10 Ways to Hire Top-Notch DevOps Engineers

by Darryl K. Taft

Cloud computing is progressing at such a high velocity that we concentrate less on the sum of specific skills and more on the ability to understand and embrace new trends.

In a fast-growing startup or a new public company, it is important to find someone who can learn quickly and foresee how their work interacts, intercepts and supports constantly evolving business goals.

A DevOps culture can be the nucleus of a good software development lifecycle, so it is of utmost importance to hire highly collaborative people who can work with others who are in a variety of technology roles.

Great DevOps hires embrace automation and are willing, able and motivated to automate themselves out of their current job functions, allowing them to move on to ever more creative work.

Hire someone who is detail-oriented enough to take into account security, resilience and the velocity at which software engineers are tasked with supporting business goals.

The essence of great engineering is modeling: the ability to imagine something physical without being able to touch it, while retaining the ability to create and support it.

Attend conferences like AWS re:invent and your local technical Meetups to have interesting and in-depth conversations about the future of the industry. These events are opportunities to find great DevOps engineers who will want to join you in your mission.

Look for passionate people who are not afraid to innovate or adopt new methods in order to create something unique and great. Embrace the culture of greatness.

Pay your hires well. After all, a great DevOps engineer that embraces automation, a DevOps culture and modern cloud computing trends will save you a heap of cash in the end.

The only difference between play and work is consequences. Create an environment that accepts and learns from failures without finger-pointing, and your engineers will love their work.