DevOps Hiring Guide

Authors Red Hat Inc.

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OPENSOURCE.COM & THE ENTERPRISERS PROJECT

DevOps Hiring Guide
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ABOUTTHE
FROM THEEDITOR
ENTERPRISERS PROJECT

Dear DevOps hiring manager and DevOps job seekers,
Hiring the right people and building a successful team is no easy task. There are many facets to
consider when talking to candidates, from cultural fit and team dynamics to skills, knowledge, and
problem-solving ability. This hiring guide will touch on all those areas and more. More importantly,
this guide will help you navigate the unique dynamics that encompass the DevOps movement.
Hiring for DevOps talent presents its own challenges. First, your recruiting team or agency needs
to know what to look for in candidates--there are important characteristics that may not appear as
keywords on a resume or in a LinkedIn profile. Second, the most qualified candidates probably
aren t actively searching for the jobs hiring managers are looking to fill. And that s where this guide
can help you with advice from our contributors.
If DevOps is about people, processes, and tools, then getting the right people on your DevOps team
can make or break the success of your organizational goals and aspirations. The people who com-
pose your team will provide the competitive advantage you need to be successful. If done right, the
team will help identify areas for improvement, implement successful processes, select and deploy
the tools that are right for your team, and begin automating tasks to free up precious resources,
including time, money, and people.
This guide provides advice, tactics, and information about the state of DevOps hiring for both job
seekers and hiring managers. It starts by discussing the importance of culture for your organization
and how it impacts your ability, or inability, to get the right talent on your team. Then it provides an
overview of the DevOps hiring landscape and market trends. The final section offers best practices
for prospective employees and hiring managers.
The advice in this guide comes from DevOps practitioners--people who are living and breathing the
DevOps culture every day. This guide would not be possible without a community of experts sharing
what they have learned in the trenches and on the front lines.
I want to thank the following contributors, who shared their expertise and knowledge about the
DevOps hiring landscape and how job seekers and hiring managers can prepare for the next talent
opportunity:

• John Allessio
• Kevin Casey
• Conor Delanbanque
• Catherine Louis
• Laurianne McLaughlin
• Chris Short

Best regards,

Jason Hibbets
Opensource.com senior community architect

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CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

INTRODUCTION

The keys to hiring in DevOps 7
Who drives the culture of exceptional hiring? 8

MARKET TRENDS

Adventures in DevOps: How to keep up 9
An overview of the hiring landscape 10
Trends in titles and emerging specialties 12
What you need to know about salaries 14

BEST PRACTICES FOR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES

The DevOps hiring journey: Overcoming the challenges 17
How to tell a great DevOps shop from a mediocre one 18
How to stand out and win a DevOps role 21
How to tailor your resume 23
Preparing for an interview 25
Tips for transitioning to DevOps from other IT specialties 27

BEST PRACTICES FOR HIRING MANAGERS

Is your hiring strategy working for you? 29
Traits of a valuable team player 30
Tips to hire the right talent 32
Questions hiring managers should be prepared to answer 34
DevOps hiring strategies to attract top talent 36

GET INVOLVED | ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Get involved | Additional Resources 40
Write for Us | Keep in Touch 41

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Introduction

The keys to hiring in DevOps
BY CHRIS SHORT

Who drives culture in DevOps? 8

You have two options.

The option you choose determines your talent,
acquisition strategy, and priorities.

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Who drives the culture of
exceptional hiring?
BY CHRIS SHORT

CREATING A SUSTAINABLE CULTURE that values what
makes a company great enables
that company to attract talent from across the globe. Ex-
Community. Ken stated, “You’ve got to be active in your local
area. Whether it’s with meetup groups; whether there are
other, different DevOps or AWS groups, or any other contact
panding on our article, Who drives culture in DevOps? [1], or class forums, you’ve really got to see what’s out there and
it’s important to point out that hiring is everyone’s respon- get out and meet people.”
sibility. The same top-down and bottom-up approaches to Interacting with the people you want to work with is key.
culture also exist for hiring--but both approaches have signif- Most great candidates care more about who they work with
icant value in hiring. than what company they work for. Your culture will be the thing
Ask anyone involved in hiring, and they’ll tell you: Refer- that inspires top talent to come work with you. If a candidate
rals matter. Consider referrals the bottom-up approach to sees an organization that’s active in their community (be it
hiring. Having someone within the organization recommend municipal or software), they’re more likely to want to work with
a friend or former colleague goes a long way. But what the that organization. When they find people within your organi-
referrer often fails to realize is that their reputation is what zation accessible and easy to work with, this desire increases
pushes a candidate to the front of the line. The rapport be- even more. Your culture is everything in DevOps and hiring.
tween all parties matters more than the fact that the referrer Lee Iacocca once said, “I hire people brighter than me and
is a part of the organization. Regardless, if you know some- I get out of their way.” This is the key to hiring: Finding people
one who would be a perfect fit for a role in your organization, who are smarter, better, and faster is the best way to hire and
refer them. This is a surefire way to cultivate good talent. cultivate talent. A rising tide truly lifts all ships.
Where should you look for talent when you have no re- But opening a job requisite is only half the battle these
ferrals? In a more top-down approach, you can work with days. DevOps talent and skills are in exceedingly high de-
recruiters (internal or external). I sat down with Ken M. Mid- mand. According to the StackOverflow Developer Survey
dleton [2] of Your DevOps Recruiter [3] and peppered him 2018 [4], people “working in [DevOps] command the high-
with hiring questions. Don’t let the generic-sounding “Your est salaries.” Talented people rarely seek new opportunities;
DevOps Recruiter” name fool you; Ken is the real deal. Per- chances are they know where they want to land next. But
sonally, I don’t work with recruiting organizations because it’s unlikely that everyone knows about your organization.
many are more sales-oriented than people-oriented. But Ken Reaching out to folks who meet your organization’s needs is
is deeply interested in open source software, DevOps, and a surefire way to attract the talent you want to engage with.
matching people to the right organizations. Filling job reqs Where do you start? How do you find great people to work
for the sake of filling them is not Ken’s modus operandi. in your organization? The Ultimate DevOps Hiring Guide
When I asked Ken, “How do you find great talent?” his provides practical tips from experts in the Opensource.com
response was straightforward and pragmatic. One of his an- DevOps community and beyond. Our goal is to help you
swers won’t surprise anyone familiar with Opensource.com: build better teams. By fostering collaboration and embracing
the tenets of DevOps, your organization can flourish.

Links
[1]
https://opensource.com/article/17/12/who-drives-culture-
devops
[2]
https://kenmmiddleton.com/
[3]
https://yourdevopsrecruiter.com/
[4]
https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018

Author
Chris Short is a Senior DevOps Advocate | CNCF Ambassador |
opensource.com Community Moderator | Writes devopsish.com

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Section 1: Market trends

Adventures in DevOps:
How to keep up
BY CATHERINE LOUIS

If you’re a job seeker, or a manager struggling to keep up and
understand current trends, these articles are especially designed to
help job seekers and hiring managers alike understand the current
talent environment for DevOps.

An overview of the hiring landscape 10

Trends in titles and emerging specialties 12

What you need to know about salaries 14

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An overview of the
hiring landscape
BY KEVIN CASEY

We examine the DevOps job boom—and share related advice for job seekers
and hiring managers.

AS DEVOPS HAS BLOSSOMED in many IT shops,
so has a particular IT talent war:
With more companies adding new DevOps roles, hiring
$104,508: Average salary for a DevOps engineer in
the U.S. That’s according to recent data from jobs site
Glassdoor [3] (The national median salary for a DevOps
high-quality DevOps talent can be brutal. IT leaders don’t engineer is $110,000.) Of course, salaries vary by lo-
just need to find warm bodies; they need to find people who cation: If you’re plying your trade in the San Francisco
know how to deliver on the promise of DevOps – constantly area, for example, the salaries (and cost of living) jump
experimenting and iterating, at speed, while navigating tricky higher; conversely, companies in smaller cities might be
culture change [1]. That means good things for IT pros on offering lower salaries. But suffice it to say that DevOps
the job market with the right mix of skills and experience. And engineers tend to command top-notch IT pay across
this is not a fleeting situation. many locations.
Staffing firm Robert Half [2], in its 2018 salary guide for
technology professionals, says it expects DevOps engineers 60 percent of hiring managers are looking to fill
to be one of the most in-demand roles among North American DevOps engineer positions, according to the 2017 Open
employers next year. Source Jobs Report, a study conducted by The Linux
“There is an increased drive to capitalize on the agility and Foundation [4] and tech jobs site Dice [5]. That ranks sec-
productivity benefits brought ond only to the broad cat-
on by DevOps, and leaders egory of “developers” (73
are seeking the talent to drive percent) as the most com-
these initiatives and execute monly sought-after roles in
on delivering the strategy,” this year’s report. (Systems
says John Reed, senior ex- Administrators come in
ecutive director for Robert third, at 53 percent.)
Half Technology.
We examined some key It’s important to note
numbers that help tell the that many companies hire
story of the DevOps jobs “developers” for DevOps
boom, and offer correspond- teams without ever calling
ing advice for IT pros. Let’s them “DevOps engineers” –
start with one hard-to-ignore reason more IT pros want to so these numbers may understate the DevOps hires. The
gain the experience and skills necessary to land a choice term “DevOps engineer” is somewhat controversial: Some
DevOps position: Money. DevOps experts call it a mark of an immature DevOps

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shop, as we explore later in this guide, How to tell a great “DevOps is a relatively new role, therefore it’s challenging to
DevOps shop from a mediocre one. demonstrate experience, given there aren’t years and years of
No matter the position title, one key trait the companies working in the function,” says Durney, the Dice CEO.
seek is the same: Flexibility. “Professionals who are seeking roles in DevOps should be
“The flexibility of the [DevOps engineer] role and abil- in the know with market demands and ensure that they have
ity to be nimble is very attractive as employers look for the skills to match open roles,” says Reed from Robert Half
tech pros who can understand the many sides of the tech Technology. “They should be revamping and customizing
organization,” says Mike Durney, CEO of Dice [5]. “As their resumes to reflect how their background complements
companies find ways to be more efficient and competitive, the job they are pursuing.”
DevOps professionals will increasingly be in demand.” Remember, you are trying to demonstrate problem-solving
capability, ability to work at speed, collaboration and com-
42 percent of companies responding to the Open Source munication skills, and experience with culture change.
Jobs study want to add DevOps skills across their Here’s some potent advice that Robert Reeves [6], CTO
hiring portfolio, putting it in the top five sought-after skills, at Datical [7] recently shared with us [8]: “DevOps is about
alongside open source cloud (47 percent), application de- identifying friction and resolving it.”
velopment (44 percent), big data (43 percent), and security Does your resume show you know how to experiment,
(42 percent) skills. spot trouble, and turn around failures?

57 percent of companies seeking open source ex- Links
pertise are focused on DevOps skills, says the Open [1] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/7-habits-
Source Jobs Report. That puts DevOps skills just behind highly-effective-devops
application development (59 percent) and cloud/virtualiza- [2] https://www.roberthalf.com/home-page
tion (60 percent) in the most-desired open source skills [3] https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
category. [4] https://www.linuxfoundation.org/
[5] https://www.dice.com/
DevOps engineer ranks #2 on Glassdoor’s 50 Best Jobs [6] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/robert-reeves
in America rankings – as in second overall. Bear in mind, [7] http://www.datical.com/
this isn’t just a list of IT jobs. Glassdoor’s rankings are based [8] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/devops-jobs-
on salary, available jobs, and job satisfaction as reported by how-win-role
its users.
Author
156,209 DevOps engineer jobs open on a typical day Kevin Casey writes about technology and business for a
in September, 2017: This is the result we got in recent variety of publications. He won an Azbee Award, given by
national Glassdoor jobs searches for “DevOps engineer.” the American Society of Business Publication Editors, for his
Our results include variants on the DevOps engineer title, InformationWeek.com story, “Are You Too Old For IT?” He’s
such as “Systems Engineer / DevOps” and “Cloud Security a former community choice honoree in the Small Business
DevOps Engineer.” Influencer Awards.

Tweak that DevOps resume Adapted from “DevOps Jobs: 6 eye-opening statistics” on EnterprisersProject.com,
published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International
With that many companies hiring for the DevOps function, License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-jobs-6-eye-
getting the job you want should be a cinch, right? No. opening-statistics.

DevOps is a relatively new
role, therefore it’s challenging
to demonstrate experience.

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Trends in titles
and emerging specialties
BY KEVIN CASEY

DevOps experts weigh in on titles, emerging specialties, and team makeup.
Take note, job seekers and hiring managers.

IF YOU’VE GOT DEVOPS CHOPS, you already know
you’re in demand [1]. And if
you’re an IT leader hiring for a DevOps shop, you know the
“Today, almost all of us have a website, but no one has a
webmaster anymore – they’re obsolete. DevOps engineers
are on a similar path,” Reeves says. “Eventually, they will all
challenges [2] in finding good people. become software engineers as we shift to a ‘You Build It; You
Like DevOps itself, the DevOps job market continues to Run It’ model of responsibility. DevOps isn’t a service like
evolve. And let’s be honest: This isn’t an area of consensus payroll processing and it’s not something you can outsource
in IT, as the ongoing debate about titles such as “DevOps or assign one team to perform the entire role.”
Engineer” [3] attests. There’s value in having a specific “DevOps team” in an
Given those debates, it can be tricky to figure out what’s organization’s early iterations of DevOps, says Reeves, but
next in the booming DevOps jobs market, for both job seek- it should be an evolutionary phase, not the finish line.
ers and hiring managers alike. “Having DevOps teams today is important to identify best
That doesn’t mean we can’t try. Let’s dig into several key practices, but those need to be shared with the rest of the
trends in – and ongoing debates about – DevOps roles company so that all departments can benefit without cre-
moving forward. ating a ticket for the DevOps team to complete,” Reeves
explains. “The DevOps team needs to help the rest of the
1. The DevOps Engineer title: Debate rages company in eventually being able to manage and run the
Perhaps the biggest trend in DevOps jobs is the ongoing software they create.”
discussion of whether “DevOps jobs” should exist at all. To
be clear, DevOps jobs absolutely do exist, as evidenced by 2. DevOps titles will continue to vary widely
the thousands of well-paying “DevOps Engineer” positions Here’s both a mix of that debate – what does it mean to have
(and similar titles) posted on sites like Glassdoor, Linke- a “DevOps job”? – and trend: You don’t actually need to
dIn, and Indeed. However, not everyone thinks those titles have DevOps in your job title to be working successfully in a
should exist. DevOps environment.
“The DevOps engineer title will continue being popular for “I am sure there are cases where it makes economic sense
as long as DevOps is popular,” says says Viktor Farcic, se- to individuals to include DevOps in their title – especially when
nior consultant at CloudBees [4]. “The problem is that it is a job searches are underway,” says Derek Weeks, VP and
complete misunderstanding of the principles behind DevOps. DevOps advocate at Sonatype [6]. “That said, I don’t expect
It forgets that the change is cultural, not technological.” a mass shift into catch-all titles like ‘DevOps Engineer.’ There
It would be akin to, in an alternate history of IT, the prolif- is still value for many enterprises in describing the specific
eration of a title like “Agile engineer,” which didn’t actually responsibilities a team member brings to the table.”
happen. DevOps can describe a particular company’s culture and
“Agile processes like Scrum prescribed names for differ- software development lifecycle, and influence a particular in-
ent roles, so no one came up with something like ‘Agile en- dividual’s job responsibilities, no matter if the term is in that
gineer,’” Farcic says. “Since DevOps is less prescriptive, it person’s job title or not. It’s a trend that’s already evident.
produced more confusion about its nature and resulted in job Weeks notes that of the more than 25,000 people registered
titles such as DevOps engineer.” for the All Day DevOps [7] conference on October 24, just
Robert Reeves, CTO at Datical [5], predicts that the future 13% included “DevOps” in their title.
of software will put the title “DevOps engineer” – not DevOps “While the term (DevOps) has been adopted, it is certainly
itself – on the endangered species list. not ubiquitous today,” Weeks says.

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Indeed, some CIOs prefer to use the term “agile” rath- 4. Pay attention to the site reliability engineer role
er than DevOps to describe the same fast, experimental, The early leader for hot DevOps job that doesn’t have
cross-functional style of working. DevOps in the title (see #2) and is likely to be increasingly
“I am not a fan of DevOps being a title,” says Mike Kail, specialized depending on an organization’s needs (see #3):
co-founder and CTO at https://www.cybric.io/ [8], and former Site Reliability Engineer.
CIO at Yahoo. “It is a culture and a methodology that strives The nomenclature for this fast-growing role is attributed to
for continuous improvement and collaboration across teams Google, which describes site reliability engineering [13] as
and functional groups. Having said that, I believe there will “what you get when you treat operations as if it’s a software
always be a slight delineation between more Dev-centric problem.”
and more Ops-centric engineers, so the area to continually The title has quickly spread to other organizations: There’s
improve upon is the real-time collaboration between them.” plenty of overlap with DevOps culture, especially when it
comes to an obsessive focus on automation. Arvind Soni,
3. Expect more specialized positions and teams VP of product at Netsil [14], predicts the SRE role will be one
“As initially conceived, DevOps was often perceived (and of hottest job titles in DevOps shops in the future.
sometimes implemented) as being about the elimination of “Considering the scale and complexity of modern appli-
specialist roles,” says Red Hat [9] technology evangelist cations, there is a need to address operational issues such
Gordon Haff [10]. “Everyone does dev. Everyone does ops. as monitoring, deployment management, incident response,
Everyone carries a pager. etc. with higher levels of automation and programming,” Soni
“But, especially in larger organizations, that’s not really says. “This need is giving rise to the role of SREs, which
right,” he explains. “Silos do have to be broken down. And it’s bring in the software developer’s mindset of ‘let’s solve this
hard to argue against multidisciplinary teams. But there’s al- problem more comprehensively’ rather than the previous
ways going to be a need for specialists in areas like security mindset of ‘let’s get a tool or patchwork of scripts to get past
and operating large-scale infrastructure. The key is for those this problem.’”
specialists to effectively communicate with and provide tools
for others to use.” Links
Especially as DevOps teams mature, they develop roles [1] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-jobs-
and processes that more specifically address their organi- 6-eye-opening-statistics
zation’s needs and business strategies, says Ben Newton, [2] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/1/10-must-
analytics lead at Sumo Logic [11]. have-skills-needed-it-2017
“DevOps is a philosophy, a way of life, a perspective,” he [3] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/devops-jobs-
says. “I think the trend is for DevOps to just be a given for the how-spot-great-devops-shop
modern organization, and the focus is then on figuring out what [4] https://www.cloudbees.com/
specializations are needed outside of the core developer/scrum [5] https://www.datical.com/
teams that actually build and support their own code.” [6] https://www.sonatype.com/
He expects roles like site reliability engineers (hold that [7] http://www.alldaydevops.com/
thought for a moment), security architects and specialists, [8] https://www.cybric.io/
and various iterations of QA/Testing engineers to increase in [9] https://www.redhat.com/en
DevOps environments. [10] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/gordon-haff
“We are also seeing more data science-oriented engi- [11] https://www.sumologic.com/
neers driving development, since analytics is so key to being [12] https://www.outsystems.com/
competitive today,” he adds. [13] https://landing.google.com/sre/#sre
“The primary trend is toward developers taking on more [14] https://netsil.com/
operational and business – and generally broadened – re-
sponsibilities, not operations or other older roles learning to Author
code,” Newton says. Kevin Casey writes about technology and business for a
Dan Juengst, principal technology evangelist at OutSys- variety of publications. He won an Azbee Award, given by
tems [12], anticipates increased utilization of smaller teams the American Society of Business Publication Editors, for his
brought together for specific projects, rather than a single InformationWeek.com story, “Are You Too Old For IT?” He’s
larger unit that touches everything. a former community choice honoree in the Small Business
“Like a cross-functional scrum team in agile development, Influencer Awards.
these DevOps teams will have resources with both Dev and
Ops skills, and they will be empowered and enabled to work
Adapted from "DevOps Jobs: 4 trends to watch" on The Enterprisers Project,
closely together with a focused goal of delivering a single published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International
project,” he says. License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/10/devops-jobs-4-trends-watch.

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What you need to know
about salaries
BY KEVIN CASEY

DevOps jobs are hot. Whether you’re job hunting or hiring,
use these statistics and tips to your advantage.

IF YOU’RE ON THE HUNT for a DevOps [1] job, don’t
expect your search to last long. With
the right set of skills, you have employers competing for your
$122,969: The average salary in the U.S. for people with a
DevOps Engineer title, according to the jobs site Indeed [6].
Here’s Indeed’s basis: “Salary estimates are based on 76,204
services these days. salaries submitted anonymously to Indeed by Development Op-
Even IT pros just beginning a transition into a DevOps-ori- erations Engineer employees, users, and collected from past and
ented job [2] from a more traditional role are set up for suc- present job advertisements on Indeed in the past 24 months.”
cess in this market. DevOps salary information tends to fluctuate for business
“The DevOps market is very strong,” says Ryan Sutton, and technology reasons, too.
district president at staffing and recruiting firm Robert Half “DevOps is a constantly changing area in terms of com-
Technology [3], adding that the demand is a logical out- pensation due to the rapidly changing skills requirements
come of increasing cloud adoption among companies. for different platforms and open source projects,” says
“[DevOps-related hiring] has been very active as companies George McFerran, EVP of product and marketing at tech
try to keep up with the technical trend and improve efficiency job site Dice [7]. While DevOps jobs are a trending search
and collaboration across teams.” on Dice, the site’s recently released 2018 salary report fa-
Even if you’re in demand, though, it doesn’t hurt to have vors skill-specific compensation data, as well as other gran-
some good data to help your case at the negotiating table. ular perspectives, such as regional differences.
So, we rounded up nine noteworthy numbers on DevOps The fundamental point: Arm yourself with current salary
salaries and other trends that should help. And if you’re hir- information, especially as it aligns with your specific skills.
ing, these stats give you a sense of what you’re up against And make sure to localize it. Speaking of which...
in the marketplace.
$120,000 - $160,000: “The average base salary that we
$133,378: The average salary [4] in the U.S. for people with have seen in the Northeast is anywhere from $120,000 [to]
a DevOps Engineer title, according to the jobs site Glass- $160,000, or sometimes higher,” says Sutton of Robert Half
door [5]. Of course, such averages depend on the underly- Technology. Location is most definitely a factor in compensa-
ing data. In this case, the current average DevOps Engineer tion. But right now, it appears that a DevOps job is lucrative
salary is based on compensation data submitted by 990 almost regardless of location.
Glassdoor users with that title. Keep in mind that you’ll find
differing – but still lofty – numbers out there. Such as... $117,983: The average salary [8] in the U.S. for people with
a Site Reliability Engineer [9] title, according to the jobs site
Glassdoor [10]. While that number might be a tick lower
than the ones above, it’s a good point to remind ourselves
that not all so-called DevOps jobs have “DevOps” in the
title. In fact, there are those who don’t think job titles such
as “DevOps engineer” should exist in the first place.
Regardless of your stance, it’s important to keep in mind
that there are plenty of job titles – such as the increasing-
ly popular SRE title – that might just as well be considered
“DevOps jobs.” Moreover, the terms DevOps itself might
get retired as the culture, practices, and technologies it rep-
resents become the norm in IT.

14 THE ULTIMATE DEVOPS HIRING GUIDE . CC BY-SA 4.0 . OPENSOURCE.COM
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“Frankly, the term is becoming less and less used as the technologies and skills related to cloud, continuous integra-
confluence of software development and operations be- tion and containerization.”
comes the standard,” says McFerran of Dice. Sutton shares good news for both IT pros looking to make
a career transition and those worried that the pursuit of these
$92,172: For comparison, this is the average salary in 2017 skills might box in their future opportunities.
for all technology professionals in the U.S. So, yeah, that “The technology hiring sector has traditionally been very
DevOps job hunt [11] might pay off. particular about making sure new hires have very specific
experience, but now we are seeing that professionals aren’t
63 percent: Among the IT pros included Dice’s 2018 salary as pigeonholed as they used to be,” Sutton explains. “If you
survey who said they were planning on changing jobs this can demonstrate strong DevOps experience, you can use it
year, 63 percent listed increased compensation as the rea- in a variety of environments.”
son why, making it the top factor. (Perhaps unsurprisingly,
the average salary of job-changers who listed compensation Links
as the reason was just under $80,000, well below the nation- [1] https://enterprisersproject.com/tags/devops
al average.) “Better work conditions” (45 percent), which are [2] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-jobs-
sometimes correlated with DevOps, was the #2 reason. 5-tips-transitioning-devops-jobs
[3] https://www.roberthalf.com/
74,834: For both job-seekers and hiring managers alike, [4] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/devops-engineer-
here’s another eye-opener: A recent worldwide jobs salary-SRCH_KO0,15.htm
search [12] for “DevOps Engineer” on LinkedIn produced [5] https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
74,834 open positions. That’s actually more than the number [6] https://www.indeed.com/
of jobs that appear when simply searching “DevOps” (see [7] https://www.dice.com/
below), because it includes engineering titles with a lot of [8] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/devops-engineer-
DevOps-oriented responsibilities or skills that don’t include salary-SRCH_KO0,15.htm
the word “DevOps” in the title. [9] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/10/devops-
jobs-4-trends-watch
51,640: The number of open positions returned from a world- [10] https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
wide jobs search [13] for “DevOps” on LinkedIn [11] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-jobs-
5-must-reads-job-seekers-hiring-managers
33,844: The number of job listings produced by a recent U.S. [12] https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?keywords=
jobs search [14] for the term “DevOps” on Glassdoor. DevOps%2520Engineer&amp;location=Worldwide&amp;
locationId=OTHERS.worldwide
DevOps jobs: Bonus advice for job hunters [13] https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/?keywords=
Throwing out salary figures isn’t what you’re supposed to do DevOps&amp;location=Worldwide&amp;locationId=
to land the job; it’s part of the process after you receive an OTHERS.worldwide
offer. So, in the interest of getting that offer (or better still, [14] https://www.glassdoor.com/Job/devops-jobs-SRCH_
multiple offers), make sure you’re focused on the right skills. KO0,6.htm
And don’t think they’re just technical. [15] https://opensource.com/tags/linux
“For professionals to succeed in DevOps [environments], [16] https://opensource.com/tags/perl
they need strong communication and collaboration skills, as [17] https://opensource.com/tags/python
well as critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, to keep proj- [18] https://enterprisersproject.com/hybrid-cloud
ects running smoothly,” says Sutton of Robert Half Technology. [19] https://enterprisersproject.com/tags/containers
On the technology front, Sutton sees particular demand
for the following skills and experience among employers Author
looking for DevOps-oriented talent: Kevin Casey writes about technology and business for a
• Linux and other open source projects [15] variety of publications. He won an Azbee Award, given by
• Scripting (including languages such as Bash, Perl [16], and the American Society of Business Publication Editors, for his
Python [17]) InformationWeek.com story, “Are You Too Old For IT?” He’s
• Cloud [18] a former community choice honoree in the Small Business
• Configuration management and continuous integration Influencer Awards.
• Containers and orchestration [19]
“To best position yourself in the employment market, ex- Adapted from “DevOps jobs salaries: 9 statistics to see” on The Enterprisers
Project, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0
pand your open source knowledge, specifically Linux,” International License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/2/devops-
Sutton advises. “From there, introduce yourself to other jobs-salaries-9-statistics-see.

THE ULTIMATE DEVOPS HIRING GUIDE . CC BY-SA 4.0 . OPENSOURCE.COM 15
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Section 2: Best practices for prospective employees

The DevOps hiring journey:
Overcoming the challenges
BY CATHERINE LOUIS

After rewriting your resume for the umteenth time, you re about
ready to give up on your job search. Or, if you re a hiring manager,
your recruiting representative has just dumped 20+ resumes on your
desk, and none of them fit the role you need to fill. Either way, you’ re
frustrated. The following articles will help job seekers win the role
they desire and hiring managers find a mutual fit.

How to tell a great DevOps shop from a 18
mediocre one

How to stand out and win a DevOps role 21

How to tailor your resume 23

Preparing for an interview 25

Tips for transitioning to DevOps 27
from other IT specialties

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BEST PRACTICES FOR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

How to tell a great
DevOps shop from
a mediocre one
BY LAURIANNE MCLAUGHLIN

When interviewing, how do you tell a fantastic DevOps
organization from a mediocre one? Use this advice.

HOW DO YOU SIZE UP A COMPANY DOING DEVOPS?
For people seeking their next
IT role, it’s a crucial question. Whether you’re already prov-
on DevOps culture. “If you want a mature practice and the
organization is just starting, this could cause overall angst
to a job seeker and a hiring organization.”
ing yourself a DevOps star or just breaking into DevOps, We gathered 10 pieces of expert advice on what to look
you don’t want to sign on with an organization that’s limp- for – and what to watch out for – in teams and leaders as you
ing along – or worse, pretending to do DevOps. You also interview with and evaluate a DevOps-minded IT organization.
need to gauge how well the IT team delivers on results to the
business. So you should go to interviews armed with smart 1. Is there a separate DevOps team?
questions and background on red flags. Take stock of how the IT team is organized. Is there a spe-
DevOps methodology and culture [1] prizes speed, cial DevOps team and are some people called “DevOps en-
experimentation, and collaboration, all happening on gineers?” This is a divisive issue among DevOps experts.
cross-functional teams. Developing that kind of culture Some say it’s wise to start the DevOps culture transition with
usually involves great change. When you’re interviewing, a dedicated team; others call that approach hogwash and
it’s important to uncover where the organization is in terms say you must spark the culture change across the whole or-
of progress with the process and culture change. “Knowing ganization. The separate team can be a clue to an immature
where the organization is on the DevOps journey is import- DevOps shop, says Chris McFadden, Vice President of En-
ant to match up with what someone wants to do,” says Red gineering and Operations at email provider SparkPost [3].
Hat’s Matt Micene [2], who frequently writes and speaks

DevOps is a way of doing things
across development and operations
and is not one team’s job.
“A great ‘DevOps shop’ will not have a separate DevOps
team and no-one will have DevOps in their job title,” McFad-
den says. “This is a mistake more mediocre organizations
can make, usually after a company’s management decides
they need DevOps but do not really understand what that ac-
tually means. DevOps is a way of doing things across devel-
opment and operations and is not one team’s job.” See our

18 The ultimate DevOps hiring guideTHEOULTIMATE.
pensource.com
DEVOPS HIRING GUIDE . CC BY-SA 4.0 . OPENSOURCE.COM
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related article, DevOps lessons learned [4], for the opposite 4. Look for automation
point of view and more background on this topic. How does the IT team use automation in tasks such as provi-
sioning and CI/CD? Forward-thinking Ops teams use automa-
2. Discuss success metrics tion to free up time to solve problems. Lack of automation may
What metrics should teams be using to measure results be another clue that the organization is early in its DevOps jour-
from DevOps work? Many teams start with metrics tied to ney, or that the Dev and Ops teams aren’t collaborating well.
improving speed – a core part of DevOps methodology. “A Red Hat Chief Technology Strategist E.G. Nadhan [10] says,
great DevOps organization knows exactly how long each “A mediocre DevOps shop has tools sporadically applied to
part of the release process takes,” says Robert Reeves [5], the business of IT.” You won’t see much automation in such a
co-founder and CTO at Datical [6]. “They have numbers to shop (and they’re missing the culture piece.)
detail their improvement. Also, they will have set goals for On the other hand, here’s what Nadhan says you’ll see in
themselves: ‘We decreased lead time from 12 days to 6 a great DevOps shop: Culture, process, people, and tools
days. We want to get that down to 1 hour but our next goal applied to the business of the enterprise.
is 3 days.’ That’s a great DevOps organization and one you
want to work for.” 5. Ask about how teams collaborate
Additionally, some of the most meaningful metrics tie to “The best organizations are fully collaborative and have cre-
business outcomes, says Red Hat technology evangelist Gor- ated processes that foster the continual and costing commu-
don Haff [7]. For example, a business goal may be to improve nications across teams and roles,” says John Purrier [11],
customer experience. In this case, a useful metric would be CTO of software company Automic.
customer ticket volume, “a reasonable proxy for overall cus- Not all teams work the same, of course, and collaboration
tomer satisfaction, which, in turn, strongly affects higher-level ideas are evolving. While DevOps started off with a focus on
(and highly valued) measures such as Net Promoter Score, the handoff between developers and the Ops team, some
the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s companies have taken that idea further: “It’s about enabling
products or services to ops to provide an environment for developers, then get out of
others,” as Haff noted in the way as much as possible,” notes Haff in his recent article,
DevOps isn’t just about his article, DevOps met-
rics: Are you measuring
DevOps success: A New team model emerges [12].

going haphazardly what matters? [8]

faster, but delivering As Micene sums it up: There is shared responsibility and
“DevOps isn’t just about
value quicker. going haphazardly fast- accountability for the customer
er, but delivering value
quicker. How they measure and manage that is key.”
experience between the developers
If none of the group’s metrics are tied to business outcomes, and the operations team.
that’s a red flag.
At the end of the day, you want to know the teams are in
3. Take a hard look at your potential immediate sync. “At a great ‘DevOps shop’ there is shared responsibility
manager and accountability for the customer experience between the
Look for evidence that this is an agile leader who gets things developers and the operations team. There are also shared
done, says Jonathan Feldman, CIO of the city of Asheville, goals for delivering value and ensuring reliability of the prod-
NC [9]. “Are there lots of little projects going on? Is the per- uct,” says SparkPost’s McFadden.
son talking about effective projects?”
You want to hear IT leaders talking about project success – 6. Explore how IT trains up staff
rather than just code or process, Feldman says. It’s one mark The DevOps culture emphasizes constant experimentation
of an IT leader who is in tune with the business and delivering and improvement. In that spirit, so too should DevOps practi-
results. tioners strive for “continuous improvement and renewal pro-
The other place you see evidence that this manager gets fessionally and personally,” wrote Red Hat’s Brian Gracely,
things done? The hiring process, Feldman says. If the IT director of OpenShift product strategy, in a recent blog, The
group takes a month to get back to people, it’s not moving at 7 Habits of Highly Effective DevOps. [13]
agile speed. Feldman says people who interview with his IT You may think of training in terms of courses or certifications,
team often get an offer within a day of the interview, but al- but Gracely encourages DevOps leaders to think of training as
ways within three to four days. (Take note, hiring managers: a constant process. For example, IT leaders can incent employ-
CIOs like Feldman are not willing to lose agile candidates to ees to go learn new skills via side projects or meetups, and then
other organizations due to slow HR process.) frequently share the knowledge with the team.

The ultimate
THE ULTIMATEDevO
DEVOPS
ps hiring HIRING
guide .
GUIDE
Opensource .
CC.com
BY-SA194.0 . OPENSOURCE.COM 19
BEST PRACTICES FOR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“The proper way to address the need for ‘skills improve- be able to explain IT’s role to play, in a realistic manner.
ment’ is not to think about it as ‘training’ (e.g. attend a course, “There’s some kind of framework being used for how the
get a certification), but rather to incorporate it into an actual work will be accomplished in a rapid, meaningful way,”
work activity,” Gracely writes. Feldman says. So listen to learn where the organization
If the group you’re interviewing with is doing this, that’s a and IT team are headed.
sign of a mature DevOps organization. And what should send you running for the door? Plans
for big-bang, old school IT implementations that take
7. Ask what makes people stay years should ring your warning bell, Feldman says. That’s
People who shine in DevOps environments have a powerful not the mark of a DevOps shop. It’s the opposite of speed
story to tell potential employers – and they’re in demand. and flexibility.
They don’t have to stay put. Are people staying at the orga-
nization you’re interviewing with for a good chunk of time, or Links
is there a big turnover problem? IT leadership can be a key [1] ttps://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/7/10-devops-
h
reason why people stay or go in a DevOps culture. must-reads
And it’s not easy. DevOps requires IT leaders to rethink [2] https://opensource.com/open-organization/17/5/what-is-
risk and other longtime IT principles. For example, take re- the-point-of-DevOps
quirements: “IT leaders can no longer be passive recipients [3] http://www.sparkpost.com/
of business requirements, but instead must take responsibil- [4] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/7/devops-
ity for business outcomes,” says Mark Schwartz [14], CIO of lessons-learned-advice-it-leaders
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in his recent ar- [5] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/robert-reeves
ticle, DevOps requires dumping old IT leadership ideas [15]. [6] http://www.datical.com
[7] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/gordon-haff
8. Ask people about their first week on the job [8] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/7/devops-
“A great ‘DevOps shop’ will have new hires deploy changes metrics-are-you-measuring-what-matters
to production within their first week,” says McFadden. “This [9] http://www.ashevillenc.gov/departments/it/default.htm
is a good sign that the team has ample continuous integra- [10] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/eg-nadhan
tion and deployment infrastructure in place and there is little [11] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/john-purrier
drama in deploying to production. A more mediocre orga- [12] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/6/devops-
nization will be very protective of who can deploy changes success-new-team-model-emerges
to production, and possibly even have a separate team that [13] https://blog.openshift.com/7-habits-highly-effective-
handles deployments.” devops
[14] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/mark-schwartz
9. Search for potential mentors [15] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/7/devops-
Especially with DevOps, you want to join a team that has a requires-dumping-old-it-leadership-ideas
cluster of expertise – a group of people from whom you have
much to learn. “We’re all the combination of our mentors,”
says Feldman. “They can’t mentor you if they’re not really Author
good at it.” Laurianne McLaughlin is Content Director for The Enterpris-
“Agile leaders are ambitious,” he says. “They want to get ers Project, delivering analysis and advice for the IT leader-
stuff done. They want to solve problems. They don’t want to ship community. Previously, she served as Editor-in-Chief at
write software that meets a spec but doesn’t solve a problem.” InformationWeek.com and Managing Editor at CIO.com.

10. Don’t leave the interview without: A strategic
vision Adapted from "DevOps Jobs: How to spot a great DevOps shop" on The
Enterprisers Project, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-
You should hear IT leaders, not just the CIO, articulate a Alike 4.0 International License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/
strategic vision for where the business is going. They should devops-jobs-how-spot-great-devops-shop.

20 THE ULTIMATE DEVOPS HIRING GUIDE . CC BY-SA 4.0 . OPENSOURCE.COM
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How to stand out
and win a DevOps role
BY LAURIANNE MCLAUGHLIN

How can you stand out among DevOps jobs candidates? Apply this expert advice.

FOR IT JOB HUNTERS, some of to-
day’s most
desirable jobs are DevOps [1] jobs. A company with a
teams. He also has some tips for people breaking into
DevOps for the first time.

strong commitment to DevOps wants people to run fast, The Enterprisers Project (TEP): How has DevOps
experiment, and iterate their way to success [2]. These or- changed the way companies staff IT organizations?
ganizations prize innovation. But the DevOps methodology
and culture [3] turns some old rules about IT job hunting Reeves: We have seen our customers at Datical look for
upside down. gifted generalists instead of platform specialists. In the past,
For instance, your ability to spot trouble and turn around companies would hire an Oracle DBA or a Solaris Adminis-
failures now trumps certifications, says Robert Reeves [4], trator. Those roles are changing dramatically just like “ma-
CTO at Datical [5], a database release automation company. chine operators” in manufacturing. Previously, companies
For DevOps teams, companies need people who can think would hire a person to do a specific job over and over again,
on their feet – and communicate clearly to all kinds of peo- never deviating.
ple, from marketing team members to engineers. Remem- With the explosion of platforms and software used by
ber, DevOps is all about cross-functional [6] teams. today’s enterprises, IT organizations need people that can
As a DevOps job applicant, how can you demonstrate quickly learn new technology and excel. Thus, the move to
that you check all those boxes? Moreover, how can you gifted generalists.
stand out? Here, Reeves shares some practical advice
based on his experience in the trenches with DevOps TEP: What are the most in-demand roles, the key ones
companies need to fill in today’s IT organizations prac-
ticing DevOps?

Reeves: Technology, with DevOps, is more about process
management than technical expertise on a specific platform.
It’s not a specific role that’s in-demand but the type of per-
son. Companies need administrators than can code and
coders that can administrate.
Just as developers are now expected to understand the
platform they write code for, the same is true for administra-
tors who must be able to perform their job with code (Infra-
structure as Code).

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BEST PRACTICES FOR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

TEP: How can an applicant stand out during an interview release process. Detail how you identified the challenge,
process as a DevOps expert? What techniques do you your proposed fix, and how you brought others to see the
use to identify standouts? same thing you did. That is exactly what DevOps is.
This is very different than breaking into a role like Solaris
Reeves: Candidates should speak to their failures, what Administrator where a certificate is all that’s required to get
they learned, and how they turned it around. DevOps is that entry level position. You must show a track record. The
about identifying friction and resolving it. good news is that you have already done this. If not, time to
get started in your current job. These positions are in such
demand that the barrier for entry is much lower than, say, a
DBA or network engineer.
DevOps is about identifying friction
and resolving it. Links
[1] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/5/9-key-
phrases-devops
DevOps practitioners do not wait for someone to tell them [2] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/7/devops-
to do a specific task – the DevOps practitioner should iden- lessons-learned-advice-it-leaders
tify challenges, a plan to address, and enact the plan. When [3] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/4/devops-
complete, it’s on to the next challenge and the process be- success-4-reasons-teamwork-comes-first
gins again. “Pain is instructional” and thus the DevOps prac- [4] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/robert-reeves
titioner must appreciate failure and take it as an opportunity [5] https://www.datical.com/
to improve. [6] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/7/10-devops-
must-reads
TEP: How can applicants demonstrate their ability to
work in a DevOps culture?
Author
Reeves: Discuss past metrics and how you helped to im- Laurianne McLaughlin is Content Director for The
prove them. Also, demonstrate how you helped “win hearts Enterprisers Project, delivering analysis and advice for the
and minds.” Soft skills are a must for the successful DevOps IT leadership community. Previously, she served as
practitioner. Editor-in-Chief at InformationWeek.com and Managing
Editor at CIO.com.
TEP: Any advice for IT pros looking to break into a
DevOps shop for the first time?
Adapted from “DevOps Jobs: How to win that role” on The Enterprisers
Project, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0
Reeves: Odds are, you are doing DevOps today. Look International License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/devops-
at your recent past and find areas where you improved a jobs-how-win-role.

22 THE ULTIMATE DEVOPS HIRING GUIDE . CC BY-SA 4.0 . OPENSOURCE.COM
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How to tailor your resume
BY KEVIN CASEY

For DevOps jobs, your classic IT resume and interview preparations need a rethink.

AS THE DEVOPS HIRING WARS heat up [1],
top-notch pros will have
plenty of DevOps job opportunities. But if you expect to just
• Technology expertise. Let’s say you’re well-versed in
Python or Bash scripting. Well, you might want to under-
score that when pursuing DevOps positions that place
cakewalk your way into a plum DevOps gig, especially if it’s significant emphasis on automation. That extends to just
your first move into a “real” DevOps job, you’re setting yourself about any application, language, or platform – if the em-
up for frustration. Even the classic IT resume needs a rethink. ployer needs it and you know it, make that evident, even
In fact, there’s a rub with the growing demand for DevOps if your past job titles don’t match perfectly with the role
talent. As Mike Durney, CEO of tech jobs site Dice [2], re- you’re seeking.
cently told us [3]: “DevOps is a relatively new role; therefore,
it’s challenging to demonstrate experience, given there ar- • Management experience. If you’re sizing up a DevOps
en’t years and years of working in the function.” It’s a techie manager position or similar role that involves managing
version of the job-seeker’s longstanding dilemma: It’s hard people, you’ll want to emphasize how you’ve successfully
to get the job without relevant experience, but you can’t get managed teams in the past.
relevant experience without the job.
The inspiring news: Most of the DevOps pros who’ve • Industry-specific experience. If a particular hiring compa-
come before you underwent similar trials when blazing the ny wants someone with previous experience in their indus-
path. Indeed, they had to start somewhere too, even when try – say, retail or healthcare – highlight your prior roles and
they had little formal “DevOps experience” on their resume. success stories in that sector.
“DevOps is a growing and changing area, and much of the
top talent in the industry are self-taught through conferences, Bottom line: Tailor your resume – don’t lie, but customize
courses, and certifications,” says John Reed, senior executive appropriately based on your background – for the DevOps
director for tech recruiting firm Robert Half Technology [4]. position you want.
Landing that first “official” DevOps role is often about “When a hiring manager scans a resume, they should be
translating past experience into a relatively new position able to see the keywords, phrases, technologies, and tools
and building new skills – both technical and so-called “soft” that are specific to the role quickly and easily,” Reed says.
skills – that align with DevOps objectives and methodolo-
gies. You’ll also want to appropriately tailor your resume and 2. Strategize how to translate traditional
other interviewing strategies for specific positions. We’ve IT experience
gathered some expert advice on how to do both. This is the next big step beyond customizing resumes for
specific roles. Think deeply about how your prior experience
1. Smart job-seekers never send the same translates well into a DevOps position.
resume twice “[Sysadmins], for example, are highly sought after for
This is good advice for anyone on the job market. It’s an es- DevOps roles – a candidate should emphasize their ability to
pecially worthwhile starting point for IT pros looking to shift
into DevOps from a more traditional role. You’re not going to
get very far sending out the same old resume time and time
again. It’s akin to throwing the proverbial spaghetti against
the wall: It just makes a mess, and even if a few strands do
stick, they probably won’t be very appetizing.
“Resumes shouldn’t be a ‘one and done’ project – if you’re
applying to multiple roles, you should also be sending re-
sumes to reflect how your prior experiences have prepared
you for each specific role,” Reed says. He shares three ex-
amples of non-DevOps-specific skills and experience that
might be desirable in a particular DevOps position.

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build and administer [infrastructure] and discuss the overall DevOps will demonstrate your desire to take initiative with
success of those projects,” Reed says. your career and with new processes and projects.”
That’s not enough, of course. Reed advises asking your- Moreover, spend time thinking about and learning to com-
self: “What are the other skills that are specific to the DevOps municate the value of DevOps. It’s one of the more hyped IT
roles you’re looking into that you can highlight and show your trends of the last 5+ years; are you just chasing that hype, or
capability to take on those additional tasks? A sysadmin who can you connect the dots between DevOps and the big picture?
is looking to make a transition into DevOps but who sub- “A candidate who understands the ‘why’ of DevOps will be
mits a resume specific to system administration will likely not extremely appealing to a hiring manager,” Reed says.
make it to the top of a hiring manager’s list. It’s not that the
skills aren’t potentially transferrable or sought after by the 5. Sometimes, what you don’t say is important, too
organization, but your resume should be doing some of the DevOps was born out of a need to move beyond old, siloed
work to explain why you’d be a valuable asset as a DevOps methods of working in IT that were no longer suitable in age of
engineer, for example.” digital business. DevOps is about embracing change and en-
This is especially important. Because we hear so much about abling technology to drive the overall organization. And guess
hiring wars and IT talent shortfalls, there’s a tendency to picture what? DevOps hiring managers aren’t in hot pursuit of the
packs of marauding recruiters warring over a resume laden with “cranky-but-brilliant” engineer who pines for the good old days.
the right buzzwords. Don’t be surprised to find out that you still “Hiring managers do not want someone who is stringent
need to sell yourself, especially early in a career pivot. in their old ways,” Reed says. “An innovator is someone who
“Explain who you partnered with and the leadership in- is constantly looking for ways to improve processes, and
volved in your projects,” Reed says. “You’ll also want to high- good companies want innovative team members. Someone
light your soft skills – the ability to work with and manage with an ‘if it’s not broken’ mentality will not be attractive to a
others – and your development skills.” company with a growth mindset.”
It’s OK to wax nostalgic from time to time – but maybe
3. Take on new projects and responsibilities save it for the next happy hour, and keep it out of the inter-
If you’re planning to transition to a DevOps role in the future – or view room.
at least want to keep the door open – actively seek out oppor- This is another reason to double down on incrementally
tunities in your current organization to work on relevant projects developing new skills, taking on new responsibilities or proj-
or take on new responsibilities. ects, and generally displaying a willingness and desire to
“As organizations have made the move to adopt DevOps try new things and embrace change. Silence on this topic
methodologies, they are looking for candidates who understand speaks volumes – and not in a good way.
the benefits and can explain where they fit in with the strategy,” “A candidate who hasn’t shown that they’ve taken steps to
Reed says. “Emphasizing cross-departmental relationships advance their career or skill set may be a red flag for hiring
and collaboration will certainly be a plus, as will extensive managers,” Reed says.
experience with cloud migration and a good understanding
of agile methodologies, development, and integration.” Links
It’s win-win advice: Even if you don’t seek out a DevOps [1] ttps://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-jobs-
h
role in the future, those examples are all highly sought-after 6-eye-opening-statistics
attributes in modern IT pros, especially in hybrid cloud [5] [2] http://www.dice.com/
environments that might require extra doses of all the above. [3] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-jobs-
6-eye-opening-statistics
4. Revisit your interview preparations for [4] https://www.roberthalf.com/work-with-us/our-services/
DevOps jobs technology
Tailoring a resume might involve, to some extent, ensuring [5] https://enterprisersproject.com/tags/hybrid-cloud
you’re speaking the keyword-based language of hiring man-
agers and recruiters. But the interview process, by design, Author
will separate the promising candidates from those who are Kevin Casey writes about technology and business for a variety
merely stuffing their LinkedIn profiles with DevOps-y jargon. of publications. He won an Azbee Award, given by the American
Be able to tell a story about how your past experiences and Society of Business Publication Editors, for his InformationWeek.
skills have prepared to you to add value to a DevOps team. com story, “Are You Too Old For IT?” He’s a former community
“Perhaps your organization just moved to implement choice honoree in the Small Business Influencer Awards.
DevOps methodologies – explain the benefits and effi-
ciencies that came as a result and how you were able to Adapted from “DevOps Jobs: How to tailor your resume” on The Enterprisers
Project, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0
get involved in the process,” Reed says. “Showing that International License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/devops-
you worked beyond your role in order to get involved with jobs-how-build-and-tailor-your-resume.

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Preparing for an interview
BY CATHERINE LOUIS

Want to build a positive, productive work environment? Focus on
finding a mutual fit during the hiring process.

HIRING THE WRONG PERSON is expensive [1].
Recruiting, hiring, and onboard-
ing a new employee can cost a company as much as
• A
ssess, vote, and select.
• Close on compensation.

$240,000, according to Jörgen Sundberg, CEO of Link Hu-
mans. When you make the wrong hire:
• You lose what they know.
• You lose who they know.
• Your team could go into the storming [2] phase of group
development.
• Your company risks disorganization.
When you lose an employee, you lose a piece of the fabric of
the company. It’s also worth mentioning the pain on the other
end. The person hired into the wrong job may experience stress,
feelings of overall dissatisfaction, and even health issues.
On the other hand, when you get it right, your new hire will:
• Enhance the existing culture, making your organization an
even a better place to work. Studies show that a positive
work culture helps drive long-term financial performance [3] (Image credit: Catherine Louis)
and that if you work in a happy environment, you’re more Job boards were invented during the Great Depression when
likely to do better in life. millions of people were out of work and there was a talent
• Love working with your organization. When people love surplus. There is no talent surplus in today’s job market, yet
what they do, they tend to do it well. we’re still using a hiring strategy that’s based on one.
Hiring to fit or enhance your existing culture is essential in
DevOps and agile teams. That means hiring someone who
can encourage effective collaboration so that individual con-
tributors from varying backgrounds, and teams with different
goals and working styles, can work together productively.
Your new hire should help teams collaborate to maximize
their value while also increasing employee satisfaction and
balancing conflicting organizational goals. He or she should
be able to choose tools and workflows wisely to complement
your organization. Culture is everything.
As a follow-up to our November 2017 post, 20 questions
DevOps hiring managers should be prepared to answer [4],
this article will focus on how to hire for the best mutual fit.

Why hiring goes wrong
The typical hiring strategy many companies use today is (Image credit: Creative Commons)
based on a talent surplus:
• P ost on job boards. Hire for mutual fit: Use culture and emotions
• F ocus on candidates with the skills they need. The idea behind the talent surplus hiring strategy is to design
• F ind as many candidates as possible. jobs and then slot people into them.
• Interview to weed out the weak. Instead, do the opposite: Find talented people who will
• C onduct formal interviews to do more weeding. positively add to your business culture, then find the best fit

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for them in a job they’ll love. To do this, you must be open to • W hat is the most fun you’ve ever had?
creating jobs around their passions. • What is your favorite example of a problem you’ve solved,
Who is looking for a job? According to a 2016 survey of and how did you solve it?
more than 50,000 U.S. developers, 85.7% of respondents [5] • How do you feel about paired learning?
were either not interested in new opportunities or were not • What’s at the top of your mind when you arrive at, and
actively looking for them. And of those who were looking, a leave, the office?
whopping 28.3% of job discoveries [5] came from referrals • If you could have changed one thing in your previous/cur-
by friends. If you’re searching only for people who are look- rent job, what would it be?
ing for jobs, you’re missing out on top talent. • W hat are you excited to learn while working here?
Use your team to find and vet potential recruits. For • What do you aspire to in life, and how are you pursuing it?
example, if Diane is a developer on your team, chances • What do you want, or feel you need, to learn to achieve
are she has been coding for years [6] and has met fel- these aspirations?
low developers along the way who also love what they • W hat values do you hold?
do. Wouldn’t you think her chances of vetting potential • H ow do you live those values?
recruits for skills, knowledge, and intelligence would be • W hat does balance mean in your life?
higher than having someone from HR find and vet po- • W hat work interactions are you are most proud of? Why?
tential recruits? And before asking Diane to share her • W hat type of environment do you like to create?
knowledge of fellow recruits, inform her of the upcoming • H ow do you like to be treated?
mission, explain your desire to hire a diverse team of pas- • W hat do you trust vs. verify?
sionate explorers, and describe some of the areas where • Tell me about a recent learning you had when working on
help will be needed in the future. a project.
What do employees want? A comprehensive study com- • W hat else should we know about you?
paring the wants and needs of Millennials, GenX’ers, and • If you were hiring me, what questions would you ask me?
Baby Boomers shows that within two percentage points, we
all want the same things [7]: Links
• To make a positive impact on the organization [1] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/
• To help solve social and/or environmental challenges employee-relations/pages/cost-of-bad-hires.aspx
• To work with a diverse group of people [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_
group_development
The interview challenge [3] http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2011/02/10/does-
The interview should be a two-way conversation for finding corporate-culture-drive-financial-performance/
a mutual fit between the person hiring and the person inter- [4] https://opensource.com/article/17/11/inclusive-workforce-
viewing. Focus your interview on CQ (Cultural Quotient [8]) takes-work
and EQ (Emotional Quotient [9]): Will this person reinforce [5] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2016#work-job-
and add to your culture and love working with you? Can you discovery
help make them successful at their job? [6] https://research.hackerrank.com/developer-skills/2018/
For the hiring manager: Every interview is an opportu- [7] http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/
nity to learn how your organization could become more ir- thoughtleadership/millennialworkplace/
resistible to prospective team members, and every positive [8] http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/
interview can be your best opportunity to finding talent, even thoughtleadership/millennialworkplace/
if you don’t hire that person. Everyone remembers being in- [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
terviewed if it is a positive experience. Even if they don’t get
hired, they will talk about the experience with their friends,
and you may get a referral as a result. There is a big upside Author
to this: If you’re not attracting this talent, you have the oppor- Catherine Louis is a Certified Scrum TrainerTM, independent
tunity to learn the reason and fix it. Agile coach, founder of CLL-Group.com, PoDojo.com, and
For the interviewee: Each interview experience is an op- founding member of Tech Ladies®.
portunity to unlock your passions.

20 questions to help you unlock the passions of
potential hires
• W hat are you passionate about? Adapted from “20 questions DevOps job candidates should be prepared
to answer” on Opensource.com, published under a Creative Commons
• What makes you think, “I can’t wait to get to work this Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License at https://opensource.com/
morning!” article/18/3/questions-devops-employees-should-answer.

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Tips for transitioning
to DevOps from other
IT specialties
BY KEVIN CASEY

Recruiters and tech leaders share advice on how IT professionals can land a new gig in DevOps.

THE AVERAGE SALARY for a DevOps
engineer in
the U.S. has hit $104,508, according to Glassdoor [1]. And
processes work and how they can be improved through
collaboration.”

60 percent of hiring managers are looking to fill DevOps 2. Consider certifications and other training
engineer positions, according to the 2017 Open Source Jobs programs
Report. When you see high salaries and high demand, it “With the growing demand around DevOps, there are in-
indicates an IT talent war. creased options for training and development programs and
No wonder IT professionals are asking themselves, “How certifications – those looking to grow their career in the area
can I transition into a DevOps role?” should address any skills gaps through these programs,”
To help you do just that, we rounded up tips from recruiting says John Reed, senior executive director for tech recruiting
and tech leaders. Their perspective should be beneficial to IT firm Robert Half Technology.
leaders and hiring managers as well as job seekers. In the Open Source Jobs Report from Linux Foundation
and Dice, three out of four open source pros said they feel
How to transition into DevOps jobs that certifications are useful to their careers, and half of hir-
ing managers reported they’re more likely to hire someone
1. Ask to be placed on challenging projects with such professional credentials.
“Technologies are evolving constantly, and a formal edu- Better yet, you might be able to get your current employ-
cation isn’t always possible er to foot the bill: 47 percent
given how rapidly skill sets of companies represented in
need to shift to keep up the report will pay for IT staff
with the market,” says Mike to seek certifications.
Durney, CEO of job-hunting However, some DevOps
site Dice [2]. “DevOps pros experts caution that certifi-
who are currently employed cations – unlike the situation
should work with their boss for hot IT roles of the past –
to be placed on projects that will only get you so far with
can be resolved through the DevOps.
integration of operations and As a DevOps job candidate,
development. your ability to spot trouble
“If there isn’t an exist- and turn around failures now
ing DevOps role within your company,” Durney advises, trumps certifications, says Robert Reeves [3], CTO at Datical [4],
“software developers should spend time sitting with the a database release automation company. Are you developing
operations team [or vice versa] to understand how their that kind of story to tell in the course of your current work?

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3. Find a DevOps mentor Shift product strategy, recently noted. (See DevOps Jobs:
“It’s also advisable for job seekers to seek out a mentor in How to spot a great DevOps shop [8].) IT leaders can incent
the field and attend some of the growing number of seminars employees to go learn new skills via side projects or meet-
and conferences around DevOps to stay in the know about ups, and then frequently share the knowledge with the team,
advancements in the industry,” Reed says. Gracely says.
Reverse mentoring, which flips ideas about pairing peo- “The proper way to address the need for ‘skills improve-
ple based on age, may be helpful for people looking to gain ment’ is not to think about it as ‘training’ (e.g., attend a
DevOps expertise. See Reverse mentoring: Is it right for IT? [5] course, get a certification), but rather to incorporate it into an
and How to succeed with reverse mentoring: 7 tips [6] for actual work activity,” Gracely writes.
ideas on rebooting traditional approaches to mentoring. If the group you’re interviewing with is doing this, that’s a sign
of a mature DevOps organization. For more, see Gracely’s
4. Build a tool that achieves new efficiencies article, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective DevOps. [9]
Automation is one of the most common goals of DevOps
teams. If you can help your current team – even if it’s not Links
actually a DevOps environment – achieve a better, more ef- [1] https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
ficient way to do a current process, especially if that process [2] http://www.dice.com/
is now automated, that’s DevOps resume gold, Durney says. [3] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/robert-reeves
“[It] is important for DevOps pros to show how a tool they [4] http://www.datical.com/
developed created efficiencies within a business. It’s more [5] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/reverse-
than working on software and a lot to do with automation.” mentoring-it-right-it
[6] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/how-
5. Work on open source projects and attend succeed-reverse-mentoring-7-steps
meetups [7] https://enterprisersproject.com/user/brian-gracely
One significant opportunity to build that kind of skill set and [8] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/devops-jobs-
portfolio: Contribute to open source projects. how-spot-great-devops-shop
“Professionals who are looking for a role at a new com- [9] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/7-habits-
pany can flex their skill set by working on open source proj- highly-effective-devops
ects and showing employers how they’ve solved a problem
through creating a new tool,” Durney says. “The beauty is a Author
lot of open source projects can be accessed in your spare Kevin Casey writes about technology and business for a variety
time online, so building up a resume or portfolio can be done of publications. He won an Azbee Award, given by the American
with a fair amount of effort, but not necessarily over a long Society of Business Publication Editors, for his InformationWeek.
period of time.” com story, “Are You Too Old For IT?” He’s a former community
Meetups, a staple of the open source community, offer you choice honoree in the Small Business Influencer Awards.
a chance to not only learn, but also network with DevOps
experts – some with a lot of expertise. Why? DevOps pros in Adapted from “DevOps Jobs: 5 tips for making the transition” on The
Enterprisers Project, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-
mature DevOps organizations think of training as a constant Alike 4.0 International License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/9/
process, as Red Hat’s Brian Gracely [7], director of Open- devops-jobs-5-tips-transitioning-devops-jobs.

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Section 3: Best practices for hiring managers

Is your hiring strategy
working for you?
BY CATHERINE LOUIS

The tables have turned: Instead of the boss interviewing for the best
employee, employees are now interviewing for the best potential
opportunity.

Everyone remembers being interviewed. Potential recruits will certainly
share both good and bad interview experiences, and word will get out
quickly whether your organization is one to pursue or to avoid, so it’s
best to start your journey now.

Consider it a learning journey. Each interview is an opportunity for
you to learn how your organization could become more irresistible to
prospective team members, and every positive interview can be your
best opportunity to finding talent, even if you don’t hire that person.

There is a big upside to this: If you’re not attracting top talent, you have
the opportunity to learn the reason why and fix it.

Traits of a valuable team player 30

Tips to hire the right talent 32

Questions hiring managers should be 34
prepared to answer

DevOps hiring strategies to attract top talent 36

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Traits of a valuable
team player
BY JOHN ALLESSIO

What do DevOps professionals value most in their teammates? Their
answers can inform your hiring and talent retention tactics.

EVERY DEVOPS [1] project benefits from
experienced DevOps team
members. But what experience and skills matter most? To
their hands dirty learning new models and interacting with
different systems.

understand operations and development perspectives, I 3. Collaboration
solicited input from our own internal DevOps team. They Because the entire team must continually evolve with ad-
provided valuable insights. One interesting aspect is that vancing technology, it is vitally important to ask questions,
the mastery of specific coding languages and tools was not express opinions, and ask for help when needed. DevOps
emphasized. professionals frequently enter new technology territory, so
Here’s what distinguishes the team members that DevOps in order to maintain forward progress, everyone must be
professionals prize. These traits can help CIOs and IT lead- comfortable admitting knowledge gaps, asking for help, and
ers fine-tune hiring and talent retention strategies: probing for information. “Teamwork makes the dream work”
– and the team wins or loses as a whole.
1. Self-motivation
Is the job a paycheck or a passion? Do team members indi- 4. Accountability
cate an inherent interest in DevOps? What have they done Every team member must deliver on personal commit-
to demonstrate a continued interest in learning about it? With ments. Because each team member has more responsibil-
all the hype about what the next big IT game-changer will be, ity, everyone influences multiple areas of the IT ecosystem
team members must be aware of what other people are us- and can impact the entire mission if there is a breakdown
ing, keeping an ear to the ground with open source commu- or new challenge. Lack of follow-through not only affects
nities (where innovation is happening), and experimenting current milestones, but also slows momentum as the team
with code firsthand. Also, attending trade shows and events attempts to get back on track.
such as PyCon, DevOps-
Days, Monitorama, and Ansi- 5. Balance
bleFest are a few examples This is a tricky one. In ac-
of how our DevOps team tion, an effective DevOps
keeps up with current devel- team maintains a well-or-
opments. chestrated momentum, with
each team member initiating
2. Flexibility and promoting collabora-
When it comes to DevOps, tion while meeting individu-
the days of narrow, special- al goals and commitments.
ized expertise are gone. Ev- Inadvertent focus on con-
eryone on the DevOps team sensus, rather than true
owns a bigger portion of the collaboration [2], can lead to
IT estate and must wear more hats and accept additional design-by-committee issues and inhibit productivity, delivery,
responsibility, from coding to deployment. Each team mem- and creativity. Each team member must be able to self-eval-
ber must be able to learn on the fly and be willing to get uate and balance communication and execution. The end

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result is the “ebb and flow” of learning while you transform als and good team players, but they’re even more important
your IT environment. for DevOps environments.
Given the importance of team dynamics in the DevOps
6. Trust way of working, involve your DevOps team in the hiring
An effective DevOps team always assumes positive intent [3]. process [4] to ensure that they observe candidates up
The “blame game” has no place in retrospectives and root close. If a candidate demonstrates these qualities and can
cause analysis. Placing blame and focusing on mistakes articulate why they are important, this is a good indication
is the best way to shut down innovation and collaboration. of their value in your DevOps organization.
Sooner or later everyone on the team will have a misstep.
Viewing missteps as opportunities to learn and evolve, rather Links
than as setbacks, further empowers the entire team. [1] https://enterprisersproject.com/tags/devops
[2] https://opensource.com/open-organization/17/11/what-is-
7. Good old-fashioned smarts collaboration
Being an ace coder is not enough. Each team member [3] https://opensource.com/open-organization/17/2/assuming-
must be able to assimilate new information, apply new un- positive-intent
derstanding, know how to look for help, and have excellent [4] https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2017/8/devops-jobs-
judgment. Since DevOps focuses on enabling new solutions, how-spot-great-devops-shop
it is unreasonable to expect DevOps teams to know or be
familiar with everything from the start, including the latest
deployment models, programming languages, and CI/CD Author
systems. Hence, the importance of demonstrating solid grey John Allessio joined Red Hat in September, 2014 as Vice
matter and ability and desire to be a perpetual student. President, Global Services. He is responsible for consulting
services, training services, and business partner enable-
Spotting DevOps MVPs ment, globally. This organization of more than 1400 profes-
Admittedly, many of these characteristics are in alignment sionals has the mission to ensure client success with Red
with good hiring practices, including self-motivated individu- Hat technologies.

Transparency. Adaptability. Inclusivity.
Community. Collaboration.
Adapted from “7 traits of a valuable DevOps team player” on The Enterprisers
Project, published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0
International License at https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2018/3/7-traits-
valuable-devops-team-player.

It's open. For business.
opensource.com/open-organization

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Tips to hire the
right talent
BY CONOR DELANBANQUE

Here’s how to hire top DevOps talent in a trending market.

AS MANY OF US in the DevOps scene
know, most companies
are hiring, or at least trying to do so. The required skills
Decide on the background
Assess the strengths of your existing team. Do you already
have some amazing software engineers but lack the infra-
and job descriptions can change entirely from company to structure knowledge? Aim to close these gaps in skills. You
company. As a broad overview, most teams are looking for may have been given the budget to hire for DevOps, but you
a candidate from either an operations and infrastructure don’t need to spend weeks or months searching for the best
background or a software engineering and development software engineer who happens to use Docker and Kuber-
background, combined with key skills relating to continuous netes because they are the current hot trends in this space.
integration, configuration management, continuous delivery/ Find the person who will provide the most value in your envi-
deployment, and cloud infrastructure. Currently in high de- ronment, and go from there.
mand is knowledge of con-
tainer orchestration. Contractor or permanent
In the ideal world, the two employee?
backgrounds would meet Many hiring managers will
somewhere in the middle to automatically start search-
form Dev and Ops, but most ing for a full-time permanent
candidates lean toward one employee when their needs
side or the other while main- may suggest that they have
taining sufficient skills to un- other options. Sometimes a
derstand the needs and de- contractor or a contract-hire
mands of their counterparts is your best bet. If you’re
to work collaboratively and aiming to design, implement,
achieve the end goal of con- and build a new DevOps en-
tinuous delivery/deployment. Every company is different and vironment, why not find a senior person who has done this
there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong here. It all depends on a number of times already? Try hiring a senior contractor
your infrastructure, tech stack, other team members’ skills, and bring on a junior full-time hire in parallel; that way, you’ll
and the individual goals you hope to achieve. be able to retain the external contractor knowledge by hav-
ing them work alongside the junior hire. Contractors can be
Focus your hiring expensive, but the knowledge they bring can be invaluable,
Now, given the various routes to becoming a DevOps practi- especially if the work can be completed over a shorter time-
tioner, how do hiring managers focus their search and selec- frame. Again, this is just another point of view and you might
tion process to ensure that they’re hitting the mark? be best off with a full-time hire to grow the team.

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CTRL-F is not the solution Drop the ego
Focus on their understanding of DevOps and CI/CD-related You may have an amazing company and/or product, but you
processes over specific tools. I believe the best approach is also have some hot competition. Everyone is hiring in this
to find someone who understands the methodologies over space, and candidates have a lot of the buying power. It is
the tools. Does your candidate understand the concept of no longer as simple as saying, “We are hiring” and the awe-
continuous integration or the concept of continuous deliv- some candidates come flowing in. You need to sell your op-
ery? That’s more important than asking whether your can- portunities. Maintaining a reputation as a great place to work
didate uses Jenkins versus Bamboo versus TeamCity and is also important. A poor hiring process, such as interviewing
so on. Try not to get caught up in the exact tool chain. Fo- without giving feedback, can contribute to bad rumors being
cus on the candidate’s ability to solve problems. Are they spread across the industry. It takes only a few minutes to
obsessed with increasing efficiency, saving time, automating leave a sour review on Glassdoor.
manual processes, and constantly searching for flaws in the
system? They might be the person you were looking for, but A smooth process is a successful one
you missed them because you didn’t see the word “Puppet” “Let’s get every single person in the company to do a one-
on the resume. hour interview with the new DevOps person we are hiring!”
No, let’s not do that. Two or three stages should be suffi-
Work closely with your internal talent acquisition team cient. You have managers and directors for a reason. Trust
and/or an external recruiter your instinct and use your experience to make decisions on
Be clear and precise with what you’re looking for, and have who will fit into your organization. Some of the most success-
an ongoing, open communication with recruiters. They can ful companies do one phone screen followed by an in-person
and will help you if used effectively. The job of these recruit- meeting. During the in-person interview, spend a morning or
ers is to save you time by sourcing candidates while you’re afternoon allowing the candidate to meet the relevant lead-
focusing on your day-to-day role. Work closely with them and ers and senior members of their direct team, then take them
deliver in the same way that you would expect them to deliv- for lunch, dinner, or drinks where you can see how they are
er for you. If you say you will review a candidate by X time, on a social level. If you can’t have a simple conversation
do it. If they say they’ll have a candidate in your inbox by Y with them, then you probably won’t enjoy working with them.
time, make sure they do it, too. If the thumbs are up, make the hire and don’t wait around.
Start by setting up an initial call to talk through your re- A good candidate will usually have numerous offers on the
quirements, lay out a timeline in which you expect candi- table at the same time.
dates by a specific time, and explain your process in terms If all goes well, you should be inviting your shiny new em-
of when you will interview, how many interview rounds, and ployee or contractor into the office in the next few weeks,
how soon you will be able to make a final decision on wheth- and hopefully many more throughout the year.
er to accept or reject candidates. If you can get this relation- This article was originally published on DevOps.com and
ship working well, you’ll save lots of time. And make sure republished with author permission.
your internal teams are focused on supporting your process,
not blocking it. Author
Conor Delanbanque has been building and scaling teams in
$$$ the DevOps space for some time now. Along with supporting
Decide how much you want to pay. It’s not all about the the growth of some of the most innovative DevOps and SRE
money, but you can waste a lot of your time and others’ organizations in the U.S. and Europe, Conor also founded
if you don’t lock down the ballpark salary or hourly rate the Future of DevOps Thought Leaders Debate. He regularly
that you can afford. If your budget doesn’t stretch as far supports and sponsors meetup groups such as DevOpsNYC
as your competitors’, you need to consider what else can and DockerNYC. He was a keynote speaker at DevOpsDays
help sell the opportunity. Flexible working hours and re- Cuba, 2017 and has contributed to a number of online publi-
mote working options are great ways to do this. Most com- cations and podcasts.
panies have snacks, beer, and cool offices nowadays, so
focus on the real value, such as the innovative work your
Adapted from “7 steps to DevOps hiring success” on Opensource.com,
team is doing and how awesome your game-changing published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International
product might be. License at https://opensource.com/article/18/3/7-steps-devops-hiring-success.

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Questions hiring
managers should be
prepared to answer
BY CATHERINE LOUIS

Fostering a diverse, inclusive work environment is more important than ever—especially
for DevOps teams, where candidates often call the shots. Here’s how one situation went
wrong, and some questions to keep your hiring on track.

MAKING ANY TEAM MORE INCLUSIVE doesn’t
happen by default.
You need to be intentional about it. Inclusivity is especial-
“Tell me about the team—do they get together for lunches
or dinners?”
She held her hand over the phone and whispered at me,
ly important if you’re building a DevOps team responsible “17 guys, no women on the team. They don’t socialize with
for increasing communication and collaboration across the their boss.
board to ensure quality for internal or external customers. “So, 17 guys. Any women on the team? Any from out of
I witnessed this first-hand during a recent interaction in- the country?”
volving my daughter, who was being recruited to join a new
development team. I was at my daughter’s house in Berlin,
sitting at her kitchen counter sipping an awesome glass of “So, 17 guys. Any women on the
Chardonnay and watching her make pasta. Besides being
an excellent cook, she’s a techie, a pretty awesome data team? Any from out of the country?”
wrangler, and a freelancer in high demand.
Her phone rang. (Actually, I think it barked.) She looked at She held her hand over the phone again: “He’s talking
the number and said, “Sorry, I’ve gotta take this—it’s about about Agnes the cleaning lady now!”
a gig.” “Agnes? Let me replay this just to make sure I got it: You
I settled in and listened to her side of the conversation. have one cleaning lady on the team who comes in mornings,
Here’s how it went: lunch, and evenings to pick
“Tell me, in your own words up after the guys?”
please, if/when this product She looked at me and
is released, how is the world did that thing where she
going to be a better place?” crosses her eyes, then whis-
Good girl—she’s asking if per-screamed, “I’d be the
they have a vision! second woman, after the
She looked at me and cleaning lady, on this team!
frowned. “OK. Tell me about the
“Do we have access to the benefits.”
customer?” She looked at me, held the
Her frown deepened. phone away, and whispered,

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“Free all-you-can-drink craft beer. Quick, what’s that per Questions candidates might ask
month in dollars?” • T ell me, in your own words, how this product/service makes
I jotted numbers on a napkin: somewhere between 3-8 the world a better place.
beers a day, let’s just say 5 beers a day, at $6 a beer … I • Tell me what life is like working here.
whispered back, “$600 a month.” • Describe a typical day for the person in this position.
“Would it be possible, instead of craft beer, to be comped • What values does your organization hold, and how do you
an additional $600/month? I don’t drink beer. Hmm … OK. live those values?
No, I’m not interested in free running shoes every two • Personalize a few questions for values—for example, what
months, either, unless this can be comped. Hmm ... no. OK.” does a “sustainable pace” mean at this company?
She looked at me and crossed her eyes again. • If you could change one thing about the job/team/organiza-
“How is code deployed?” tion, what would it be?
She made a question face. • What would “setting someone up for success” mean for
“OK ... hmmm ... may I see the CI console?” this job/team/organization?
Good girl, trust and verify. If the team doesn’t know the URL • How large is the team? What is the background/experi-
or have it easily bookmarked, they aren’t paying attention to it ence of team members?
and don’t care about getting better. • How many team members have been here for more than
She frowned. 3 years?
“When do you do your deploys?” • What is the onboarding procedure for this position—first
She whisper-screamed, “ONCE A MONTH, ON FRIDAY day, week, month? What support do you offer?
NIGHT!” • Does the team get together for lunch or dinner? (Do they
“No thanks—sorry, gotta go. I am really not interested in have enough of a relationship to enjoy socializing with one
this position at all.” another outside of work?)
After she got off the call, I held up my glass, clinked it with • How and why are teams formed and reformed? (This ques-
hers, and we drank to her having cleverly weeded out a bad tion can offer insights into PMO organizations.)
opportunity. • Do employees have access to the customer?
Long story short: If you want an inclusive organization, • Tell me about the relationships employees have with stake-
you must work for it. Be prepared to tackle the questions my holders, suppliers, and partners.
daughter asked, and more. She’s not alone: Her savvy en- • Is adaptive development supported? Is shared learning
gineering friends are learning quickly how to spot the poten- used and encouraged?
tially toxic organizations. Developing an inclusive, top-talent • What are the biggest challenges?
team means you can answer questions like the ones she • When and how is code deployed?
asked – and provide the answers recruits want to hear. • What current tools do you use? May I see the CI console?
Don’t do what this guy did (or didn’t do): He did not ask her • What safe-to-fail systems are in place to help us learn? Is
why she wasn’t interested. If he had, he might have learned failure tolerated?
what needs to change to attract top candidates like her. The • What are some of the things you wish you were doing?
tables have turned these days: Instead of the boss interview- How long will you remain in this position? (Don’t accept a
ing for the best employee, employees are interviewing for job with a boss who is about to leave.)
the best potential opportunity.
Everyone remembers being interviewed. Potential recruits
will certainly share both good and bad interview experienc- Author
es, and word will get out quickly whether your organization is Catherine Louis is a Certified Scrum TrainerTM, independent
one to pursue or to avoid, so start your journey now. Agile coach, founder of CLL-Group.com, PoDojo.com, and
I’ve included a list of questions below that candidates founding member of Tech Ladies®.
might find helpful to determine which organizations value
diversity and inclusiveness. If any of these questions help Adapted from “20 questions DevOps hiring managers should be prepared
to answer” on Opensource.com, published under a Creative Commons
during your interviews, let me know – I would love to hear Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License at https://opensource.com/
your stories! article/17/11/inclusive-workforce-takes-work.

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DevOps hiring strategies
to attract top talent
BY CHRIS SHORT

Tips from this DevOps recruiter can help you find, cultivate, and recruit great talent.

I DON’T OFTEN TALK TO RECRUITERS. As a matter
of fact, I don’t typically work
with third-party recruiters because all too often, they are in-
one recruiting a specialized skill set—is the bee’s knees
when it comes to really being able to tap into that passive
talent. That’s the thing that I think LinkedIn has created for
terested only in filling a job req, collecting their commission, themselves. You have people on LinkedIn who, they’re not
and moving on to the next one. Additionally, most recruiters really looking for a job, but they’re open to hearing about
don’t really understand the needs of a DevOps-minded or- jobs. And I’m able to connect with them. I think people really
ganization. But good recruiters are often the best source of have to understand that LinkedIn is a two-way street.”
knowledge when it comes to finding great talent. Ken added, “So this is something that I try to do a decent
When I sat down to write a piece about DevOps hiring, I job of, and I’m consistently working on it. You are looking at
knew that candidates’ and hiring managers’ thoughts would the best talent out there, based on their LinkedIn profile and
be well covered by the Opensource.com DevOps communi- how strong it is and what that brand is that they’ve created.
ty. But I thought it’d be great to get some tips from a recruiter But you also have to have a pretty strong brand yourself. So
on how to find, cultivate, and, well, recruit great talent for my LinkedIn profile, to me, is part of my marketing platform,
DevOps roles. that when I reach out to somebody, I want them to under-
Enter Ken M. Middleton [1] of Your DevOps Recruiter [2]. stand that I’m in the DevOps community—I’m commenting
Last year Ken reached out to me about potentially working on DevOps things; I’m looking at different DevOps articles.”
together during my job search, and I quickly recognized his Ken takes the continuous learning and feedback tenets of
honesty and candor. Ken knew what I was looking for was DevOps seriously.
outside of his wheelhouse and told me that. He earned my Ken’s second answer should not surprise anyone famil-
respect at that moment. iar with Opensource.com,
I sat down with Ken and but it might shock some
peppered him with hiring ques- folks in the DevOps world:
tions. Following are some high- “You’ve got to be active in
lights from our discussion. your local area, whether it’s
I started with a very direct with meetup groups, wheth-
question: How do you find er there are other, different
great talent? DevOps or AWS groups, or
Ken provided two interest- any other contact or class
ing answers. “The first one forums. You’ve really got to
you can probably guess: see what’s out there and get
LinkedIn. LinkedIn—to any- out and meet people.”

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Imagine that! Collaboration outside of silos works in hiring new technology? How do you assess if they have fully in-
DevOps. This is such an overlooked method of hiring. vested and walled themselves off from new things?
You don’t need to have a position to fill to better yourself Ken replied, “What I have noticed a little bit with some of
and meet like-minded people. I try to encourage introvert- the managers I’ve worked with is that they’re so focused on
ed people I work with to go to more meetups and commu- a specific technology that they’re willing to pass up on good
nity events. You don’t necessarily need to speak at these talent in regard to people who could pick up the technology.”
events. You don’t even have to ask questions. But at least It’s nice to know that checking boxes on a list is not the best
go and introduce yourself to someone. Eventually, you’ll way to go about assessing whether or not to hire people.
find somebody with a similar interest, and you can discuss Ken continued, “What I’ve found [is] if they’re making
things with them. Building relationships like this will net you their first DevOps hire, they’re so focused on the technol-
benefits beyond hiring. ogy—and as you know, there are so many different tools
out there that when you look at the combination of what
Filling the unfilled DevOps roles people can work with, it’s almost endless. So when they’re
One thing I learned while talking to Ken was that many so focused on, hey, this person has to have experience
DevOps roles go unfilled. with this configuration management tool, this monitoring
“I’ve been in the IT recruiting space for 11 years, but when tool, this container tool—and it’s like—okay, they may
I left my previous company and ventured out on my own in need to have that. But let’s talk about what you are try-
March of 2017, I started looking at all these DevOps roles, ing to accomplish. What could they potentially learn? And
and what I recognized is that a lot of the roles weren’t being what is that cultural aspect that you’re looking for? I’ve
filled. Some of these roles had been open for close to a year. found that when you get managers who are so specific on
And I didn’t understand the problem.” the technology that it’s so hard to fill their roles, that it just
Ken continued, “I started doing some research, and what makes it almost impossible.”
I found out is that you have your general recruiters trying
to recruit on these roles, and they didn’t clearly understand Hiring for culture fit
the difference between Git and GitHub. They didn’t know A few times during our conversation, the topic of culture and
what continuous integration means versus continuous de- finding a cultural fit [4] came up. Ken’s answer has forever
ployment. So, when they were speaking to these people, changed how I will interview:
they were using all these general terms and slinging peo- “I always like to ask people, ‘Tell me, what is your ide-
ple at these jobs that were not qualified for. And it was just al-type role? If you could have the druthers of what you’d be
wasting everybody’s time. You really need someone that doing and what type of environment you’re working in, talk
knows the lingo if you’re going to engage a recruiter to help to me about that.’ And so, when I’m working with people, I
you in your search.” try not to lead with a job. I might tell you, ‘Hey, I have a job
Take the time to collaborate with recruiters, too. Spreading that you need this XYZ technology,’ but I won’t tell you what
knowledge outside of the technical teams in an organization the culture is like. I won’t tell you what the company is like. I
can take it even further. won’t tell you anything in regard to what the company is look-
When I asked Ken if he uses the Silicon Valley method of ing for, because I want to hear what you’re looking for. And
hiring—looking at a candidate’s GitHub profile—he respond- if you’re saying something that’s in line with what I’m looking
ed that he rarely does this. “I’ll go and look at some people’s for—I have some people who are like, ‘I want to work for a
profiles, but I don’t look at their code because I don’t know startup company—I like a hectic environment; I like learning
what the hell I’m looking at. But what I do is try to make sure new things all the time, and I love it when they don’t have
I understand is all the different technologies and how they’re processes in place.’ Okay, that sounds like a company I’m
using them.” working with. But if you tell me—and I get this too—’I want
Recruiting from GitHub is a bad idea, Ken says. “It’s quite an established company; I don’t want to have to worry about
exclusionary [3]. [GitHub] has helped me build my knowl- having a job in two years from now or 18 months when our
edge overall. But I don’t look at GitHub. I do try to continu- crowdfund didn’t come through’—I listen. I let them tell me
ously figure out where I can find new people if it is different what they want. That gives me a sense of what type of cul-
avenues like that. I’m always looking for different avenues to ture they’re looking for.”
find people.” Brilliant! The approach shouldn’t be to sell a person on a
job, but to find the best fit for your culture and needs. A hard
Learning new technologies sell will typically get a person to buy in. But if a candidate has
Continuous learning goes a long way even outside of to be sold into your company, do you think they’ll be around
highly technical fields. after a year or two?
I wanted to press Ken on a problem I routinely have when Make sure a role fits the candidate’s needs and wants,
recruiting people: How do you know if a candidate can learn then tell them more about it.

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What secrets lie in reference checks “I’m trying to put something in your LinkedIn profile that
I asked Ken: How can you validate your assessment of a kind of speaks to you and your background and would make
candidate’s talent? you say, ‘All right, let me connect with this person and talk
Ken had an interesting answer to that question: “You’ve more about them.’ And one of the biggest things I always use
got to check their references. You’ve got to call people that with people is like, ‘Hey, listen, even if you’re not looking for
they’ve worked with and talk to them about what type of em- a job right now, it always makes sense to connect with a re-
ployee this person was. I love my consultants, and I think cruiter to know what’s going on in the market. I’m a DevOps
they’re amazing, and I’ll always advocate for them, but I nev- recruiting expert; I would love to share with you what I’m
er take someone’s consultant’s word. I just can’t do it. I’m seeing in the market, and you don’t need to be looking for
here to service two people: I’m here to serve the client and anything now, but a year or two from now, if you’re looking
I’m here to serve you. And me putting you in a job that you’re for something, I want us to build a relationship that you feel
not really qualified for, or you’re not a culture fit for, it’s not comfortable with.’ Because it takes time to build a relation-
helping you or me.” ship that you trust somebody, and that’s the thing I really
How do you gauge if someone’s fit for a specific position pitch to people: that I want to talk to you now when you’re not
based on their references? looking so when you’re ready you feel comfortable in know-
“I check their references, and I know in my mind what ing that I can advocate on your behalf.”
the client’s looking for, but I don’t lead the reference in that Much to my chagrin, job hopping is seen as a very bad
capacity. I will ask a question like, ‘Hey, tell me about John. thing in hiring. Ken explained:
Tell me about what type of worker he was. Walk me through “People jumping around a lot is always a red flag. Unless
what you can expect from him on a day-to-day basis. What you are an H-1B candidate—there are people who are just
would be the soft skills he had? What would be his weak- in situations where they need to take contract jobs—if you
nesses? How does he handle them?’ I’m listening to all of have a job, if you’re switching jobs every 18 to 24 months, it’s
those things, and then once I get a good sense of if they just a red flag, because there has to be something there that
are a match, I’ll even ask—and most of the time this works isn’t helping you keep a long-term job. Now, I know people
out: ‘Here’s the type of environment this person might be say millennials, millennials, millennials do it. That is true, but
going into. They’re looking for X, Y, and Z, this, that, and a lot of companies are looking for someone to put more than
the other. What are your thoughts on that person’s ability 18 to 24 months into a job. Some clients just won’t look at
to do the job?’” candidates if they jump around that much. They just won’t
And I’ve had people—you can tell the ones that are like, even look at them.”
absolutely, that person would be great for it—or when they I asked Ken: How do you measure demand for a particular
start giving you qualifiers, like, ‘He or she would be good if skill or talent? I wasn’t surprised to hear that folks are looking
they do this,’ or ‘Here is what I think that you need to make for Kubernetes skills.
sure the person understands.’ That helps me kind of create “Fortunately, I’m part of a company called TEEMA Group,
a picture if this person is an overall good fit. But it is a long, so I can see what jobs are posted out there even with my
thorough process because it does take time. And it’s not a partners. So when I start seeing a bunch of jobs that are
complete science; it’s a little bit of an art.” asking for a certain skill set, then I can tell it’s more in de-
How do you gauge the quality of a reference? How can mand. Like right now, Kubernetes—almost everybody and
you verify if a candidate sent a buddy as opposed to a their cousin is trying to get somebody with some Kubernetes
manager? experience. A lot of companies are thinking about container-
“I use LinkedIn to verify references. I don’t take friends, ization, microservices, with Kubernetes relating to the level,
I don’t take coworkers; I take managers. And when peo- and they realize the gains they can make by having it in their
ple give me people that they say are their managers and environment, and that’s a real hot one right now.
I can’t verify that through LinkedIn, that’s a little bit of a “Outside of Kubernetes—I mean, that’s just been so con-
red flag, too. And I rarely even present those candidates, sistent. Everything else is just kind of across the board,
because they’re giving me peers and saying they’re man- right? Like, everybody wants AWS—even though more com-
agers. Luckily, with LinkedIn, you can kind of filter a lot of panies are using Google Cloud, because I’ve heard it’s really
that stuff out these days.” good, that a lot of people like it. But AWS is the one if you’re
in a DevOps world, if you don’t have AWS experience, you
Establishing rapport, finding red flags, and really limit your chances. You almost have to try to get some
measuring talent AWS knowledge to be able to work in probably 80-85% of
It’s important when engaging a candidate to establish rap- the DevOps environments out there right now, because it’s
port. Find a similar interest to talk about. It’s even better just been the kind of go-to for so long that people just kind of
when that interest comes from the role itself. Ken elaborates use it without even thinking about it. I don’t know how many
on this idea: people look at Azure, but AWS is—they dwarf a lot of the

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competition right now. You need to really get experience with they were, right? And you still see a little bit of that today. So,
those two if you don’t have it.” what’s happened now is that everybody has ‘DevOps engi-
I asked Ken to elaborate on how he assesses someone’s neer’ on their resume. I mean, not that they don’t have the
skills for something as new as Kubernetes. experience—because a lot of them do have decent experi-
“That takes it back to what we talked about before. That’s ence—but it’s like if someone has touched any type of au-
the position I’m in right now. I have a client who wants some- tomated system or automation tool, or even just done shell
one with some Kubernetes experience and the position has scripting, they put DevOps on their resume, and they’re a
been open for two months, and we can’t find anyone with it. DevOps engineer.”
When we had one person that was really, really good, what Any prominent titles other than DevOps Engineer?
he was looking for, the guy took a different job. What I try to “DevOps engineers is a big one. Site reliability engineer
do is help my client understand you need to acquiesce a little is always out there. Build and release. I mean, those are
bit on some of these skills, and look at someone who has the the three that you see all the time. And then some people
ability to pick it up, someone that’s really good with Docker, just call themselves ‘software engineers,’ but if you look
has worked with different clusters, has worked a little bit with at their resume and read through it, then they’re doing
Kubernetes, and can pick up what they don’t know. I try to a lot of DevOps stuff. But the DevOps title has definitely
really focus on what previous situations they were in where proliferated a lot, and it’s on everybody’s resume; it’s just
they had to learn a technology that they didn’t know going a hot buzzword.”
into it. Have they a proven aptitude to do what they need to I hope you found our conversation as enlightening as
do to get up to speed on a new technology?” I did.

DevOps job titles Links
There is a significant amount of contention around DevOps [1] https://kenmmiddleton.com
job titles. Thankfully, Google’s Liz Fong-Jones and Seth Var- [2] https://yourdevopsrecruiter.com/
go have put the SRE vs. DevOps debate to bed [5]. But what [3] https://twitter.com/notnownikki/status/978752814955597825
about DevOps Engineer titles? [4] https://opensource.com/open-organization/16/6/hiring-
“You know, it’s a two-edged sword. Because before you open-organization-culture
would have people that called them software engineers, [5] https://www.youtube.com/
right? But they were using all the different tools. They were watch?v=uTEL8Ff1Zvk&feature=youtu.be
using Docker, they were using Jenkins, and they were using
all these VM tools, Chef, Ansible, and Puppet, but they were Author
considered software engineers. But people were discounted Chris Short is a Senior DevOps Advocate | CNCF Ambassador |
then because their title didn’t say ‘DevOps engineers,’ but opensource.com Community Moderator | Writes devopsish.com

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