experience, skills, location, and the specific requirements of the role. Here’s a general overview of the rates:

• Entry-level engineers with 1-3 years of experience can expect a salary range of $60,000 – $80,000 per year.
• Mid-level engineers with 3-5 years of experience can command a salary range of $80,000 – $110,000 per year.
• Senior-level engineers with more than 5 years of experience can earn anywhere from $110,000 to $150,000+ per year.

As to the locations, here are some estimates:

• The UK – $73,500 a year (Glassdoor)
• The US – $110,841 a year (Glassdoor)
• Croatia – $15,000 a year (Glassdoor)
• Albania – $23,000 a year (Glassdoor)
• Estonia – $37,000 a year (ERI Economic Research)
• Portugal – $36,565 a year (Glassdoor)
• India – $70,000 a year (Glassdoor)
• Mexico – $60,000 a year (Glassdoor)

Keep in mind that these figures are approximate and can vary significantly based on factors mentioned earlier. Additionally, if you find DevOps developer on a contract basis, hourly rates can range from $40 to $100+ per hour, depending on their experience and skill sets.

Hiring Costs

The costs associated with hiring an engineer include both direct and indirect expenses. Here are some of the main cost components to consider:

• Recruitment agency fees: If you use a recruitment agency to find a suitable candidate, you may need to pay a fee, which is typically a percentage of the candidate’s annual salary. This fee can range from 15% to 30% or more, depending on the agency and level of service provided.
  One concerning thing about hiring agencies is that they don’t really have any responsibility for them after they find a candidate for you. On the other hand, staff augmentation companies like ProCoders vet their engineers properly, pay them monthly, and take care of their sick days and vacations.
• Time and resources: The time spent by your HR team and hiring managers in screening, interviewing, and assessing candidates is a cost that should be accounted for. This includes reviewing resumes, conducting interviews, and coordinating with stakeholders.
• Background checks and assessments: Conducting background checks, reference checks, and skill assessments may incur additional costs.
• Onboarding and training: Once you hire DevOps expert, you’ll need to invest in their onboarding and training to make sure they can effectively contribute to your organization. This includes setting up their work environment, providing necessary resources, and conducting training sessions.
• Relocation and visa expenses: If you hire programmers for startup from another country or region (not remotely), you may need to cover their relocation expenses and visa fees.

The list is pretty heavy, but there’s a way out. By choosing staff augmentation, you eliminate all of this and reduce software development costs, saving on hiring, interviewing, reviewing, taxes, vacations, sick leaves, equipment, and office space.

Discover the Benefits of an Outstaffed DevOps Team. Contact ProCoders to Initiate the Hiring Process.

Get in Touch!

We’re ready to start!

Let’s get started

Our Offices:

Portugal office

Av. Defensores de Chaves 15 6b
1000-091 Lisboa, Portugal

Headquarters Office

Sepapaja, 6
Tallinn, Estonia, 15551

U.S. based Office

6345 Meeting St,
Prospect,KY 40059

How Can Procoders Help You Hire the Right DevOps?

Hiring DevOps engineers can be time-consuming, especially with tight project deadlines. At ProCoders, we’ve streamlined the process for efficiency:

• Step 1: Contact Us
  Reach out to ProCoders and sign an NDA for project confidentiality.
• Step 2: Project Evaluation
  We assess your project needs, timelines, and objectives.
• Step 3: Access to Skilled Pool
  We offer a pool of pre-screened candidates ready to start in 14 days or less
• Step 4: Tailored Recommendations
  You receive profiles of suitable DevOps engineers for hire for you to review.
• Step 5: Swift Contract Signing
  If you find a match, we expedite the contract signing for a prompt project start.
• Step 6: Custom Hiring
  For unique needs, we launch a custom hiring process to find the ideal DevOps engineer.

As our client, your role is simple: communicate your needs, and ProCoders handles the rest. With us, you can quickly onboard a new employee, avoiding recruitment delays. ProCoders specialists can start working on your project in 14 days or even less!

Your journey to acquiring skilled DevOps for hire has never been easier.

Ensure the Reliability and Security of Your Software. Hire a Proficient DevOps Team with ProCoders for Exceptional Results.

Check availibility!

Let’s make progress together!

technologies

Select the Required Technologies*  React Native Angular ReactJS Ionic Laravel Node.js Symfony Vue.js Ruby on Rails Solidity .NET Python Web3 Other

How many engineers do you need?*

requirements

What level of expertiese do you require?*  Middle Senior

For what period?*  3-6 months 6+ months

When to start?*  ASAP within two weeks in a month

Details

You might want to let us know anything special about your project

Finish

Enter your email and check how fast our responses are;)*

Prev Next

Conclusion

In the quest to hire DevOps engineers for maximum efficiency, you may encounter a lot of challenges, hidden costs, and other issues. However, once you finish the journey, you’re going to optimize your development process so much better!

If this is something you’re looking for, outstaffing emerges as the perfect solution, eliminating most of those hassles. Its benefits, including swift access to a talent pool, reduced recruitment timelines, and a streamlined process, make it an invaluable choice for businesses. ProCoders, with its wealth of experience and a pool of pre-vetted experts, stands as a reliable partner in this endeavor. Efficiency in hiring is not merely a goal; it’s an achievable reality, and ProCoders is always ready to help you take that crucial step toward success.