The Lead DevOps Engineer is a senior-level IT professional responsible for overseeing the development, implementation, and management of a DevOps strategy. This individual plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between the development and operations teams, ensuring streamlined collaboration and efficient software delivery.
Key responsibilities of the Lead DevOps Engineer typically include:
The Lead DevOps Engineer collaborates with development, operations, and security teams to establish and maintain efficient processes and methodologies that facilitate software delivery.
They are responsible for creating and maintaining automated build, test, and deployment pipelines that support continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices.
Ensuring the availability, scalability, and security of the infrastructure and systems supporting software development and delivery is a critical aspect of the Lead DevOps Engineer’s role.
As a senior team member, the Lead DevOps Engineer provides guidance and support to other DevOps engineers, helping them grow professionally and ensuring they adhere to best practices.
They continuously monitor system performance, identify bottlenecks or potential issues, and implement strategies to optimize performance and minimize downtime.
The Lead DevOps Engineer stays up-to-date with new technologies, tools, and methodologies within the DevOps landscape, making recommendations for improvements and driving innovation within the organization.
Lead DevOps Engineer plays a pivotal role in enhancing collaboration between development and operations teams while ensuring that software applications are built, tested, and deployed efficiently and reliably.
Kamil began his IT journey in 2011 when from the very start he dealt with automation and testing of on-premises infrastructure solutions. With the emergence of public cloud solutions like Azure and AWS, he continues his adventure in building best practices for high-performance infrastructure.
His passion lies in operating solutions based on Kubernetes technology, which he specializes in the most in the context of both public and private clouds. He strongly supports the approach to functional testing of infrastructure and security in the solutions he delivers. Below he shares his point of view on some aspects of the role of Lead DevOps Engineer.
I think the answer is pretty simple – open mind. It does not matter what kind of tool you get used to use. What did you use in the previous project or for the previous clients, we need to always suit solutions to the specific issue, only then we can achieve a lot.
The challenges and perspective of DevOps in the different projects. For one it was just an administrator role in the project without DevOps culture but in another DevOps guy was able to write a test for the application and even does small changes in the application code. Very different perception of DevOps – that’s the answer.
This is my favorite question. I always wanted to be a developer, create some code, and deliver great functionality for clients but unfortunately, I started my work as an infrastructure guy so it was quite far from this. When DevOps has been born I realized this is the role, especially for me. I can create cool stuff in the infrastructure area but also be able to improve applications a little bit.
One native platform provides all that you need to do your great application. You can create your tasks, write build stages, test all, and release on Azure if you want. You do not need to care about updates and maintenance of Azure DevOps. It leverages Azure’s scalability, security, and reliability to ensure that teams can develop and deliver applications efficiently. It provides global availability, high-performance infrastructure, and built-in security features. It always helps us to do a great thing without huge effort, it is great, isn’t it?
In the area of public clouds, it is simpler. You need to learn how to operate on one of the public clouds, use the DevOps tools provided and create a native CI/CD process. What are the first steps to be a powerful DevOps Engineer you need to acquire knowledge of operating systems and networking: Familiarize yourself with different operating systems like Linux and Windows, and understand networking concepts such as TCP/IP, DNS, and firewalls. DevOps involves working with infrastructure and networks, so having a good understanding of these areas is important. Familiarize yourself with CI/CD and DevOps tools: Get hands-on experience with continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) tools such as Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI/CD, or CircleCI. Understand how to automate the build, test, and deployment processes to achieve faster and more reliable software delivery. Remember that becoming a DevOps Engineer is a continuous learning journey. It requires a blend of technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and a mindset focused on automation, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Be open to learning new technologies and practices as the DevOps landscape evolves.
Again – open mind. If you keep that feeling you will learn a lot but the most important is that you can always solve the client’s issue no matter what kind of technology he used. Always keep in mind developing your communication skills because in most cases you need to convince the client that he needs to improve something and you have to show him the benefits of this.
There are a lot of tools providing security improvement but all those tools have a database of potential security gaps and they need to update this very frequently. If they do not do this it does not matter what specific tool you are trying to use – I’m aiming for the community of specific tool is really important. If you want to use Open source tools for your applications – be a part of the community, and be a contributor if you are capable of doing this. One of my favorite tools for Kubernetes is Kubescape. It really helps to achieve great, stable infrastructure for your app and learn something good along the way.
Cloud, the most dangerous thing inside are the possible options to deploy one application. If the cloud team has skills from serverless services they probably propose an architecture based on this, if they have huge experience from Kubernetes they probably propose an architecture based on this – this is the current state of cloud deployment in most companies. The good answer to this question will be: Collect all information from your client, based on load, and requirements from the application side and then plan infrastructure, reverse resources to save some money and be proud of every single deployment.
Mentoring from a technical point of view is a little bit different. All of our engineers have their clients and from time to time it could become a monotonous operation. That’s why we have a community and internal challenges where all of us could participate in the complex architecture design or brainstorming for different clients to have a great escape from everyday work.
A note from Hicron Software House: Big Answers to DevOps Questions
The best DevOps practices aim to enhance collaboration between development and operations teams, streamline software delivery processes, and improve the overall efficiency and reliability of software applications. Here are some of the most effective DevOps practices:
By adopting these best practices, organizations can create a more agile, efficient, and reliable software development and delivery process that ultimately leads to higher-quality applications and improved business outcomes.
Cloud computing and DevOps are closely related, as both aim to improve the efficiency, agility, and scalability of software development and deployment processes. They complement each other and often work together to create more effective IT environments. Here’s how they are connected:
Cloud computing offers the infrastructure, tools, and services that support and enhance DevOps practices. When combined, cloud computing and DevOps enable organizations to build, test, deploy, and manage applications more efficiently, reliably, and securely, ultimately improving business outcomes.
After carefully evaluating suppliers, we decided to try a new approach and start working with a near-shore software house. Cooperation with Hicron Software House was something different, and it turned out to be a great success that brought added value to our company.
With HICRON’s creative ideas and fresh perspective, we reached a new level of our core platform and achieved our business goals.
Many thanks for what you did so far; we are looking forward to more in future!
Hicron is a partner who has provided excellent software development services. Their talented software engineers have a strong focus on collaboration and quality. They have helped us in achieving our goals across our cloud platforms at a good pace, without compromising on the quality of our services. Our partnership is professional and solution-focused!
The IT system supporting the work of retail outlets is the foundation of our business. The ability to optimize and adapt it to the needs of all entities in the PSA Group is of strategic importance and we consider it a step into the future. This project is a huge challenge: not only for us in terms of organization, but also for our partners – including Hicron – in terms of adapting the system to the needs and business models of PSA. Cooperation with Hicron consultants, taking into account their competences in the field of programming and processes specific to the automotive sector, gave us many reasons to be satisfied.
