
When you need high quality outcomes in your software delivery but in lesser time, DevOps is the way.
However, there has been a persistent confusion, and decision-makers have been seen as hesitant. They could not reach a conviction on whether they actually need to hire DevOps engineers or are they just falling into trend-trap. And they are right in their apprehension. After all, expertise comes at a cost, and a bad decision can exacerbate the issue.
To helps towards this decision-making process, we are sharing guiding points to helps you identify whether you really need to hire developers or not.
When to Hire DevOps Engineer?
To answer is directly, you need to hire developers in DevOps when you want to automate and improve your software delivery processes and achieve speed with efficiency.
This can be in multiple conditions such as your organization is experiencing:
Growing development team.
Increasingly complex infrastructure
Competitive pressure and frequent deployment failures
Prioritize security concerns
Gaps in skills and expertise
Let’s discuss this aspect in detail.
Growing development team
If your current team needs expansion or you have already expanded your development team due to pressing needs of expediting development, this is the time your hire DevOps engineers as well.
They will need an efficient deployment setup and dedicated infrastructure management which a DevOps engineer will be able to achieve.
Increasingly Complex Infrastructure
The second scenario where it is imperative to hire develops engineers is if your infrastructure is becoming increasingly intricate. There are multiple cloud environments, microservices, and containerized applications that require specialized skills and focused approach for better management.
Here you need to bring DevOps engineers onboard to help you manage it properly.
Competitive Pressure and Frequent Deployment Failures
If there is an incessant competitive pressure on you to roll out software quickly and frequently, you need to hire DevOps engineers. The experts will bring automation to your software deployment process while ensuring minimal errors in deployment.
This will help you achieve faster and more deployment, leading to a competitive edge. Even if there is no competitive pressure but you are facing multiple deployment failure, it would be better for you to hire developers in DevOps. They will identify and address the root causes of these failures, improving the overall stability and reliability of your software releases.
Prioritize security concerns
This is an important consideration. When there is increase security compliance requirements, then, it is certainly the best time to hire DevOps engineers.
DevOps engineers excel at implementing the latest security practices throughout your software development pipeline. They will automate security checks, implement continuous monitoring, and ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR and SOC 2.
Gap in Skills and Expertise
If your existing team lacks the expertise to manage automation and infrastructure efficiently, don’t think twice to hire a DevOps engineer. They will bring the needed skills like automation scripting, cloud computing, and infrastructure-as-code tools.
They will help you accelerate your development and deployment processes with greater operational efficiency. And all the while enhancing the overall reliability and security of your infrastructure.
However, there are also time when you better not opt for the hiring option of a DevOps Engineer
When Not to Hire DevOps Engineers?
Don’t Hire just for “trendiness”
I understand that missing out on trends is difficult especially when every competitor of yours is joining the band wagon. However, logics says that don’t hire a DevOps engineer solely because it’s in trends. You need to have a clear need for their expertise and understand the value they can bring.
Without that, you are only going to waste your valuable resources and potentially disrupt your existing workflows for the worse.
Expect immediate miracles:
This consideration is important. Implementing DevOps is very different from the traditional software development process. While the latter is a linear process emphasizing distinct phases like requirements gathering, design, development, testing, and deployment.
DevOps promotes a more collaborative approach where multiple things go on simultaneously. It iterative and continuous where development and operations teams work together back and forth throughout the entire software lifecycle.
Therefore, you need to consider that it may require a complete cultural shift if you integrate DevOps practices. You need to be prepared to invest time in training before you onboard DevOps engineer to fully reap the benefits.
Treat them as a “fix-it” person
Do not hire DevOps engineers if you can get it done with from an IT professional. DevOps engineers are not there to troubleshoot but to make software development process smooth and automated.
Because, even if you successfully integrate DevOps practices into your processes, still try to keep your expectations in check. You need to involve them in the entire development lifecycle, working proactively to prevent issues.
Underestimate the skillset required
You have to be very clear about the skills you aim to bring by hiring DevOps engineer. It can be the technical skills like automation tools, cloud platforms, scripting languages as well as the soft skills such as communication and collaboration.
If you want to improve the performance of your team, you need to be aware where the gap is and what skills can fill it in. Else, you might be just adding a member to your team not a resource.
Ignore existing team dynamics
You also need to clear the ground for the new practice and see to it that your development and operations teams are ready to collaborate with a DevOps engineers. This will avoid unnecessary skirmishes and confusion and will lead to better outcome over time with members having clear expectation from each other.
Conclusion
Bringing DevOps engineers via different hiring model such as staff augmentation services, outsourcing is a strategic decision with capability to significantly improve your software delivery process.
However, basing you decision on emotions and wring reasons can create new problems rather than solving the existing ones.
That is why we have shared the reasons and scenarios when your need to hire DevOps engineer and when not? The list will help you assess if you have a genuine need for their expertise and are committed to adopting a DevOps culture within your organization or is it just the peer pressure.