Hiring a DevOps engineer is not just about filling a technical role. It’s about finding a candidate who understands the nuances between development and operations.

The one who is hands-on in automating CI/CD pipelines, container orchestration, and disaster recovery.

Many organizations might be unsure about how to hire a remote DevOps engineer or what to expect. For those curious, we have put together a handy guide explaining what you should know before hiring a DevOps team.

  • Why You Should Hire a DevOps Engineer

    There are several reasons to hire DevOps engineers. It depends on your strategic goals. The main reason companies hire remote DevOps developers is to accelerate software development and deployment processes or improve system reliability.

    You may have similar goals, or there may be other common reasons, such as:

    Automated delivery of features

    Modern software requires regular updates to deliver exceptional experiences. However, the traditional development method is slow and error-prone.

    That’s why companies hire DevOps teams to automate development, software testing, and deployment processes by setting up and managing CI/CD pipelines.

    Continuous bug fixes

    No matter how skilled your developers are, bugs are inevitable. Continuously identifying and fixing bugs during development is the right approach.

    That’s possible when you integrate testing into CI/CD pipelines, which DevOps programmers can set up and maintain. Doing so can help you shorten time-to-market, reduce costs, and improve software quality.

    Improve collaboration between teams

    In the past, development and operations teams had worked separately. This led to miscommunication and delayed releases. DevOps promotes shared ownership of code and infrastructure and helps teams communicate better.

  • DevOps Engineer Roles and Responsibilities

    Here’s a clear breakdown of the key roles and responsibilities of a dedicated DevOps expert:

    • Establishing CI/CD pipelines to enhance performance and reduce costs.
    • Automate and script repetitive tasks using Bash or Python.
    • Maintain and deploy infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools for needed environments.
    • Security and hardening through processes like security audits, server hardening, and penetration testing.
    • Interconnect different VPCs, keep delicate data isolated, and make only necessary resources accessible to the public.
    • Distribute connectivity across virtual networks.
    • Dockerize an application by packing, deploying, and running it.
    • Operating Kubernetes on different clouds like Amazon EKS or Google GKE.
    • Monitoring tools, investigating and troubleshooting problems, and doing everything possible to find issues in applications.

  • Where to Find DevOps Engineers?

    Companies can find DevOps engineers from Code District, job boards, and LinkedIn.

    Code District is the best platform for helping companies fill their talent gaps. You can hire remote DevOps developers for full-time or part-time collaboration.

    The company has a talent pool of pre-screened developers. It means minimal chances of bad hires, and your project can start within days.

    Another method that most companies use is to place ads on job boards, such as Indeed. It helps companies attract the right talent. However, finding and hiring remote DevOps engineers may take 5 to 7 weeks.

    LinkedIn is a popular platform that organizations can consider. However, like job boards, it requires a lot of effort to find, shortlist, and make an offer to DevOps experts.

    In short, Code District is the best platform for finding DevOps engineers available for hire. The company has vetted talent and matches organizations with the right DevOps developers within days.

  • DevOps Engineer Interview Questions

    The interview questions for a DevOps engineer may vary by seniority. It wouldn’t make sense to ask junior-level interview questions to a senior manager, and vice versa.

    Some questions that you may want to ask to assess the capabilities of a DevOps engineer are:

    • What is EC2 Instance Metadata?
    • How would you connect two VPCs?
    • How do you run a Bash script?
    • What are Docker namespaces?
    • What is Ingress, and how does it function?
    • The server is crashing; how would you find the root cause?
    • Can you explain the differences between a Soft link and a Hard link?
    • How would you go about troubleshooting a DNS issue?
    • What’s the difference between CI and CD?
    • Can you explain the Git branching model?

    The DevOps interview questions above are for a mid-level engineer (3+ years of experience).

  • How Much Does it Cost to Hire a DevOps Engineer?

    We have conducted research and found the cost to hire a DevOps engineer. According to Glassdoor, the average salary (in dollars) of a DevOps engineer in different countries is listed below:

    • United States = $142,092/yr
    • United Kingdom = $71,117/yr
    • Canada = $71,612/yr
    • Pakistan = $10,000/yr

    Based on the available data, we can conclude that Pakistan is the most affordable country for US-based startups to hire DevOps engineers for their projects.