Lead DevOps Engineer
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The Lead DevOps Engineer oversees and leads the activities of the junior DevOps departments. He is responsible for the automation and configuration management of the business’s servers and provides stable environments for delivery of quality.
The Lead DevOps Engineer is responsible for the automation of all manual tasks for the building and deployment of both code and data in order to enable continuous integration and continuous deployment frameworks. He guides junior departments in the automation of the business’s data pipeline from the internal database servers.
Objectives and Responsibilities of the Lead DevOps Engineer
Management: The Lead DevOps Engineer is tasked with the management and development of continuous integration and deployment solutions for production applications across various sites/software. He spearheads the creation of new technology infrastructures and maintains configuration management and automation tools.
The Lead DevOps Engineer conducts training on junior DevOps engineers and other engineering teams on how to build processes where dependencies are represented clearly in code. The DevOps Engineer plays an operational role by troubleshooting issues in development systems and is also responsible for the architecture and technical leadership of the entire DevOps infrastructure.
He enables the automation of configuration management of all development, quality assurance, and production servers as well as the automation of continuous integration and continuous delivery.
Strategy: The Lead DevOps Engineer is also tasked with the creation of software deployment strategies that allow DevOps engineers to successfully deploy sites/software in any environment. He is also responsible for the updating of configuration management tools, code, and modules for the purpose of streamlining implementation and supportability.
The Lead DevOps is further tasked with the creation of solutions for managing and ingesting large numbers of documents in real time, enabling prompt search and analysis. He also implements monitoring solutions that identify both system bottlenecks and production issues. The Lead DevOps Engineer further identifies and implements data storage schemas such as clustering in order to maximize performance.
Design and Development: The DevOps Engineer is in charge of designing, building, and optimizing comprehensive automation systems that operate the business’s web, mobile, and data infrastructure platforms.
He also designs scaling strategies and develops automation scripts and solutions for the purpose of streamlining, implementing, and testing sites/software. The Lead DevOps Engineer additionally develops self-service solutions for the engineering department in order to deliver sites/software with great speed and quality.
Collaboration and Support: The role of the Lead DevOps is a collaborative role where he assists junior DevOps teams in the navigation of technologies such as Python, Ruby, Scala, MySQL, MongoDB and so forth. The Lead DevOps Engineer also coaches the engineering development department personnel in the workings of reusable tools and patterns, for example, reusable code.
He also supports engineering teams in the implementation of lifecycle infrastructure solutions and documentation operations in order to meet the engineering department’s quality and standards.
Knowledge: The Lead DevOps Engineer is further tasked with keeping up with industry best practices and trends on behalf of the DevOps department and the larger engineering department. He conducts research, tests, and implements new metrics collection systems that can be reused and applied to any site/software development project.
Other Duties: The Lead DevOps Engineer also performs similar duties and duties as delegated by the Head of DevOps, Director IT Operations, Chief Technology Officer, or the Employer.
Required Qualifications of the Lead DevOps Engineer
Education: The Lead DevOps Engineer has to have a master’s degree in Computer Science or any other relevant field. An equivalent of the same in working experience is also acceptable for this position.
Experience: A candidate for this position must have had at least 5 years of working experience in a DevOps capacity, preferably as a DevOps Engineer. The candidate must also have had experience automating the managing large-scale infrastructure and have significant familiarity with Puppet. The candidate will have had vast experience in systems automation, orchestration, deployment, and implementation.
He will have had experience using Jenkins and Linux as well as experience configuring and automating monitoring tools. The candidate must similarly demonstrate experience in software development and experience working with tools and languages such as MySQL, SaaS, Git, Python, Shell scripting, Java, and MongoDB.
A suitable candidate will further demonstrate experience in scaling distributed data systems, for example, Hadoop, Elasticsearch, Cassandra, among others. The candidate will further have had experience with highly scalable systems, inclusive of frontend and backend websites tiers. He will additionally have had a keen understanding of monitoring solutions for all layers of web infrastructure.
Communication Skills: The Lead DevOps Engineer will need to have exceptional communication skills that allow him to effectively execute his supervisory duties to the junior DevOps teams. Good communication skills in this case will guarantee that he clearly conveys information and instructions in a clear manner, which will in turn determine the performance of the junior teams.
The DevOps Engineer will also need good communication skills in his intensely collaborative role, leading to more efficient execution of collaborative duties across the engineering department and the business.
Technology/Software: A candidate for this position must be technologically adept and have demonstrated computer skills, as well as have skills in scaling distributed data systems. The candidate must have a comprehensive understanding of Google Cloud Platforms and be highly familiar with big data clusters, Hadoop, and NoSQL databases. He will also have exceptionally good scripting skills through Python, Shell, and Ruby.
The candidate must also have worked with monitoring tools such as Graphite, Nagios, MixPanel, Newrelic, Airebrakes, and Track.js. The candidate must be skilled in the configuration, maintenance, and securing of Linux systems as well as skill in scripting languages such as Shell and Ruby. He will also need to have skills in infrastructure automation tools, for example, Chef, Ansible, Juju, and so forth.
Interpersonal Skills: A candidate for this position must be a result oriented individual, be helpful in nature, be self-motivated, be proactive going beyond the call of duty, be a creative and strategic thinker, be highly analytical, work comfortably in a constantly evolving environment, work comfortably in a collaborative environment, have an ability to multi-task and meet tight deadlines, and have an ability to remain calm in the face of uncertainty and stress.
People Skills: The Lead DevOps Engineer must also be a people person who is able to form strong and meaningful relationships with other people. He will be likable and relatable individual who inspires trust and confidence in his junior, seniors, and in collaborating personnel who then readily follow in his insights, judgments, and directives.
