How to Add Experience In DevOps To Your Resume

What are DevOps & Continuous Deployment?

The DevOps mindset helps developers and IT operations remove barriers that keep them from collaborating in optimal ways. This helps DevOps-focused teams quickly find and fix bugs and make improvements to software as part of a repeatable process called continuous deployment.

Using continuous deployment, high-performing organizations are deploying code 30 times more frequently, with 50 percent fewer failures than their lower-performing counterparts, according to the 2014 State of DevOps Report from PuppetLabs. These are the kinds of results that drive increasing adoption of DevOps approaches.

And since more DevOps means more DevOps jobs, you want experience in DevOps and continuous deployment. Now let’s see how you can go and get you some.

Tools & Experience = Skills

Enterprises apply continuous deployment procedures using a series of tools and practices. Gain experience with the primary tools and you’re well on your way to adding demonstrable skills to your resume.

1. Source Control

The first skill is in using tools such as Git, SVN, or Perforce for source control (also version control). Using source control, you save and manage your software code base and revisions in a repository. “You're deploying code from your repository. While you can run the repository locally, these tool companies also offer remote code hosting,” says Mark Herschberg, CTO, Madison Logic, who hires DevOps professionals.

2. Build Management

The next skill is in using tools such as Jenkins, Maven, or Ant for build management, which enables you to automate software builds with one click.

“Typically you'll compile the code and run regression (bug) tests. You can also have the code set things up for deployment,” says Herschberg. You’ll find these tools along with quick start guides and tutorials at the project websites.

3. Configuration Management

The third skill is in using tools such as Puppet, Chef, or Ansible for configuration management. Using configuration management, you automate the management of thousands of servers.

“Most major metropolitan areas have Meetup groups on these topics and it's a great way to get involved,” Herschberg says. “The tools are free and it's easy to use them at home or at work, even with just a few servers, which you might run in containers such as Docker or on virtual systems using VMWare or Hyper-V."

4. Monitoring and Log Managment

The final skills are in using tools such as Nagios for monitoring and tools like Splunk or Loggly for log management.

“Some monitoring tools are open source and some are commercial (even then some have free lite versions). Most are well-documented and easy to configure on your system at home or at work,” Herschberg says.

Log management tools include mining capabilities so you can retrieve useful log data.

Getting Access To Servers & Resources

If you don't have access to servers, consider investing some money in cloud servers. “You can run a handful of servers at AWS  for tens of dollars a week,” Herschberg says. Other cloud services include Rackspace, Azure, Google Cloud, and OpenStack.

It should be easy for you to find online guidance for DevOps and continuous deployment tools including tutorials, documentation, code examples, and discussion boards. “Discussion boards include StackOverflow, DZone, and Reddit.com/r/devops,” Herschberg says.

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This article was written by David Geer, technology writer and journalist.