WHAT IS A DEVOPS ENGINEER ?
The DevOps Engineer should possess a keen mind for solving tough problems and evaluating solutions, while partnering with team members along the way. They should be personable, efficient, flexible and communicative. Someone who possesses a strong desire to effect change, who can weigh best practice advice against practical implementation goals and has a passion for what they do will thrive in this role. This role provides the opportunity to be a leader within a department that’s fast-paced, dynamic, and quickly growing in all areas.
Need-to-Know Overview of a DevOps Engineer
1. DevOps Engineer Duties and Responsibilities
- Strengthen our application and environment security
- Skilled maintenance of SSO/2FA processes
- Apply standards and best practices and provide tooling to make streamline development workflows and perfect service delivery processes
- Create, maintain, and iterate on our CI/CD processes for new and existing services
- Proficiency with Terraform, using modules and DRY design of infrastructure code
- Proficiency with Linux systems administration
- Proficiency with Git version control system
- Increase the sophistication of our monitoring, alerting, and escalation mechanisms
- Keep up to date on modern technologies and trends and advocate for their inclusion within products when it makes sense
- Help increase system performance with a focus on high availability and scalability
- Propose, scope, design, document, and implement infrastructure architectures
- Work collaboratively with development team to help deliver products and features from conception to delivery
- Continue to keep the lights on (day-to-day administration)
- Help define, document, evolve, and evangelize high engineering standards and best practices across multiple areas
- Move quickly and intelligently - seeing technical debt as a barrier to future speed
2. DevOps Engineer Education and Experience
- Fluent in Python and Python testing best practices
- Familiar with Django and Django design patterns
- Experience working in and advocating for agile environments
- Familiar with software security best practices
- Extensive experience working within AWS and its managed products (EC2, ECS, ECR, R53, SES, Elasticache, RDS, Redshift, etc)
- Strong experience working with automation tooling (Terraform, Ansible, etc)
- Proficiency with containers (Docker, Compose, ECS, Kubernetes) and diagnosing docker container issues
- Experience developing and maintaining AWS Lambda Step Functions
- AWS Code Pipeline and Code Build CI/CD development and maintenance
- Experience with Route 53 DNS maintenance
- Strong understanding of DNS, TCPDUMP, CDNS, SSL, Firewalls and networking concepts (VPC, subnetting, VPNs, etc) and VPC segregation (public/private/data zones)
- Experience deploying microservice architecture, applications, and supporting services
- Experience working on high-traffic high availability systems
- Understanding of monitoring tools (Pagerduty, CloudWatch, Datadog, Sentry, etc)
- Experience working within large-scale decoupled, service-oriented systems a plus
- Database administration of PostgreSQL
Career Overview FAQs
What does a career overview explain?
A career overview explains what a profession involves, including the purpose of the role, the type of work professionals typically perform, and how the position contributes to organizations or industries. It helps readers understand the field before exploring more detailed resources such as job responsibilities, required skills, and career requirements.
What do professionals in this career typically do?
Professionals in this field usually manage projects or tasks, collaborate with teams, analyze information, and solve problems related to business or organizational objectives. Daily responsibilities may vary depending on experience level, specialization, and the organization where the role is performed.
What skills are commonly required for this career?
Most careers require a combination of technical skills related to the profession and professional skills such as communication, teamwork, problem solving, and analytical thinking. These abilities help professionals perform effectively in different work environments and across various organizational roles.
What is the typical career path in this field?
Many professionals begin in entry-level roles where they gain foundational knowledge and practical experience. Over time, they may progress to mid-level or senior positions that involve greater responsibility, specialization, or leadership within their organization or industry.
How can someone start a career in this field?
Starting a career in this field typically involves building relevant knowledge, gaining practical experience, and developing the key skills associated with the profession. Preparing strong application materials, such as a targeted resume and cover letter, can also help candidates pursue entry-level opportunities successfully.
Editorial Process
Lamwork content is developed through structured review of publicly available job postings and documented hiring trends.
Editorial operations are managed by Thanh Huyen, Managing Editor, with research direction and final oversight by Lam Nguyen, Founder & Editorial Lead. Content is periodically reviewed to reflect observable labor market changes.