How to Build a Competitive DevOps Resume

The DevOps career field has become highly sought after among IT pros. LifeHacker reported early this year that DevOps engineer jobs are ranked second in their 50 Best Jobs in America ranking.

Even if you haven't seen the word "DevOps" appearing in job titles in your area, they're there. They're everywhere. Just dig just a little deeper. Many job descriptions paint the picture of a DevOps shop, even if it's not in the title. Companies seek IT pros with computer science degrees, Agile experience, and heavy cross-functional skills.

Now that things are getting competitive, it's time to look at your resume. You can still build a competitive DevOps resume even if you're not in a DevOps shop now.

Make Friends Up and Down the Pipeline

First, you must recognize that DevOps is a philosophy that arose from an urgent need for better alignment, collaboration, and empathy between development and IT operations. So, true to the collaborative nature of the philosophy, the best way to build a competitive DevOps resume is by reaching out to your IT or dev counterparts.

Today's product organizations require vertical, fully responsible teams, so make friends. See how you can help. Ask to clear tickets for tasks outside your everyday responsibilities and even your comfort zone. If you ask for tickets, you'll probably soon have more friends than you realize.

Seek Experience in Cross-functional Projects

Tickets are one thing. Being involved in cross-functional projects is its battle. DevOps is all about end-to-end responsibility for IT services. To acquire such skills in a non-DevOps environment, you'll need to involve yourself in projects that will allow you to work closely with people handling different roles.

Make Your Resume T-Shaped

If you're taking tickets and finding cross-functional projects, you're well on your way to a T-shaped skill set and resume. If you're unfamiliar with the term, the vertical bar on the "T" represents the depth of related skills and expertise in a single field. The horizontal bar represents broad generalist knowledge across various areas outside one's specialization.

You might also have heard this concept described as deep versus wide. We humbly suggest that you should both go deep and wide for a competitive DevOps resume.

Full Stack Does Sound Better than JOAT

Specialist skills are no longer appreciated as standalone unless complemented by a broad understanding of an entire solution's various aspects. That's why the full-stack developer became all the rage when choosing premium talent.

This nearly mythical role can simultaneously deliver front- and back-end coding, infrastructure, and databases and carry out deployment and operational support.

Now, while you can specialize in one area, you need to gain high-level knowledge about the other parts of the service. For example, if you are a DBA, you better come to grips with understanding integration, operation systems, and general coding principles if you want to make it in the DevOps space.

You'll need to adopt a mindset for continuous learning so that you'll know how stuff works, whether it's security or hardware.

Develop Your Soft Skills, Especially Project Management

A competitive resume in any field combines complex knowledge and soft skills, especially in DevOps. Above-par DevOps candidates can demonstrate competencies in negotiation, presentation, project management, communication, and critical thinking.

It's hard to certify your people skills, and that's what the interview is for, anyway. You can, however, get approved in even the most entry-level project management methods to make your resume particularly competitive.

DevOps culture is characterized by collaboration, feedback, experimentation, and continuous improvement. So, unless soft skills are part and parcel of your arsenal, convincing a recruiter that you are ready-made for such a role is highly improbable.

Get to Know the Tools and Get Certified

DevOps is a toolset, mindset, philosophy, and job, so knowing what tools to use is paramount to having a competitive resume. Even if your employer has not taken the time to invest in premium solutions, there is a wide range of open-source tools with which you can experiment.

Whether it's GitHub, Docker, Chef, or JIRA, experience configuring and using such tools goes a long way toward making your resume attractive to anyone looking to hire for DevOps-related roles.

So, even if your organization still runs IT traditionally, there are opportunities for training, projects, and experimentation that can help you gain the modern skills required by DevOps.

Your employer isn't going to build your resume for you. To develop a strong DevOps resume, you'll have to start with a collaborative, high-speed, agile mindset, which is what DevOps is all about if you think about it.