These days, more and more companies are making a leap toward DevOps. Tech leaders like Amazon, Adobe, Netflix, and Meta leverage DevOps to guarantee high-quality products and faster innovation delivery. Demand for DevOps in IT companies has grown due to the speed and agility this methodology provides throughout all phases of software development. In 2021, 83% of IT decision-makers embraced DevOps practices to automate processes and launch new applications much faster.
DevOps is a philosophy that offers a set of practices aimed at bringing development and operations teams together to deliver innovations faster. The advantages are clear, yet many organizations still struggle with the move to DevOps. DevOps transformation often starts with building an efficient DevOps team, namely engaging specialists with required skills to perform different DevOps roles.
This guide provides an overview of the major DevOps roles and responsibilities that are typically included in a DevOps team. Keep reading to find out what to consider if you want to build an effective team.
Why is DevOps important?
DevOps can be paramount to the success of your business if you are focused on profitability, productivity, and growing market share. And, of course, if your competitors have already adopted DevOps while you are still not there, chances are high that you will fall far behind in the race.
The main advantages of DevOps:
- Continuous software delivery;
- Better collaboration and communication between teams;
- Easy and smooth deployment;
- Maximum efficiency and scalability;
- Shorter development cycles driving innovation;
- Reduced deployment failures, rollbacks, and recovery time;
- Improved stability and speed of software deployment.
Typical roles in a DevOps team
DevOps teams usually unite specialists from the development, quality, security, and operations departments. A typical team might include the following positions:
DevOps Evangelist
Organizations must undergo a complete cultural shift in order to take full advantage of DevOps. Such shifts require evangelists who inspire and orchestrate DevOps culture adoption in a company. The DevOps Evangelist is responsible for initiating the DevOps implementation and actively inspires, educates, and motivates people in the organization to embark on the DevOps path. The DevOps Evangelist defines the roles and responsibilities of DevOps teams and selects the appropriate tools to support optimal software delivery.
The evangelist needs to ensure that the product is available in pre-production and production environments. He/she is in charge of finding the optimal ways to streamline processes and leverage the best practices throughout the SDLC.
The person in this role should have leadership skills. Introducing changes across the entire company is challenging, but with the right leader, it is highly probable. All in all, the DevOps evangelist is responsible for ensuring the success of DevOps implementation and maintaining the team’s unity.
Release Manager
Another equally important DevOps team member is the release manager. He/she is in charge of the entire release lifecycle, from planning, automating, and monitoring to continuous delivery environments. The release manager is primarily operations oriented. He/she coordinates a product from development to release and also monitors DevOps progress using different metrics.
The release manager typically fills the role of the project manager in the DevOps model but works through a lot of technical details a traditional project manager can not handle.
DevOps Architect
The responsibilities of a DevOps architect include reviewing current software development processes and building an optimized DevOps CI/CD pipeline to develop and deploy software in a fast way. The architect introduces best practices to accelerate and automate processes by applying the right tools and innovative technologies. Moreover, he/she oversees and controls technical operations throughout the project life cycle, works closely with developers and operators, and provides technical assistance when needed.
Automation Expert
The automation specialist is in charge of implementing strategies for automating repetitive manual tasks and converting them into scripts that the team can run on demand while developing, testing, and monitoring the application. The specialist is also responsible for finding the right automation tools for different processes.
Security and Compliance Engineer
The Security and Compliance Engineer (SCE) is a specialist in charge of the overall security of the DevOps environment. SCE works together with software developers to ensure that a product and DevOps environment is hardened against potential attacks and cannot be compromised. The security engineer is also responsible for developing detection methods and reviewing security requests.
Software Developers
Software developers write front-end and back-end code for new products, functionalities, security updates, and bug fixes. They perform unit tests and deployments, push the code into production, and supervise its performance. As part of the DevOps approach, they work side by side with QA to ensure that the code is released without bugs.
Developers must be familiar with different programming languages and understand various development strategies such as the Agile or Kanban methodologies. This agility helps your DevOps team to continually adapt and improve. Software developers should know how to manage the production environment and be aware of the challenges that IT departments face in managing code after it has been deployed. This knowledge is needed to destroy the silo structure that separates development from IT operations.
Quality/Experience Assurance Specialist (QA/XA)
While software developers are also partially in charge of testing, the DevOps team still requires dedicated Quality Assurance (QA) specialists. DevOps QA experts test and validate releases, document bug reports, and make sure that features conform to design specifications. As a rule, QA specialists check whether the final product meets expectations and is bug-free.
A strong DevOps testing framework also requires an XA (experience assurance) expert. The XA specialist works on the principle of quality assurance but is heavily connected to the customer experience and ease of use. They make sure that the final product not only works properly but also provides a smooth and pleasant user experience to the end customer.
Product Owner (PO)
The DevOps Product Owners are the managers who connect the customers and the DevOps team. They represent the client’s point of view on the DevOps team, guaranteeing that the right work gets done by the team.
The PO may be someone who is familiar with your business and its customers, or a specialist of an outsourcing company. The primary responsibility of the PO is to communicate with stakeholders and identify an agreed vision for the product. Based on this vision, PO comes up with a high-level product release roadmap, prioritizes the team backlog, determines product dependencies, and assesses the team’s progress.
How These DevOps Roles Cooperate Together
DevOps plays a critical role in modern product development. Its advantages range from a faster release cycle to improved team collaboration and overall productivity. In a DevOps setting, these eight roles work together to build an effective environment with shared responsibility for each product through development, deployment, and maintenance.
Depending on the business requirements of the organization, the structure of the DevOps team can vary. If you want to build the most effective DevOps organization structure, you will have to get through some trial and error. You should always look for people who have the desire to learn new technologies and the ability to develop in order to easily fit into a new role in the development team.
Read More: Key Benefits And Burdens Of DevOps As A Service
