How To Hire The Best Devops Consultant?

DevOps practices are the cornerstone for effective software delivery. DevOps ensures smoother workflow, faster release, and reliable software experience. However, it requires the expertise of DevOps consultants to systematize every step of your business.

Skilled DevOps consultants make the development and operations process more effective, cut down on costs, speed up your delivery times, and overall make things run a lot smoother. They integrate and automate processes in DevOps to streamline the entire process and continuously monitor to enhance performance and quality.

For successful implementation, these consultants work on 6C’s including:

Continuous Planning

Collaborative Development

Continuous Testing

Continuous Deployment

Continuous Monitoring

Collaborative Customer Feedback

However, navigating the talent pool to hire for DevOps consulting is a tough task. Various challenges come in during the process of hiring DevOps consultants.

Challenges To Face While Hiring Devops Consultants

• The Indefinable “DevOps Unicorn”

The ideal DevOps consultant has skills in development, operations, automation, and security. They should know Python language and CI/CD tools. It is highly challenging to find a person with all these skills.

• Find the Relevant Experience

While experience is significant, it is hard to find talent with the skills and zeal to learn new things in the DevOps field. Fresh graduates with strong problem-solving skills and a passion for DevOps can be valuable, especially if your project demands a new perspective.

• Assess Soft Skills

Excellent communication and collaboration are crucial for DevOps consultants. They must connect development and operations teams, promoting shared responsibility and open communication. Assessing these soft skills can be trickier in interviews, so use behavioral questions to explore past experiences where teamwork and communication were important.

• Attract Qualified Consultants

To attract skilled DevOps consultants, define project goals and required skills clearly. Highlight collaboration opportunities and career growth. Assess technical skills with coding challenges and review portfolios for problem-solving experience.

• Compete with Other Companies

The demand for skilled DevOps consultants is high. Be prepared to compete with other companies offering attractive compensation packages and innovative work environments. Highlighting your company culture and growth opportunities can attract top talent.

Steps To Hire For DevOps Consulting

Check the list of required steps to hire DevOps consulting and have a competent member in your team.

Step 1 – Outline The Criteria

Before starting your candidate search, clearly define your project’s goals and the specific skills you need. Key areas to consider include:

• Project Scope

Check if the DevOps implementation project is short-term or long-term. Knowing the time duration of the project eases the hire of DevOps consultants on a commitment level.

• Technical Expertise

Hire a DevOps consultant with knowledge of specific DevOps tools and technologies needed to complete the project. Hire an expert in Infrastructure as a Code, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud platforms (Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud Platform).

• Cultural Fit

Beyond technical skills, find a candidate who can fit into the culture of your company. Discuss with someone who has strong communication skills, is good at collaboration, and can connect development and operations teams successfully.

• Growth Opportunities

Highlight career advancement and learning opportunities within your organization to attract top talent. Emphasize professional development programs, mentorship DevOps opportunities, and the chance to work on cutting-edge projects that enhance skill sets and give growth.

Step 2 – Create Ideal JD To Attract Talent

With a clear understanding of your project requirements, create a job description that helps attract expert DevOps consultants. Mention the following things in JD:

• Introduction

Give the mission of your company in the introduction and ease the process. Define your optimization needs in development and deployment processes, and what impact you want from a DevOps consultant on your projects.

• Detailed Responsibilities

Outline the particular tasks and challenges that consultants must face during the project including managing CI/CD pipelines, implementing infrastructure as code, ensuring scalability, optimizing resource utilization, and navigating complex cloud environments effectively.

• Skills & Experience

List the technical and soft skills required for the project. It includes proficiency in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitLab CI), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible), and monitoring tools (Prometheus, ELK stack).

• Company Culture

Showcase the company’s work environment and values to attract candidates who fit your company culture. Determine how the inclusive culture of your company encourages open communication among DevOps consultants and work to make impactful contributions to the team.

Step 3 – Explore Online Portals To Find The Best

Once you know the type of candidate you want to hire, explore various online marketplaces to find them. Here are some options:

• Job Boards

Use popular job portals like Indeed, Shine, and LinkedIn to advertise job openings and find the best candidates. Apply search filters based on skills such as Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and experience levels ranging from junior to senior positions to target applicants.

• DevOps Communities

Build your presence on DevOps online communities and top forums to reduce your search effort. Participate actively in discussions and threads to communicate with potential consultants, showcasing their expertise and gaining insights into their problem-solving approach.

• Recruitment Agencies

Connect with the recruitment agencies to appoint DevOps professionals with the right expertise. They maintain extensive databases of qualified candidates, ensuring access to a diverse pool of talent suitable for your specific requirements, saving time and effort in your hunt.

• Employee Referrals

Execute employee referral programs to involve your whole team in hiring for DevOps consulting. Your team might have good connections with experts who can fill the position.

Step 4 – Start Screening Process To Evaluate Skills

After you have 8-10 promising candidates for DevOps consulting, implement the screening process and identify the best fit. Here are the key steps involved:

• Review Resumes

Carefully review resumes to ensure DevOps candidates have the required technical skills and experience. Ensure they possess proficiency in key areas. Look for experience with deploying and maintaining highly available systems, and load balancers in a production environment.

• Technical Assessments

Conduct technical assessments to evaluate their ability in DevOps tools and methods. Use online coding challenges or practical scenario-based tests to assess their understanding of automating deployment pipelines, configuring cloud resources, and managing server configurations.

• Analyze Portfolios

If possible, request a portfolio of the candidate’s past projects to evaluate their problem-solving skills and experience in similar environments. This can provide insights into their approach to infrastructure management, deployment strategies, and troubleshooting methodologies.

• Behavioral Interviews

Conduct in-depth behavioral interviews to check the candidate’s critical thinking, communication style, and teamwork abilities. By presenting practical DevOps scenarios, it becomes easy to evaluate problem-solving strategies and adaptability in real-world contexts.

Step 5 – Negotiate And Complete Onboarding Process

After a successful screening process, provide an offer letter to the highly qualified candidate and negotiate salary. Don’t forget to discuss the project timelines and expectations. Once the offer is accepted, focus on smooth onboarding. Introduce the consultant to your team, give them access to official accounts, and clearly outline project goals.

PRO TIPS: Build Long-Term Partnerships

The knowledge of DevOps consultants results in improved efficiency in future projects. But, the DevOps consultants you are hiring can be short-term and long-term. This is useful for both one-off projects and ongoing partnerships. But, long-term partnerships are valuable.

Long-term consultants understand exact requirements and workflows.

These consultants gain a deeper understanding and boost efficiency.

Finally, the long-term partnership results in better project outcomes.

Conclusion

The bottom line is that professional DevOps consultants not only enhance current project outcomes but also build a strong foundation for future growth and innovation. Having the right DevOps consultants in your team defines the success ratio of your project.

The above steps mentioned help you hire DevOps consultants, who are adaptable to new challenges and fit perfectly within your team. The DevOps consultants implement DevOps practices to boost your productivity and improve overall software delivery.

To hire expert DevOps consultants, hire our team of DevOps consultants at Codiant! It is a trusted DevOps consulting company, having a team of certified professionals to assist clients achieve stability and rapid development through modern DevOps tools and the best security practices. Furthermore, our team focuses on clear communication and delivering future-ready solutions.