Welcome to the age of DevOps, where innovation meets reliability! When the world embraces DevOps, why stay behind when you can be the front-liner by driving the ultimate digital transformation? It’s time to add the most talented DevOps professionals to your team. But whom to hire? A DevOps Consultant or a DevOps Engineer?
“DevOps Consultants are the navigators who strategize the DevOps implementation, while DevOps Engineers are the architects who build and maintain the DevOps workflows.”
Your next step is clear – you need someone well-versed in DevOps like these two who can drive agile-ready digital transformation. But, you must determine who’s help you need. So, let’s decode the key differences between DevOps Consultants and Engineers!
Who Is A DevOps Engineer?
The DevOps engineer is like any other IT professional who is an expert in implementing and managing DevOps practices. They are active members of development and operations teams who initiate more consistent and effective cross-team collaboration. So, their job role is crucial for enterprises that plan to optimize and automate their development and operational processes with DevOps.
What Does A DevOps Engineer Do?
Even though the role of DevOps engineers varies from organization to organization, here are their primary responsibilities for implementing various DevOps tools and strategies:
- Infrastructure management: They are responsible for provisioning and managing cloud or hybrid infrastructure alongside performing administration activities.
- Automation: Most engineers drive automation to eliminate the dependencies of repetitive tasks in DevOps processes. They use automation tools for Continuous Delivery in the CI/CD pipelines.
- Continuous Delivery: The engineers manage CI/CD pipeline operations, ensuring the code changes are regularly tested and validated before the production release.
- Data management: DevOps engineers handle data processing requirements of DevOps workflows. So, they design how the data will be collected and used in DevOps.
- Quality assurance: They coordinate with the QA team to identify and fix code errors and process-related problems. They ensure that the new releases don’t break the existing functionalities.
- Security: A DevOps engineer performs continuous monitoring and incorporates protection into the SDLC lifecycle. In this case, they work as a DevSecOps engineer implementing security measures.
Recommended Skills For DevOps Engineers
- Interpersonal skillset to take on managerial responsibilities
- Strong analytical skills for problem-solving
- Proficiency in scripting languages like Python and Bash
- Knowledge of container orchestration with Kubernetes
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines like Jenkins and Travis
- Strong grasp of the Git version control system
- Understanding of infrastructure provisioning like Terraform and CloudFormation
- Clear knowledge of Cloud Environments like Azure and AWS
Who Is A DevOps Consultant?
The DevOps Consultant knows what’s best for your business and helps you with the DevOps transformation. Businesses like yours often use third-party DevOps Consultancy Services to cut costs. That’s why most IT Consulting companies require DevOps Consultants to assist their clients with their DevOps-related requirements.
What Does A DevOps Consultant Do?
DevOps consultants create a unified vision of the DevOps culture that suits the existing business infrastructure using DevOps tools and best practices. Let’s explore their primary responsibilities:
- DevOps Strategy Planning: DevOps Consultants create roadmaps for organizations to embrace DevOps. They define organization-wide goals to implement the necessary cultural shift with DevOps.
- Assessment and Recommendations: The professionals assess the existing practices to recommend workflow optimization strategies. They also suggest which SDLC processes require immediate attention.
- Change Management: DevOps consultants take cultural change initiatives to incorporate the DevOps methodologies within the infrastructure. They help companies with a smooth transition to Agile DevOps.
Recommended Skills For DevOps Consultant
- Strong communication and leadership skills.
- In-depth knowledge of DevOps principles.
- Experience in change management and process monitoring.
- Expertise in DevOps tools and methodologies.
- Follow a customer-focused mindset to drive digital transformation.
Consultants Vs. Engineers: A Detailed Comparison
Now that you have a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of a DevOps consultant and a DevOps engineer, let’s draw a detailed comparison:
Focus On Technicality
DevOps Engineers primarily focus on technical aspects, while DevOps Consultants concentrate on strategy planning and organizational change. However, both professionals require a deep understanding of Agile DevOps methodologies.
Hands-on vs. Advisory Expertise
DevOps Engineers require hands-on expertise to use various DevOps tools and techniques for different phases of Software Development. However, the consultants do not directly work on the technical aspects. Instead, they offer advisory and guidance to businesses about their DevOps transition.
Daily Tasks & Responsibilities
DevOps Consultants handle different projects based on business demands. They shift from one project to another after successfully planning the DevOps strategy and implementation. On the other hand, DevOps engineers work on the same project for a long run. They handle the day-to-day management and monitoring of various DevOps processes and workflows.
DevOps Engineer or Consultant: What’s Best For Your Business?
Like every other small and medium enterprise, if you need to incorporate DevOps in your workspace, you require professional support from the experts!
Hire DevOps Consultants To Begin Your DevOps Journey
Once you embark on the DevOps journey, you will need DevOps Consulting Services to help you tackle a specific challenge. The consultants will assess your system and existing infrastructure to suggest the ideal DevOps tools and implementation strategies. They will guide you to make a strategic move in the right direction.
Hire DevOps Engineers As The Technological Backbone
However, you need continuous support to manage your DevOps processes and workflows. Hiring DevOps Engineers help you overcome the technical challenges that you might face in the future. They handle the CI/CD pipelines, code deployments, and process monitoring. They design and build the technological backbone and stabilize platform performance with ease.
So, you must explore whose help you need for your business! You must be explicit about what you expect from the DevOps Engineers to avoid hiring someone who cannot fully execute their vision.
Summing Up: It’s Time To Choose!
Are you ready to hire a DevOps Engineer or Consultant to empower your Development and Ops teams? Even though you might find it cost-effective to engage a third-party DevOps consultant, you must agree with the roadmap for the DevOps Implementation. You must hire expert DevOps Engineers who can understand what changes the approach suggests with clarity. Ultimately, the choice between a DevOps Consultant and a DevOps Engineer depends on you!
FAQs
1. Can I be both a DevOps Engineer and a Consultant?
Yes, you can be both if you have the right technical experience. However, the consultants require more expertise than engineers. So, you must take complete responsibility for the DevOps transformation if you become a consultant.
2. How to become a DevOps consultant?
DevOps engineers can become consultants once they acquire the same technical skills. They also require at least seven years of experience in Information Technology. Further, they can do external certifications to apply for the Consultant position.
3. What certifications should DeOps Consultants have?
DevOps Consultants should be certified as Advanced DevOps Engineers from Microsoft or Amazon. The certification signifies their knowledge and expertise in the specified domain.
4. Can a Developer become a DevOps engineer?
Most DevOps engineers know how to do coding using Java or Python. So, developers can work as DevOps engineers. However, they must learn other DevOps tools like Git and Kubernetes. Then, it will be easier for them to handle various DevOps processes alongside development activities.
5. What’s the basic salary for DevOps Engineers and Consultants?
The basic salaries of DevOps Engineers and Consultants depend on their expertise level and certification details. However, DevOps consultants have higher paychecks than Engineers. The average salary range is between 96K to 140K USD per annum.
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