Yes, DevOps is the new black. I might not be the first to use the phrase, but it’s so obviously true.
I am currently working on building some kind of offer around DevOps, so you’ll probably see more posts on the topic.
But two things struck me recently and I decided I would make a post out of those. Both items are related to the people side of DevOps. The first is the importance of the people involved in your DevOps transformation or organization. The second, corollary to the first, is the recruitment of these people.

People matter

People are important, that’s obvious. However a customer experience has lately surfaced the importance for a successful DevOps transformation. I may not be able to go into many details but the broad outline is quite simple.
The organization is a software team, within a large company. It delivers its own product, to be used by other business units. It has decided to run its own operations. Perfect candidate for DevOps, right? Using a custom approach, based on industry standards, an Agile/DevOps organization is designed and implemented.
Fast forward one year. The transformation is quite successful, the stability and quality of the product have improved. The only thing that prevented the team to be outstanding seems to come from the people. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not judging this team and its members. But for an Agile/DevOps transformation to be successful you need the right people, with the right mindset. And not everyone fits the bill. Like some people are more comfortable in an open-space and some prefer a closed-off office. It has been the same with Agile practices, which could not apply to every situation and team.
We need to pay extra attention to the people we include in these transformation projects, if we want them to succeed.

Recruitment is crucial

As a follow-up of the above assessment, recruitment of people for your team is important. Yes, I know, it has always been important. However, take a second look at the title of this post. Done? Alright. Now have a look at the job offers in IT. See any pattern?
DevOps is written everywhere.
It is somehow justified, as DevOps encompasses many modern practices that we have or would like to implement. Take automation, continuous delivery, continuous deployment, testing, QA etc.
The issue is that not every job offer is for a DevOps team or project. Most of the offers are for traditional sysadmins or developers with a hint of DevOps. Which is a good trend, but not a good fit for a full devops profile.

So, people matter in DevOps environments, so take care of your profile 🙂

Note : this post was inspired by a LinkedIN post that I cannot find, in french, regarding the abusive use of DevOps in job postings in France. If anyone can find it, I’d love to thank and credit its author!