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What Is DevOps and What Does a DevOps Engineer Do?
DevOps is an approach to software and IT delivery that brings development and operations closer together so organisations can build, test, release and operate technology more quickly and reliably. It combines culture, collaboration, processes and automation rather than referring to one particular tool or job title.
A DevOps engineer helps put those practices into operation. Depending on the organisation, the role may involve source control, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, cloud platforms, containers, monitoring, security, automation and collaboration between software development and IT operations teams.
Microsoft describes DevOps as combining development and operations to unite people, process and technology across application planning, development, delivery and operations. That is an important distinction: DevOps is not simply “developers doing infrastructure” or “system administrators learning to code”. It is about improving the complete flow of work from an idea to a reliable service used by customers.
What does DevOps mean?
The term DevOps combines “development” and “operations”. Traditionally, software developers might create an application and then hand it to a separate operations team responsible for deploying and supporting it. That separation could create delays, conflicting priorities and poor feedback between the people building a service and the people operating it.
DevOps aims to reduce those barriers. Development, operations, security, testing and other specialists collaborate throughout the lifecycle instead of working as isolated departments.
The result is not that everyone has the same job. A developer may still specialise in application code and an infrastructure engineer may still specialise in platforms. The difference is that teams share greater responsibility for how software is built, released, monitored and improved.
What are the main goals of DevOps?
Organisations adopt DevOps to improve the speed and quality of technology delivery without sacrificing reliability.
Typical goals include:
- releasing useful changes more frequently
- reducing manual and repetitive work
- finding problems earlier in the development lifecycle
- making deployments more repeatable
- improving collaboration between technical teams
- recovering from incidents more quickly
- creating faster feedback from production systems
- improving security through earlier and more consistent controls
- making infrastructure and application environments easier to reproduce
The objective is not simply to deploy software as fast as possible. A good DevOps approach should make delivery faster, safer and more predictable.
What does a DevOps engineer do?
A DevOps engineer designs, builds or improves the systems and processes used to develop and operate software. The exact responsibilities vary considerably between organisations.
Microsoft's current DevOps Engineer role description includes collaboration, source control, continuous integration, testing, delivery, deployment, security, monitoring, feedback and automation. In practice, a DevOps engineer might spend a working day reviewing a pipeline failure, improving infrastructure code, helping a development team automate tests, updating cloud resources and investigating an application monitoring alert.
Common responsibilities include the following.
1. Managing source control and collaboration
DevOps begins with a reliable way of managing changes. Engineers commonly work with Git-based repositories using platforms such as GitHub, Azure DevOps or other source-control services.
They may help teams establish:
- branching and merge strategies
- pull request processes
- code review practices
- repository permissions
- versioning standards
- ways to manage infrastructure and pipeline code alongside application code
Good source-control practices create traceability and make it easier for teams to collaborate safely.
2. Building continuous integration pipelines
Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of regularly merging code changes into a shared repository and automatically validating those changes.
A CI pipeline might:
- retrieve the latest code
- restore dependencies
- compile or build the application
- run automated tests
- perform security or quality checks
- create a deployable package or container image
Tools such as GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines and Jenkins can automate these steps. The aim is to find problems quickly rather than discovering them during a large manual release.
3. Implementing continuous delivery and deployment
Continuous Delivery (CD) extends automation beyond building and testing software. Changes that pass the required checks are prepared for release through controlled, repeatable pipelines.
Depending on the organisation, production deployment may still require an approval. In more highly automated environments, validated changes may be deployed automatically.
DevOps engineers may design strategies such as:
- blue-green deployment
- canary releases
- progressive rollout
- feature flags
- automated rollback
These approaches help organisations introduce changes with lower risk than replacing an entire production environment in one step.
4. Managing infrastructure as code
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) means defining infrastructure using code or configuration files rather than creating resources manually.
For example, a cloud environment containing networks, virtual machines, storage, databases and permissions can be defined in a repeatable template. Tools such as Terraform, Bicep, AWS CloudFormation and other platform-specific technologies can then create or update the environment consistently.
Infrastructure as code offers several benefits:
- changes can be version controlled
- environments can be recreated consistently
- reviews can take place before infrastructure changes are applied
- manual configuration errors can be reduced
- development, test and production environments can follow the same design principles
AWS identifies infrastructure as code alongside CI, continuous delivery, monitoring and logging as a core DevOps practice.
5. Working with cloud platforms
Many DevOps roles involve cloud services because cloud platforms make infrastructure programmable and highly automatable.
A DevOps engineer might work with:
- Microsoft Azure
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Google Cloud
- private cloud or hybrid environments
Cloud knowledge can include identity, networking, compute, storage, managed application platforms, containers, monitoring and cost management.
ExperTrain offers both the Design and Implement Microsoft DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) course and DevOps Engineering on AWS for professionals working with these platforms.
6. Using containers and orchestration
Containers package applications and their dependencies into a consistent unit that can be moved between environments more predictably.
Docker is widely used to build and run containers, while Kubernetes can manage containerised applications across clusters of systems. DevOps engineers may automate container builds, manage image repositories, define deployment configurations and integrate container environments with CI/CD pipelines.
Not every DevOps job requires Kubernetes. Smaller environments may use simpler application platforms. The important skill is understanding why repeatable deployment environments matter and choosing technology appropriate to the organisation.
7. Monitoring and observability
Releasing software is only part of the lifecycle. Teams also need to understand whether applications are healthy after deployment.
DevOps engineers can help implement monitoring and observability across:
- application performance
- infrastructure
- logs
- metrics
- traces
- availability
- user experience
- security events
Tools vary widely and can include Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Prometheus, Grafana, cloud-native monitoring services and specialist observability platforms.
The objective is not to create the largest possible number of alerts. Good monitoring should provide actionable information and help teams understand how a service behaves in production.
8. Automating repetitive work
Automation sits at the centre of many DevOps practices. Engineers look for manual processes that are slow, inconsistent or error-prone and decide whether they can be automated safely.
Examples include:
- building applications
- running tests
- provisioning infrastructure
- deploying applications
- rotating or retrieving secrets
- performing security checks
- creating development environments
- monitoring systems
- running scheduled operational tasks
ExperTrain's DevOps Automation course focuses specifically on CI/CD, infrastructure as code, Docker, Kubernetes, monitoring and secure automated workflows.
What skills does a DevOps engineer need?
DevOps engineering is broad, so no individual is expected to be an expert in every technology. Strong engineers combine depth in some areas with an understanding of the wider delivery lifecycle.
Technical skills
Useful technical skills can include:
- Git and version control
- scripting with PowerShell, Bash, Python or similar languages
- Linux and/or Windows administration
- cloud platforms
- networking fundamentals
- CI/CD tools
- infrastructure as code
- containers
- monitoring and observability
- identity and security concepts
- software testing and release practices
People and process skills
DevOps is equally dependent on collaboration. Engineers need to communicate with developers, administrators, security teams, testers, product owners and managers.
Useful non-technical skills include:
- problem solving
- clear communication
- systems thinking
- understanding business priorities
- working across organisational boundaries
- documenting processes
- learning from incidents without creating a blame culture
- continuous improvement
This is one reason DevOps should not be reduced to a list of tools. An organisation can buy CI/CD software without creating a DevOps culture.
What tools do DevOps engineers use?
The toolset depends on the platform and organisation. A typical environment might include:
- Source control: Git, GitHub, Azure Repos
- CI/CD: GitHub Actions, Azure Pipelines, Jenkins
- Infrastructure as code: Terraform, Bicep, CloudFormation
- Containers: Docker
- Orchestration: Kubernetes
- Cloud: Azure, AWS or another provider
- Monitoring: Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana and other observability platforms
- Configuration and automation: scripting and configuration-management technologies
Learning tools is useful, but understanding the practice behind a tool is more transferable. If you understand continuous integration, for example, moving from one pipeline platform to another is much easier.
Is DevOps the same as Agile?
No. Agile and DevOps overlap but solve different parts of the delivery problem.
Agile primarily focuses on how teams plan, develop and improve products through short feedback cycles and iterative work. DevOps extends collaboration and automation across development, delivery and operations.
An organisation can use Agile software development without having mature DevOps practices. Equally, DevOps teams frequently use Agile methods such as Scrum or Kanban to organise work.
What is the difference between DevOps and SRE?
Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps are closely related but are not identical.
DevOps is a broad culture and set of practices for improving software delivery and collaboration. SRE applies software-engineering approaches to the reliability and operation of services.
SRE commonly places particular emphasis on:
- Service Level Indicators (SLIs)
- Service Level Objectives (SLOs)
- error budgets
- reducing operational toil
- automation
- observability
- incident management
- resilience
An SRE team can therefore be viewed as one way of implementing many DevOps principles with a strong focus on reliability.
ExperTrain's Site Reliability Engineering Foundation course provides a structured introduction to this area.
What is DevSecOps?
DevSecOps means integrating security into the DevOps lifecycle instead of treating security as a final approval step immediately before release.
This can involve:
- security testing in CI/CD pipelines
- dependency and vulnerability scanning
- secret management
- secure infrastructure as code
- identity and access controls
- policy and compliance automation
- monitoring production systems for security events
The principle is sometimes described as “shifting security left”, although security also needs to continue throughout production operations.
For professionals working in this area, ExperTrain offers the DevSecOps Foundation and DevSecOps Practitioner courses.
DevOps engineer vs software developer
A software developer usually spends more time designing and writing application code. A DevOps engineer spends more time improving the systems used to build, test, deploy and operate that software.
There is considerable overlap. Developers increasingly work with pipelines, containers and cloud infrastructure, while DevOps engineers often write scripts and code. In smaller organisations, the same person may perform both roles.
The distinction is therefore one of emphasis rather than a strict boundary.
DevOps engineer vs system administrator
Traditional system administration focuses on configuring, maintaining and troubleshooting servers and infrastructure. DevOps engineering uses many of the same operational skills but usually adds a stronger emphasis on automation, code, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD and collaboration with software development teams.
System administrators often make excellent candidates for DevOps roles because they already understand production systems, reliability and troubleshooting. They may need to add stronger Git, scripting, infrastructure-as-code and software-delivery skills.
Do DevOps engineers need to know how to code?
They usually need some coding or scripting ability, but they do not necessarily need to be full-time software developers.
The role frequently involves:
- writing PowerShell, Bash or Python scripts
- creating YAML pipeline definitions
- writing Terraform, Bicep or other infrastructure code
- working with APIs
- reading application code when troubleshooting
- automating repetitive processes
Someone moving from development may already be comfortable with code but need stronger infrastructure knowledge. Someone moving from operations may need to strengthen scripting and software-development practices.
How do you become a DevOps engineer?
There is no single entry route. DevOps engineers commonly come from software development, system administration, cloud engineering, networking, testing or technical support.
A practical learning route could be:
- Understand DevOps principles. Learn why collaboration, automation and feedback matter before concentrating on individual tools.
- Learn Git. Source control is fundamental to modern DevOps workflows.
- Develop scripting skills. PowerShell, Bash or Python are useful starting points.
- Learn a cloud platform. Build practical knowledge of Azure, AWS or the environment used by your employer.
- Build CI/CD pipelines. Automate build, test and deployment workflows.
- Learn infrastructure as code. Use Terraform, Bicep, CloudFormation or another appropriate tool.
- Understand containers. Learn Docker first and then Kubernetes if your role requires orchestration.
- Learn monitoring and security. A deployment is not complete until teams can operate it safely.
- Build projects. Practical experience is far more convincing than memorising terminology.
Which DevOps course should beginners take?
If you are new to the subject, ExperTrain offers two useful introductory routes.
The one-day DevOps Foundations: The Core Principles and Practices (AZ-2008) course introduces DevOps culture, Agile planning, version control, continuous integration, delivery, infrastructure as code, observability, SRE and platform engineering.
The two-day DevOps Institute: DevOps Foundation course provides a broader certification-focused introduction covering DevOps principles, culture, automation, continuous delivery and organisational change.
The most suitable option depends on whether you want a concise practical introduction or a formal DevOps Foundation certification route.
Which certification is useful for a Microsoft DevOps engineer?
For experienced Azure professionals, Microsoft's DevOps Engineer Expert certification is a recognised role-based route. The AZ-400 exam currently assesses processes and communications, source control, build and release pipelines, security and compliance, and instrumentation.
Microsoft expects candidates to have experience administering and developing in Azure, with strong skills in at least one of those areas, as well as experience with GitHub and Azure DevOps. The certification requires an eligible prerequisite certification plus AZ-400.
ExperTrain's Design and Implement Microsoft DevOps Solutions (AZ-400) course is intended for developers, Azure administrators and DevOps professionals ready for that more advanced level.
What does a typical DevOps project look like?
Imagine an organisation that currently deploys a web application manually once every few months. The process requires a developer to create files, an administrator to copy them to a server and several people to make configuration changes by hand.
A DevOps improvement project might:
- move the application's code into Git
- create automated unit and quality tests
- build the application automatically whenever approved changes are merged
- define the infrastructure as code
- package the application in a container
- deploy automatically to a test environment
- run further automated tests
- require approval before production
- deploy gradually using a safer release strategy
- monitor the application after release
- feed operational information back to the development team
The technology is important, but the biggest improvement is the creation of a repeatable flow with fewer manual hand-offs and faster feedback.
Is DevOps a good career?
DevOps can be a strong career choice for people who enjoy working across software development and infrastructure rather than specialising entirely in one area.
It can particularly suit people who enjoy:
- automation
- problem solving
- cloud technology
- troubleshooting
- improving inefficient processes
- working with several technical teams
- learning new tools
However, the breadth of the role also means continuous learning is essential. Cloud platforms, deployment practices, security threats and automation technologies evolve quickly.
Frequently asked questions
Is DevOps a tool?
No. DevOps is an approach to culture, collaboration and software delivery. Tools such as GitHub, Azure DevOps, Jenkins, Terraform, Docker and Kubernetes can support DevOps practices, but installing them does not by itself make an organisation “DevOps”.
Is Azure DevOps the same as DevOps?
No. Azure DevOps is Microsoft's suite of services for areas such as source control, planning and pipelines. DevOps is the broader set of practices and principles. An organisation can practice DevOps using Azure DevOps, GitHub or many other tools.
Does DevOps mean continuous deployment?
No. Continuous deployment can be part of a DevOps environment, but DevOps covers much more, including culture, planning, source control, testing, infrastructure, security, monitoring and feedback.
Can a system administrator become a DevOps engineer?
Yes. Systems administrators already have valuable operational knowledge. They typically need to add stronger skills in Git, scripting, cloud automation, CI/CD and infrastructure as code.
Can a developer become a DevOps engineer?
Yes. Developers have a strong foundation in code and software delivery. They usually need to develop deeper knowledge of infrastructure, networking, cloud platforms, deployment, monitoring and production operations.
Do I need Kubernetes to work in DevOps?
No. Kubernetes is important in many organisations, but it is not required for every DevOps role. Learn the technologies used in your target environment rather than assuming every DevOps engineer must use the same toolset.
What is the difference between CI and CD?
Continuous Integration automates the integration, build and testing of code changes. Continuous Delivery extends that process so validated changes are consistently prepared for release. Some organisations also use continuous deployment, where successful changes can be released automatically.
Develop your DevOps skills with ExperTrain
ExperTrain offers instructor-led DevOps training covering foundations, automation, Microsoft Azure DevOps, AWS DevOps, DevSecOps, Site Reliability Engineering and specialist practices.
You can also explore the DevOps Certifications pathway and the DevOps Glossary for definitions of common DevOps terminology.
If you are unsure which route best suits your background, contact ExperTrain with your current role and objectives and we can help identify an appropriate starting point.
Further reading
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