What does a DevOps engineer do?

This week I chat with John, a DevOps engineer. We discuss what DevOps is, why you don't necessarily need a degree to enter the field, and how important artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming within the industry

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ
• John Knight - DevOps engineer

Transcript

John Knight: So the idea of DevOps is it brings the two like groups of people together, so it could be implemented in different ways. So you can have operations people working closely with developers or you can have developers pick up skills to work in operations. 

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You. The podcast brought to you by graduate careers experts, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ»ÆƬ. I'm your host, Emily Slade. And in this episode I chat to John, who works in DevOps. 

John Knight: I'm John Knight. I'm a DevOps engineer. I work for a company in Newmarket. It's kind of like a chemical company who produce disinfectant products for hospitals.  

Emily Slade: How would you explain DevOps to someone who's unfamiliar with it? 

John Knight: So essentially it's looking after or creating and looking after the infrastructure that services in the cloud kind of sit upon. The term DevOps is coming together of two different fields in IT development and operations. 

Emily Slade: Mm. 

John Knight: So historically, you'd have those two teams or like groups of teams separately operate separately, so siloed off, you know which has its challenges. So developers would sit there, they design software, write code. When they're done, they'd literally throw it over the wall to operations, and then those guys would then just need to, like, figure out how it all needs to work together and how to deploy it and how to make it work properly. Yeah, I mean that's like not the ideal situation leads to like delays and finger-pointing, you know. So when things don't. Developers are saying operations in implemented properly. Operations are saying it wasn't written correctly. So yeah, customers are the ones that suffer at the end of the day. 

Emily Slade: Mm. 

John Knight: So the idea of Dev OPS is it brings the two like groups of people together, so it could be implemented in different ways. So you can have operations people working closely with developers or you can have developers pick up skills to work in operations and again vice versa, operate operations. People can then learn to do like some coding. So the idea is there's like a lot more synergy ultimately should lead to quicker delivery of software. And it also provides the opportunity where they can introduce automation, so always like menial tasks that people are doing like this moving around, clicking certain options that can all be scripted. So yeah, end of the day. It's it's. Yeah, it should be sort in quicker delivery software and happier customers. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. Oh, brilliant. So did you start as a dev or an ops? Or did you go straight in as a DevOps? 

John Knight: Yeah. So I kind of started probably in, in it just under 30 years ago. Yeah, I was studying at the college here in Norwich and did like the first two years and then we had the opportunity to go out and do like a year in industry. So I took that and I worked for the county council. So I went in as an analyst programmer. They didn't really like to set high expectations. You know, it's more like so you can get used to working in like an organisation. But yeah, it is really good opportunity. You like to pick up a lot of a lot of skills. So from there they offered me a job after that year, which I took and I was like also studying on day of these, but from the county council, I was there for like 10 years. I think I've been moved on to like a new company. Many years of development and I kind of got into database administration, so that was that's like a whole kind of like field by itself and then. I maybe like 5 or 6 years as a DBA and then. We had like some transitions in the company. And became like a server engineer, so not dissimilar to the database administrator, but more looking after servers where everything ran. 

Emily Slade: Mm hmm. 

John Knight: And then I went into, like, team leadership sitting that sector and then again we had like new projects coming into the company and this was like our flagship product. So I took an opportunity to to jump onto that project. And that's when I officially started as a DevOps engineer. And yeah, it's I think maybe like for four years, I'm a previous company and I just started a new company back in May last year. 

Emily Slade: Oh, brilliant. 

John Knight: So yeah. Yeah, that's kind of like, you know, the journey I've been on to get to where I am today. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. So what does a typical day look like for you?  

John Knight: Say, like for today for example, because workloads quite high. At the moment we've got a big project on to to kind of like improve our product globally, so. I think I was up about 7.30am, you know, check the emails and Teams messages, get the coffee, and then they're then just straight onto it. So we have a ticketing system, you know, so we can keep track of work items and so on. So yeah, just dive in there. See what I need to be working on. Yeah. And I just like focus on that really for putting out the first couple of hours. Then we have what we call a daily stand up. So it's a meeting. Across the the development team, where everyone joins and you just have like a couple of minutes to say what you worked on yesterday, what you're doing today, any potential problems? And then we had the rest of the day is pretty much just working on your tickets. There may be, you know, calls with team colleagues. You know that you need to hop on to. Thankfully they're on. Like a. Of kind of emergencies that not have to deal. A little. Bit different in the previous company because we are working with universities and educational institutes. Like a whole range of live customers and they would have issues on their end as well as you know like in between. So we're kind of like addressing it, researching you know the problem and yeah, just kind of trying to get people up and running again as soon as possible. But yeah, touchwood. I've not had anything like that since I've been at the new company, so yeah, it's, it's really quite interesting, you know that it it takes quite a bit of kind of like time to. You to kind of get your head around the problem to start with, but then you know through like Google, but mainly like ChatGPT and so on. You know we can we can go on and like find like different ways to kind of solve the problem. And then we just have to, like, apply what we've learned and we just like work through work through that kind of workload. 

Emily Slade: So are these tickets that are coming in, are they going to be a variety of different problems that people are having with the system? And it's like no day is the same in a way? Or do you get a lot of the sort of same problems?

John Knight: So I'm the only DevOps engineer in the company. 

Emily Slade: Oh my God, no pressure. 

John Knight: So yeah, we have like a small team of developers and they deal mainly with the customer issues. Their workload is a bit more varied than mine. The good thing about mine is I can kind of see where you know what I'm going to be working on for not just like a few days but a few weeks and months. So it's a bit more predictable. But yeah, I mean there could be like an issue raised by a team colleague, you know? So if I've written some some work on pipeline which is a process of just automatically deploying resources into into the cloud where we host our infrastructure. They might say oh, like I've tried this. This is broken so you don't have to like switch tasks on to that and look in the investigator and resolve it and then test go through the testing process. But yeah, generally it's it's fairly predictable but when when we start like looking at new areas like we've got. A company that we partnered with. Who are working on like AI? How under a way that we can like utilise that to to improve you know our? You know, there's going to be ways there that we have to look at integrating their work into into our infrastructure, so. 

Emily Slade: I was going to say your use of ChatGPT. Like is that as an extension of Google that your company are just happy with you casually using? Or is that like a recommended like? Oh, now we're going to move over and use these tools alongside Google? 

John Knight: It's kind of like done on an exception basis, so. I don't think a lot of people in the company are using it within the DevOps field. I think wider, wider speaking, I think more people are adopting it as an additional research tool. You know, it's great, but you have to verify everything. It tells you, you know, suggest. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. 

John Knight: You know, and I say like Google Gemini as well. You know, they're like the end product is like, you know the same you know the, you know the big give you like suggestions on how you can implement something, but it's not a matter of just like copying and pasting and like oh, that's it. Job's done. It'd be nice if you could do it that way. 

Emily Slade: Just to go right back to the beginning of your educational journey, as it were, what inspired you to move into this industry? 

John Knight: As I said, the journey through to where I'm now is. He's kind of outside with development and coding and I think from quite a young age I was interested in in that kind of field, you know, so like at home just, you know like learning I think it's called Basic back at the time back in the day. Yeah, it is. It's right. Seemed really cool. Like you just type instructions computer and it just like, do what you tell it to do. Yeah. When I got the opportunity to study that at A-level that was great. And then I actually went off to the University of Nottingham. There was going to be a four-year course. With the industry year. Didn't like the city. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. 

John Knight: So I came back. And they started working back here in Norfolk. And then I thought, well, you could, like, try and progress further, you know, to make sure they weren't going to be any, like, anything holding you back. I thought I need to get some educational, you know, qualification as well. So. Yeah, I signed up at the college to do. It was going to be again, the degree the first year, second year, you know, I got the HND point of you there and then that year in industry, which led into full-time work. I didn't finish the equivalent of the third year and it was only I think it's about 10 years ago. I guess I then thought, well, I want to complete that. So that degree, so I signed up with the university to study remotely. So I completed the third and final year and it took me about three years. It's real small. Yeah, it's it's hard work, you know, with like, a young family working full time and and added like a bit of work abroad, kind of like sprinkled in there as well. So yeah, it was challenging, but it's really rewarding and you know, to kind of complete that degree course and go through graduation. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, of course. Yeah. 

John Knight: And have the photos and certificate at the end. It's like really quite cool and satisfying so. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. You mentioned a year abroad. What does that look like because is in my understanding is this is sort of an almost global language, you know, HTML or whatever it is that you're using. So what does the year abroad look like? 

John Knight: So yeah, back in the previous company we had with offices in several different countries, primarily when like myself or my colleagues were to go, it would be to Sydney in Australia.  

Emily Slade: There's other countries and then there's the other side of the world.  

John Knight: Yeah. Yeah, it's not like a short hop to Europe. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. 

John Knight: But that was that was really good. Some people, some of our colleagues, went over there and they would like it so much. They actually get transferred and they're, you know, they got residency over there and new lives and everything. But yeah, it's it was interesting, you know, living in, like a service department. Just getting used to like different culture. It's very similar to like back in the UK but different as well. At the same time. Yeah. Even like going to the supermarket, you know, like trying to find like, fruit and veggies. And it's all like labelled up differently. You know, you're like, you're speaking to an assistant, then they've got no clue what you're talking about. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. 

John Knight: But yeah, there's a lot more pressure though, because obviously the companies invested a lot of money to get you over there. To put you up and you're like, paying for your expenses and everything. You know, the hours were longer and and yeah, they definitely kind of were looking for, you know, like a kind of a higher output, you know from you. But again it's a really good opportunity. You know if that presents itself to anyone then I would recommend it. You can you just like learn so much because you kind of like having to to be on the ball all the time. But outside of work as well, you know, you get the new experience, new culture and make new friends. 

Emily Slade: Mm. 

John Knight: And yeah, you know, like any any different country you can, you can get to and work in is great. And I had the opportunity to work in Manila. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. Oh wow. 

John Knight: For a month, which was really good, that was like a big culture shock. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. Amazing. 

John Knight: Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely. I definitely recommend it if you know people get the opportunity to go. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, fantastic. So what essential skills would you say you need to be in DevOps? 

John Knight: So I mean like soft skills. Communication because you're talking not just with technical people, but non-technical people as well. So you know they they could be working in like the project management office. They could be analysts, or they might be like management levels up with, like C-Suite employees. So you just have to know how to pitch you know your. Your explanations of things at different levels. Being able to form relationships with people here with your colleagues really helps. I mean you can. You can turn up, do your hours and you're done. But you know, really you get like a lot more out of it from, you know, getting to know people. You know. Knowing how you can help them as well as they can help you. Problem-solving skills are quite important. So even though we have like Google and ChatGPT et cetera, you as I was saying earlier, you can't just like rely on on that to do your job for you. You know there's only like a small snippet you know you've got to kind of have the ability to look at your ticket or how have your work items come in. Determine what the actual outcome needs to be, and then break that down into logical like little sections that you can that you can progress through. Sometimes you'll get you get a work item, and it’s like massive. It's like weeks worth of work. And it's a bit daunting.  

Emily Slade: Yeah. 

John Knight: But yeah, the best thing is to just like look at it and think, OK, well, to get to the end point, I need to achieve what these different outcomes. So I'll, I'll just like focus on one. You know, like to get started with and then once you've achieved that, you know you get that kind of like like a dopamine hit, you know, and the ice is great. You know, I've like, I've done that. Then you. Yeah. It just kind of like helps you kind of roll on to the next. I mean technically. It it helps if you got like a programming background. But that's that's not strictly strictly necessary in in all the the the roles we have people that come from like networking backgrounds. So they spent all their careers in in data centres, you know like wiring cabling. You know, devices and so on, and you get people that come from like server side. So yeah, whether they've been like database administrators or like Windows or Linux server administrators. Yeah, it's. I think it's it's quite good in that. It's open to people with. Like experience in quite a varied number areas. But I think, yeah, I think primarily like problem solving logical thinking, you know being methodical. And patience. Perseverance as well. You know, that kind of goes hand in hand with the patients because sometimes you can spend all day working on something and it's like one of the worst feelings when you get to the end of the day. And you know something's still broken or or you haven't just managed to to, like, get it across the line. But. You know they're going to pick up in the morning. So yeah, you got to then, like, motivate yourself again in the morning. But it's kind of like it can be hard to switch off in the evening because although you like, you know, you, you finish that say, I don't know, 5.30pm or 6pm. You know, your mind is still active and it's still thinking about that problem. But yeah, it's important to to kind of like take that break away. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. 

John Knight: As well as soft skills, technical skills. You've got to be able to like, look after yourself as well. You like, you're mental and your physical health, so you know if you get out for a walk the dog or go to the gym or something, sometimes even just have a complete change of activities like that. It just helps your brain kind of like relax a bit and then it's like, oh, yeah, you know, then the different ideas pop in.  

Emily Slade: Yeah. That's such a good point. 

John Knight: Kind of AI is kind of coming into so many different areas. 

You know, across like different sectors. I mean I was, I was like talking about how how I can use it to help me in my job. There are other areas that I haven't even looked at yet, so I would. Primarily I would only with Microsoft Cloud Azure, there are other providers like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud. And they all have their own kind of like. AI interactions. But with Microsoft they have something called Copilot, so we can see that in office products which like people, a lot of people use across different different sectors and like an administration as well, but also in the tooling that we use in. It can provide that kind of like insight. So fairly similar to. ChatGPT but it's more integrated so it's like like a better view on what you're doing. And again, if there are problems, it can say like you know you've you've defined these resources but. You know you need this one as well and and kind of like aid you in in like establishing that that kind of link it's not it's not quite at the point where you you you don't have to do anything. Which is great because otherwise we'd be out of a job.  

Emily Slade: Do you think that's the future? do you think? Well, that's where it's heading?  

John Knight: I think in some areas in it, it could be. It's difficult at the moment because it's still fairly new. I mean it's been around for a few years, and it's constantly improving. But. I think it's a little way off yet, but it's just it's just kind of like. Making itself increasing its importance, I think in in certain roles so. There are roles like yeah, we have DevSecOps where you've got the development operations, but also security is like a big. Part. And there's is like AI SecOps So I haven't like looked too much into that. But you know using the AI to kind of I guess almost do like penetration testing. So it'll look at what you've what you've got to offer as a product. And it'll be like poking around trying to see if it can like break it or get access to. You know, into resources they shouldn't do so. Yeah, it's not quite at Terminator level yet, but. It's it's definitely not going to like leave. You know, it's it's it's it's going to become more of a more of a feature, so. It's important for people to kind of be aware of it and not just kind of dismissing. You know. I hope it's going to go away because. Won't, but Microsoft. They have a whole range like certifications. They have like a fundamentals level and kind of thing. You can study for a day, take the exam and so you get like your first month or certificate. But they do that for a year, so you can learn the basics. But yeah, a few years ago they introduced the AI fundamentals. So I think for people who are looking to get into like DevOps or it genetics. Really, I think studying the AI fundamentals course and they'll have similar from Google and Amazon. Yeah, it's it's time well spent, I think. 

Emily Slade: Yeah. Oh, brilliant. What does career development look like? What's above DevOps? 

John Knight: You can get. I guess like this different levels of seniority really if you want to stay technical, you're within the technical side of the role you can enter as like a junior DevOps engineer. And again, you might come from. You might be a graduate, or you don't. Even you don't always have to have, like university education to get into into the field. So you could have like a maybe like a little bit of experience, a bit of awareness if you get into like a junior role, then you've got the progression up to mid-level and then senior. So obviously like the salaries get more. As you go through. To then kind of like progress further up the career ladder, once you've got like senior level, a lot of the time it means moving into management and not even wants to do that and it doesn't suit everyone. Sometimes you you get people who have kind of like reached what they perceive to be the limit of how far they can go in that role, and then they they take a management opportunity. Then after a little while they think actually I love working with people, but. This isn't really what I want to be doing, I prefer to be hands on, you know, like, you know, actually producing something and get my hands dirty. So then they'll, like, move back again into, like senior middle level. Yeah, I won't. I mean, if you, if you, if you decide to go down that route, you can go into like say management and then from there you could go up to like department leads and then chief technology officer or chief information officer that that kind of role. Like a lot of responsibility, so depend on the size of the organisation. You could be managing the whole IT for a company. Serving tens of thousands of users, you know, like just internally or like hundreds of thousands, you know, so you got your customers on top of that and you got to, yeah. Make sure everything keeps ticking along. So yeah, a lot of responsibility if you get that. You know, so it's it's not like a lot of money for for doing nothing. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely. 

John Knight: Yeah. They definitely want their pound of flesh. When you start bringing in the big bucks. 

Emily Slade: Yeah, definitely, yeah. 

John Knight: But I think one of the nice things is, as I say and there's like different kind of routes into this, this field, it's not just those with like computer science degrees or Masters degrees or anything. I think if you have them then. Can go. Like more more into like specific fields or like data scientist, for example. But I've worked with a lot of people over the years who don't have, like a formal educational qualification. But you know, they have. They've got an opportunity at somewhere down the line and they've never learned like a lot on the job. You know, and from training courses. You know, and I guess if you if you're not educational, you just doesn't flip your boat, then that's fine. You know, there's there's so many other resources you can draw upon, you know, so I. About the Microsoft certification, they also have. We call it applied learning. I think they call it so it's like, very practical. So they'll give you like a scenario and then they'll step you through how to complete the tasks to achieve that that goal, YouTube's a good resource as well. You know, lots of people on there, so you got different kind of resources on there. So interesting ones like a day in the life of software engineers, DevOps engineers, they're all on then and they just like track someone through. Waking up, making coffee, you know, doing a bit of work, going out. Lunch. So you. They're quite good to get, like, a little insight into what it's like to work in the role, but then you can get quite specific. So you can say. You know, I want to see how to how to build a pipeline in Microsoft Azure, and there'll be some giving you a tutorial on there and it's obviously free. So that's great. Linkedin's a good resource too. So I definitely recommend. Anyone really in you know who wants to get started in it or looking for career change if they're on there to get themselves set? On there. Start following people in the same field that they want to get into. And yeah, post on there as well. So each time they learn something, you know, just like, write a short little post, put it up there, you get feedback, you know, not just on the article, like how it's written, but actually the technical content. So you, you'll learn back from that way. I found like a lot of people in technology, you want to share what they've learned. You know, it's not like just hoard it themselves. There's no like. Very few people are into job preservation. You know where they hoard all the knowledge, you know, it's part of the fun of it, really. I guess is like showing what you learn and yeah, like through LinkedIn and people setting up their own blog. It's a great way to do it.  

Emily Slade: Yeah. Oh, brilliant. Well, I've run out of questions, so thank you so much for your time today.

John Knight: You're welcome. 

Emily Slade: Thanks again to John for their time. Head to prospects.ac.uk for more information on getting into DevOps. For a full-length video version of this episode. Do check out our YouTube channel @futureyoupod if you enjoyed the episode, feel free to leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Thank you as always, for listening and good luck on your journey to future you. 

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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