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Ask HN: Is DevOps a fancy name for Back end Developer?

DarkNova6 3y ago
The devops person is the guy that should keep the ops part of the equation shielded from dedicated devs. So if nobody is devops, everyone is.
mtmail 3y ago
In larger organizations it's separate. Developers create software, add features, work with product teams. Operations teams takes the software, installs and runs it. Operations got more and more tasks and started automating more, thus developing their own tools, 'devops' title was created. In smaller companies the backend developer (or multiple) usually also does the devops tasks.
nittanymount 3y ago
haha, seems it is not. guess DevOps covers more than server-side development and operations, right?
gregjor 3y ago
No, the term refers to developers pretending to do system administration.
- doctator 3y ago
  what if you're a sysadmin pretending to dev?
rossdavidh 3y ago
In very small organizations, perhaps, but the knowledge and skills are not the same, so as soon as an organization gets big enough to have different roles for the code that runs on the server vs. the code that spins up the server, and etc., they tend to do it. To be honest, I've seen more cases where organizations try to combine front-end and back-end, than back-end and devops.
dave4420 3y ago
I’ve seen more places use devops as a fancy name for sysadmin than as a fancy name for backend dev.
Shinmon 3y ago
DevOps is more a philosophy than a specific role. Nowadays, there are a lot of positions that are devops engineers, but that's mostly sysadmin-like work but automating a lot by configuring systems through yaml instead of directly working on said machines. Of course, there are also people who develop internal tooling, and platforms enabling the developers to simply create test environment themselves. The real problem here is that every company has their own version of what they think that is ;) Backend developers might work on this a little bit, depending on the company but usually providing the infrastructure is usually not they main responsibility.

The devops person is the guy that should keep the ops part of the equation shielded from dedicated devs. So if nobody is devops, everyone is.

mtmail 3y ago

In larger organizations it's separate. Developers create software, add features, work with product teams. Operations teams takes the software, installs and runs it. Operations got more and more tasks and started automating more, thus developing their own tools, 'devops' title was created. In smaller companies the backend developer (or multiple) usually also does the devops tasks.

nittanymount 3y ago

haha, seems it is not. guess DevOps covers more than server-side development and operations, right?

gregjor 3y ago

No, the term refers to developers pretending to do system administration.

doctator 3y ago
what if you're a sysadmin pretending to dev?

rossdavidh 3y ago

In very small organizations, perhaps, but the knowledge and skills are not the same, so as soon as an organization gets big enough to have different roles for the code that runs on the server vs. the code that spins up the server, and etc., they tend to do it. To be honest, I've seen more cases where organizations try to combine front-end and back-end, than back-end and devops.

dave4420 3y ago

I’ve seen more places use devops as a fancy name for sysadmin than as a fancy name for backend dev.

Shinmon 3y ago

DevOps is more a philosophy than a specific role. Nowadays, there are a lot of positions that are devops engineers, but that's mostly sysadmin-like work but automating a lot by configuring systems through yaml instead of directly working on said machines. Of course, there are also people who develop internal tooling, and platforms enabling the developers to simply create test environment themselves. The real problem here is that every company has their own version of what they think that is ;) Backend developers might work on this a little bit, depending on the company but usually providing the infrastructure is usually not they main responsibility.