DevOps Engineer
DevOps engineers combine software development and IT operations to streamline the software delivery pipeline. They design CI/CD pipelines, manage infrastructure as code, implement monitoring systems, and automate deployment processes. The median salary is approximately $125,000 with 17% projected growth. A bachelor's degree in computer science or IT is typical, and expertise in tools like Docker, Kubernetes, Jenkins, and Terraform is essential. Cloud platform experience is also highly valued.
A Day in the Life
A typical day starts with checking monitoring dashboards and investigating any alerts that fired overnight. Mid-morning involves writing a Terraform module to provision new infrastructure. After lunch, the engineer debugs a failing CI/CD pipeline and optimizes container image build times. Late afternoon includes participating in an incident retrospective, updating runbooks, and pair-programming with a developer to improve application logging for better observability.
Key Stats
Education
Bachelor's Degree
Salary Range
Entry: $80,000
Median: $125,000
Senior: $175,000
Job Growth