Being an Impactful DevOps

Being an Impactful, valuable, and effective DevOps is not limited to tools and technology. Knowing Jenkins, Python, Cloud Certification, CKA, Linux, Security, and Networking is all good and required to be a successful DevOps/SRE/PE but the journey starts from here. We need a plan for the long run.

In this article,i have shared a few common habits or ways of working on how to be an impactful DevOps as per my experience.

Learn the concept, not the tool

The number of tools will always keep growing and it's impossible to learn everything. Instead, if you focus on the basic concepts, learning any new tool is not tough. If you know about the #CI pipeline or say #DevSecOps Pipeline, you just need to understand which stages you need to set up and what each one of them does, irrespective of whether you use #Azure #DevOps, #GitHub Actions, or Jenkins.

Similarly, don't run behind getting certified on multiple clouds. All the clouds have more similarities than differences, like, it's just the difference in how the Cloud Portal looks, naming conventions, and differences in the few offered services..they all run on hardware and use modern hypervisors.

Another example is #Kubernetes. Learn some distributed system concepts, networking concepts, and Unix concepts before jumping on to getting CKA certified or even starting your K8s journey. A lot of people provide just the required content and training courses which will help you to clear the exam and get CKA certified but that will not help in the long run.

Always ask yourself, why you are doing this task. What are the associated benefits and Business value?

Before Jumping on to the ask and the task, you should have clarity of the associated benefits and business value of the objective of the task. If you have that clarity, you will be able to execute the assigned task with better alignment and without going back again and again to your POs/lead/Architect and repeatedly asking for clarity.

See the Bigger Picture, Think Forward, and Be Proactive

As a #DevOps, it's very important to see the bigger picture and not just be limited to the assigned task or issue. Always try to think from the End to end-to-end architecture point of view and try to connect existing dots with your solution.

Always think about the future impact that your assigned task will have once it is rolled. This is even more important in the case if you are part of the central team and going to roll out solutions to application teams frequently. Being in the shoes of your consumers and understanding the pain is a must from a DevOps perspective.

Being Proactive is a very important skill to be an impactful DevOps.Thinking about those scenarios or tasks or dependencies or challenges as early as possible will make you stand out of the queue.

Challenge the People and Processes.

Why?..is always a challenging question to answer but if you can ask it with the right logic and reasons, it's always appreciated. Following the already stated process and procedures is easy but then carefully studying, finding the loopholes and then proposing the solution within the same process which brings some business value and productivity improvement, is the real thing.

Also, it's very easy to blame and make fun of the people who had first laid down those processes in the past, but remember, they did it with some forward thinking and that's why it's working presently.

Propose scalable solutions

For any issue, whether small or big, always try to propose #scalable solutions. Sometimes, you might need a tactical fix but at the same time, that tactical fix should also be on the lines of strategic and scalable solutions and shouldn't be a duplicate effort altogether.

Home Lab

Theory exists in the mind, not in systems. You should have a home lab as a playground to do small PoCs to get to the core concepts and drill down on those particular tools and should try to implement different use cases that are not normally mentioned in Getting Started guides and copy-paste tutorials. Start doing the things THE HARD WAY.

Get your hands dirty by doing small PoCs locally before going into Architectural/Deep-Dive/Technical discussions.Google/Theoritical knowledge may fire back if the group has smarter people.

Get yourself at least a Linux and a Windows desktop to stand out from the crowd and you will start seeing the impact immediately. If possible, you can even try to assemble the PC yourself and believe me, you will love it. Also, keep a bootable disk or USB drive ready and not be afraid to break the OS.

Be flexible

Don't be rigid with your thought processes, knowledge and choice of tools and technology. Remember you are trying to solve a business problem through technology so never let technology run over your ego.

Be up-to-date on tech trends

It's very important to be always up to date on the latest tech trends and get upskilled. However, it is not that easy as there is loads of information floating around which can create fatigue. We have to be very careful about the choices we make and plan where we see ourselves in the next years with our current skills and against the changing tech trends.

In my next blog, I will share a few things, which I do to keep myself updated with the latest trends in the IT industry as per my interest.

I will be eagerly waiting to hear feedback.

Happy Reading!

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