Dimensional Data

Start-ups and small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face plenty of challenges, but several of those hurdles can be eased by adopting a DevOps platform. A DevOps platform can help not only address the issue at hand but the benefits can spread across the company, helping it grow in a competitive and unpredictable market. The United States alone is home to 32.5 million small businesses, making up 99.9 percent of all companies in the country, according to a 2021 report from the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy. And all of these companies have a tough road to travel – so tough that 20 percent of U.S. small businesses fail within the first year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. By the end of the fifth year, about 50 percent are shuttered. Stressed with common problems like worker overload, finding time for collaboration, and meeting customer and market needs, smaller businesses are under a lot of pressure. With SMBs and small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) facing such significant challenges, it only makes sense to streamline software development, speed up deployments, automate repetitive tasks and foster collaboration. Taking all those steps can greatly improve an SMB’s odds of success. Here’s how a DevOps platform can help take on some major SMB frustrations: Ease worker fatigue and improve work/life balance SMBs, by definition, have fewer employees than their larger, more-established competitors. That means there are fewer people to take on all the tasks that need to be done. And that’s no different for the software development team, which could very well be a team of one. With everyone in an SMB having to wear so many hats and take on so many different jobs, it can be exhausting. That’s not only hard on productivity, it’s hard on employees’ work/life balance, and therefore not good for the business or the workforce. A DevOps platform offers an environment that fosters communication, collaboration and automation, which help ease the burdens on the IT staff. This will help get work done more efficiently and faster, leaving employees with more time for other projects. Satisfy customers How can you find new customers when you’re not a household name? You do it by keeping the buyers you have and pulling in more by satisfying, and even delighting, your customer base. Satisfied consumers stick around, buy more, and give free word-of-mouth marketing. A DevOps platform helps SMBs create customer satisfaction by automating the customer feedback process and accelerating software development and deployment. Increase communication and collaboration Workers in start-ups and small businesses often take on a multitude of projects, and try to chip away at their burgeoning workflows. Meetings – within a department or cross-functional – may be either low priority or tough to arrange. A “heads’ down” attitude is understandable, but means different demographics and perspectives often won’t come together to better innovate and create more well-rounded products for a wider range of consumers. A DevOps platform promotes collaboration by eliminating barriers not just between IT workers but within an entire company. And that leads to more innovative features and products, improves productivity, and keeps employees happier and more engaged. Collaborative workers also are continuously learning from each other. Adapt to the market with speed and agility Every market can be unpredictable. New competitors appear. Customer expectations […]

Even if you’re totally happy in your current position, it pays to keep an eye on your DevOps career path and learn about emerging roles, especially given the way the DevOps space evolves so rapidly. For example, you might be wondering about the role of site reliability engineer (SRE) as opposed to DevOps engineer (and the totally new position called DevOps platform engineer, more on that later). These are all engineering positions requiring tech expertise and coding chops, but they play distinct roles on the DevOps team. Here’s what you need to know: SRE: A seasoned role As the title suggests, at a high level, SREs focus primarily on reliability, solving operational, scale, and uptime problems. In 2003, Google originated the SRE role to safeguard the uptime of its site, but it has evolved considerably since the advent of cloud native applications and platforms. Today, SREs concentrate on minimizing the frequency and impact of failures that can impact the overall reliability of a cloud application. According to Glassdoor, SREs typically require a Bachelor’s or graduate engineering or computer science degree. Salaries range widely, according to Glassdoor, hitting about $120,000 after 2 to 4 years of experience but can reach up to $300,000 and higher at the senior level. At least one blogger feels the SRE title carries more prestige and earning potential than DevOps engineers. Typical SRE responsibilities include everything from designing, developing, installing, and maintaining software solutions to working with engineering teams to refine deployment and release processes. Collaboration and communication are important job skills for the SRE role, as they need to work closely with multiple roles across the organization. At the time of this blog’s publication, there were 4,000 SRE jobs on Glassdoor. Indeed had more than 5,000 SRE postings and ZipRecruiter showed nearly 12,000 posts for remote SRE jobs. Python, Go, and Java were the most sought-after SRE skills listed on Indeed. According to Indeed, SREs transition to “DevOps engineer” at a high rate. DevOps engineers bridge the gap DevOps engineers, on the other hand, concentrate on removing obstacles to production and automation and making development and IT work well together. Like SREs, DevOps engineers need to be good at working and communicating with others, eliminating barriers to increase speed and quality of code delivery. With typically less need to be on call, the DevOps engineer may have a more favorable work-life balance than an SRE, who can have around-the-clock call. DevOps engineer work responsibilities include such things as analysis of technology utilized within the company and then developing steps and processes to improve and expand upon them. Project management is another key function, establishing milestones for departmental contributions and establishing processes to facilitate collaboration. The educational requirements for the two roles are comparable, with a Bachelor’s degree in computer science or engineering or higher as the usual price of admission. According to Glassdoor, the salary range for DevOps engineers is slightly lower than that of SREs, from a low of about $63,000 up to a high of $234,000 for someone with 2 to 4 years of experience. DevOps engineer positions are easier to find than SREs. Glassdoor has more than 6,000 DevOps engineer job posts. Indeed has more than 17,000. And ZipRecruiter has more than 81,000 remote DevOps engineer listings. New to the game Cloud […]