DevOps: why does a business need a devops engineer?

Downtime in digital products is an inconvenience for users and a direct loss for businesses. Failures, bugs, and delays appeared due to the old operating scheme. The developers handed over the product for support, and then everyone dealt with their own part. Administrators received the finished product without understanding its device. As a result, there is a conflict of interest and the phrase "it's not on our side" has become a marker of bad processes.

To bridge this gap and establish a unified process, the business began implementing the DevOps approach.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is an approach to software development and operation in which one team takes responsibility for the entire product lifecycle: from the idea and writing of code to releases, monitoring and support. The main thing here is not the tools, but the culture of interaction between development (Dev) and operations (Ops). This is the essence of the DevOps methodology.

The main practices and directions of DevOps

Practice	Description
CI (Continuous Integration)	Regular code integration for quick error detection.
CD (Continuous Delivery/Deployment)	Automatic delivery and posting of changes without human intervention.
Process automation	Automation of all stages: testing, assembly, deployment, monitoring.
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)	Manage servers and networks through code, not manually.
Real-time monitoring	Service monitoring and quick response to failures.

Who is a devops engineer?

A DevOps engineer is a versatile specialist who combines knowledge in development, administration, automation, and security. He must understand how the code works, be able to set up the environment, write scripts, monitor stability and scale the system.

The main DevOps technologies and tools:

Git and CI/CD systems (e.g. GitLab CI, Jenkins);
Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes);
Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure);
Scripting languages (Bash, Python);
Monitoring (Prometheus, Grafana).

But in addition to technical skills, communication and readiness for continuous learning are important. A DevOps engineer often becomes the link between developers, testers, and administrators.

We can outsource DevOps engineers to strengthen the team, optimize infrastructure, and accelerate releases without the cost of hiring and training internal specialists.

Why does a business need DevOps?

Technically, DevOps is a methodology, not a position. But in practice, the term has been fixed precisely in this meaning.

From the outside, DevOps may seem like something straightforward: it has set up automatic code delivery, deployed the environment, tweaked the script, and is free. But if you look inside, it becomes clear that the real work of a development engineer is a complex, multi—level process filled with nuances and surprises.

Companies implementing DevOps services benefit from:

Fast and secure releases;
Reducing the number of errors in production;
A transparent and manageable development process;
Increased stability and predictability of the infrastructure.

Devops helps businesses accelerate the release of new features and build a culture of collaboration where all participants in the process understand the goals and are responsible for the result.

What does a devops engineer do?

A DevOps engineer works at the intersection of technology and processes. His task is to ensure that development, testing, and release take place quickly, reliably, and without unnecessary manual work. He doesn't just "roll out releases", but builds a system where this happens automatically.

The main functions of the DevOps Spec include:

CI/CD setup — automatic assembly, testing and layout;
containerization (Docker, Kubernetes);
writing and maintaining automation scripts (Bash, Python);
cloud infrastructure management (AWS, Azure, GCP);
organization of monitoring and logging (Prometheus, Grafana);
implementation of infrastructure as code (Terraform, Ansible, etc.).

In practice, a DevOps engineer works with a wide range of tasks. It sets up pipelines, automates environments, and fixes dependency issues. There are no separate boundaries of responsibility in this role. DevOps is about a shared responsibility area.

A devops engineer must be technically savvy and be able to quickly navigate a wide range of technologies. He knows how networks and servers work, understands the code, and can set up processes for interaction between teams. But at the same time, it is important to be able to communicate, negotiate and build processes. A DevOps specialist often becomes a mediator between Dev and Ops.

Not all devops are the same

There are two types of devops engineer:

Narrow-profile, focused, for example, only on CI/CD or working with Kubernetes;
DevOps is an admin who is both a networker, an admin, a programmer, and a bit of an architect.

In the second case, which is the most common in the CIS market, a DevOps engineer manages the virtual infrastructure, sets up CI/CD pipelines, monitors logs, debugs scripts, and closes incidents. It often also takes on the development of simple microservices and utilities.

What does the DevOps cycle look like in practice?

The entire DevOps methodology is based on the idea of continuous delivery: the code must go through the entire cycle from writing to launching in production and as quickly, safely and without manual steps as possible. This is called the CI/CD process — continuous integration and continuous delivery/deployment.

To simplify it, the chain looks like this:

1

Development

The code is written, which then gets into the general repository.

2

Integration

Changes are automatically checked and initial tests are carried out.

3

Assembling

A ready-made artifact (archive, container, etc.) is created.

4

Testing

Tests are being run to identify errors at an early stage.

5

Deployment

The new version is being rolled out to the environment: staging, demo or production

On paper, everything is simple. But in reality, it all comes down to nuances: differences between environments, instabilities, "legacy" in the code, crutches that "historically developed". All this complicates automation and requires expertise.

Is DevOps the same system administrator?

A DevOps engineer may seem like just a more advanced system administrator. However, there is a fundamental difference between them.

The sysadmin is responsible for the stable operation of servers, network and infrastructure, monitors updates, backups and security. DevOps combines administration tasks with automation practices, script development, and knowledge of CI/CD tools.

The system administrator works with hardware and configurations manually, and a DevOps engineer writes code to manage this infrastructure, automating processes from testing to monitoring.

Such a specialist saves the team's resources, allowing developers to focus on the product, and the business to release updates faster. That's why devops has long ceased to be just a "tech guy" — it's a versatile engineer with skills from different IT fields.