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Generally in my experience, a company that's looking for a DevOps engineer does not know what DevOps is. DevOps is great, but it's not a title. It's beautifull

Generally in my experience, a company that's looking for a DevOps engineer does not know what DevOps is. DevOps is great, but it's not a title. It's beautifully summarized in "The DevOps Handbook" and it's fictional counterpart "The Pheonix Project". It's about culture. Some people might feel different and want to re-evaluate due to so many company adapting it in a similar vein many companies want to adapt agile. But make no mistake, you can't define it then, since then the context of the company defines the word. Thus sadly the word is slowly loosing its meaning. This is likely due to lots of management people wanting to adapt the buzzword without understanding it. This since it has have had such a great success in many companies that actually know what it is, have taken the DevOps culture to heart and implemented processes in line with it.

Jumziey 5y ago
In many way the adoption of DevOps has many similarities with the larger adoption of agile development. It just looses it original meaning in a world of little reflection and just surface level knowledge. Those who can manage to surpass that though can get great productivity from it though.
nhumrich 5y ago
Generally, in my experience, an individual who says, "DevOps is a culture, not a title", does not know what DevOps is. It can be both, and exclusive, at the same time. https://link.medium.com/tC5p4nfYCib https://link.medium.com/tC5p4nfYCib
- Jumziey 5y ago
  I think there's a point to the blog article itself, but i think you miss a vital point in the conclusion. The way a DevOps position that is described in the blog post is a valid position that could have DevOps in the title. But that's not usually how the DevOps role is used. This can be easily seen in many listings of the job title. The analogy with agile is pretty good here. Sure you could have an Agile Engineer, that works primarily with making sure the agile process is actually used and help facilitating that. Normally that would not be a position itself though, especially not an engineering one.
  - nhumrich 5y ago
    > you miss a vital point in the conclusion Never had someone tell me I dont understand my own conclusion to my own article before. Thats a first.
    - Jumziey 5y ago
      You can certainly misrepresent your own article. But in this case you're arguing different things as far as I interpret your text.
      - nhumrich 5y ago
        My argument, in both cases, is that devops can be a title, and that the blanket statement "Devops isnt a role", is incorrect. Sure, maybe some job postings are still wrong, but that doesnt mean they are all wrong.
vasco 5y ago
Whoever gets too hung up on this must've never had to hire people to do what the DevOps culture they so want to implement needs. If your plan is to just hire software engineers, you're going to have confused applicants, if your plan is to hire sysadmins, they probably will have a different skillset than you need. Most real companies hire DevOps engineers because that's the way to get the people with the skillsets you need. Being so purist about this sounds to me like useless debate, but maybe you have better suggestions. At my current place we stopped hiring DevOps and started hiring SREs + software engineers for specific internal teams, but for a few years there between 2010-2020, good luck getting people with DevOps skills without actually advertising DevOps roles.
- Jumziey 5y ago
  You can certainly advertise a DevOps culture in a listing that isn't for a DevOps engineer, it's not mutually exclusive. What's DevOps skills in your opinion?
  - vasco 5y ago
    You can also advertise for zookeeper or chef, but if you want people doing X, a good bet is to advertise for X. I asked for alternative suggestions and offered what we use. If you have suggestions of alternative titles you've successfully used to hire without slowing things down I'm all ears. > What's DevOps skills in your opinion? The most important skill is knowing to not fall for the bait that is this question so that you can actually work.
    - Jumziey 5y ago
      I'm all ears when you're on brake.
    - lhnz 5y ago
      But if you want Software Engineers that will take up DevOps skills and responsibilities, surely you'd want to advertise this DevOps culture instead of a role? Advertising this as culture is likely to attract people that want to work in a place without a DevOps/SE stratification. I think the only reason to advertise for it as a role, is when your tooling is too complex and you've given up looking for Software Engineers that could do it on the side. Which is fair enough, I guess, though providing a Golden Path nowadays is probably more popularly done by hiring Platform Engineers.
ransom1538 5y ago
"DevOps is great, but it's not a title." If you are out there interviewing for a DevOps job and you hear things like this: run. Every meeting you have with this person will be a living hell. Endless debates on semantics and definitions while your project is due today.
- Jumziey 5y ago
  So you think the issue is semantics and not understanding? Being due today and having 5 developers thinking the end goal is different and working against each other is way worse then spending some time building consensus and work toward the same goal

Jumziey 5y ago

In many way the adoption of DevOps has many similarities with the larger adoption of agile development. It just looses it original meaning in a world of little reflection and just surface level knowledge. Those who can manage to surpass that though can get great productivity from it though.

nhumrich 5y ago

Generally, in my experience, an individual who says, "DevOps is a culture, not a title", does not know what DevOps is. It can be both, and exclusive, at the same time. https://link.medium.com/tC5p4nfYCib https://link.medium.com/tC5p4nfYCib

Jumziey 5y ago
I think there's a point to the blog article itself, but i think you miss a vital point in the conclusion. The way a DevOps position that is described in the blog post is a valid position that could have DevOps in the title. But that's not usually how the DevOps role is used. This can be easily seen in many listings of the job title. The analogy with agile is pretty good here. Sure you could have an Agile Engineer, that works primarily with making sure the agile process is actually used and help facilitating that. Normally that would not be a position itself though, especially not an engineering one.
- nhumrich 5y ago
  > you miss a vital point in the conclusion Never had someone tell me I dont understand my own conclusion to my own article before. Thats a first.
  - Jumziey 5y ago
    You can certainly misrepresent your own article. But in this case you're arguing different things as far as I interpret your text.
    - nhumrich 5y ago
      My argument, in both cases, is that devops can be a title, and that the blanket statement "Devops isnt a role", is incorrect. Sure, maybe some job postings are still wrong, but that doesnt mean they are all wrong.

vasco 5y ago

Whoever gets too hung up on this must've never had to hire people to do what the DevOps culture they so want to implement needs. If your plan is to just hire software engineers, you're going to have confused applicants, if your plan is to hire sysadmins, they probably will have a different skillset than you need. Most real companies hire DevOps engineers because that's the way to get the people with the skillsets you need. Being so purist about this sounds to me like useless debate, but maybe you have better suggestions. At my current place we stopped hiring DevOps and started hiring SREs + software engineers for specific internal teams, but for a few years there between 2010-2020, good luck getting people with DevOps skills without actually advertising DevOps roles.

Jumziey 5y ago
You can certainly advertise a DevOps culture in a listing that isn't for a DevOps engineer, it's not mutually exclusive. What's DevOps skills in your opinion?
- vasco 5y ago
  You can also advertise for zookeeper or chef, but if you want people doing X, a good bet is to advertise for X. I asked for alternative suggestions and offered what we use. If you have suggestions of alternative titles you've successfully used to hire without slowing things down I'm all ears. > What's DevOps skills in your opinion? The most important skill is knowing to not fall for the bait that is this question so that you can actually work.
  - Jumziey 5y ago
    I'm all ears when you're on brake.
  - lhnz 5y ago
    But if you want Software Engineers that will take up DevOps skills and responsibilities, surely you'd want to advertise this DevOps culture instead of a role? Advertising this as culture is likely to attract people that want to work in a place without a DevOps/SE stratification. I think the only reason to advertise for it as a role, is when your tooling is too complex and you've given up looking for Software Engineers that could do it on the side. Which is fair enough, I guess, though providing a Golden Path nowadays is probably more popularly done by hiring Platform Engineers.

ransom1538 5y ago

"DevOps is great, but it's not a title." If you are out there interviewing for a DevOps job and you hear things like this: run. Every meeting you have with this person will be a living hell. Endless debates on semantics and definitions while your project is due today.

Jumziey 5y ago
So you think the issue is semantics and not understanding? Being due today and having 5 developers thinking the end goal is different and working against each other is way worse then spending some time building consensus and work toward the same goal