How much experience you have in Devops?

Lots of recruiters and consultants call me and asked this ultimate question,”How much experience you have in Devops?”

This is how this conversation usually goes : –

Consultant : “Zareef, how much experience you have with Devops?”

Me : “Well, Devops terms was coined in year 2009, and I am working on the technologies and practices  which are covered under Devops since start of my career”

Consultant : “Actually, I was asking, how much experience you have in Devops?”

Me : “I was trying to answer the question, as it puzzles me a lot. So, on the safe side, I can say I am working on Devops since start of this term in the market, so I can say, since nine years I am working on Devops”

Consultant : “But, Earlier you have worked in capacity of CTO and Devops was not there?”

Now I am really puzzled, How should I react to this question.

Me : “Well, Devops is not a technology or tool which can be worked upon. It’s a combination of some practices and goals which can be achieved by using some specific tools. Even these tools are not common and we have more than few hundred tools in the market.”

Consultant : “Oh, I am afraid I am not from technology background, so I really do not understand this”

Me : “Not an issue, even people who are in technology are having difficulties in understanding it. This  will take a while”

Consultant : “Yes, technology is like that, it takes some time. Now, can you please tell me what exactly I should write about your experience. How many years?”

Me : “You can write nine”

Consultant : “But we are looking for someone who has 12 years of experience in Devops”

Me : “Terms was coined around  nine years ago only, so I am not sure  how I can say that I have 12 years of experience, but if you go by the loose definition of devops, yes I have experience of more than 12 years”

Consultant : “But then your profile does not have word Devops in description of your roles of  earlier companies”

Me : “Because there was not any word like Devops around 12 years back… but things which are covered under Devops are there in market since ages.”

Consultant : “I do not understand…”

Me : “I can understand.. It is not simple”

Most of the companies are going on hiring drive for devops and few people who are not familiar with the idea of devops are writing job description  which is making job of recruiters quite difficult.

How you should go about writing a job description for Devops role?

This can be a lengthy answer but I would like to summarize it.

Job Description for Devops role can not be generic, it has to be quite specific to company needs because devops of one company may not be similar to the devops of another company. For example, Devops for the Linux systems based company can not be similar to the company which is doing work on Windows platform. Devops for web technologies can not be similar to the Devops of mobile applications.

So in my view, you should ask following questions to yourself before creating a job description for Devops role :-

1. What tools and practices I can use to increase the speed of development in my company? Or what tools or practices similar companies are using?
2. What tools can help in my projects to do continuous development?
3. What tools can help in my projects to do continuous testing?
4. What tools can help in my projects to do continuous integration?
5. What tools can help in my projects to do continuous deployment?
6.  What practices can be followed to create a learning environment in my company?

Gather data around these questions and then create a job description and roles requirement as per the answer of these questions. Any person who is good in tools or practices your company needs is YOUR Devops person.