10 Must-Have Skills for a DevOps Engineer in 2025

DevOps Engineers are conversant with all integrated operations’ technical and IT aspects. They are expected to know about the various automation tools required for process automation and testing. Typically, the development, testing, and support departments were used to working in silos, creating process gaps and conflict in duties as different people managed these functions. Such barriers were the significant causes of misunderstandings, miscommunications, and conflict in prioritization and were proven detrimental to productivity, resulting in customer dissatisfaction.

• DevOps engineers collaborate with data engineers to build and manage AI-driven data pipelines.
• Quickly adapting to challenging environments and being flexible is a great quality for a DevOps engineer role.
• Are you prepared to take the plunge to something more thrilling than the generic role of software developer?
• For instance, the BLS estimates a 22% job growth for software developers from 2020 to 2030.
• DevOps engineers work with various tools to implement continuous integration and deployment.
• But it’s a job that pays excellently and has a high career outlook; Studies estimate a 22% job growth.
• You can utilize Docker containers with the same intent of packing up an application with all the required components, like libraries and dependencies.

Importance of Monitoring and Logging for Maintaining System Health

Effective organizational skills are critical to maintaining order amidst the chaos. Effective software testing is crucial to catch bugs and ensure the quality of the codebase. DevOps engineers should understand and integrate different testing methodologies into the CI/CD pipeline. Infrastructure management involves provisioning, configuring, and maintaining servers and networking components.

What is a DevOps engineer?

In addition to strong technical skills, DevOps engineers also need to have good communication and collaboration skills. The teamwork of IT specialists and developers is the main focus of the DevOps practice. To dissolve team silos, match objectives with corporate goals, and establish a DevOps culture, it places a strong emphasis on the communication and teamwork skills of DevOps engineers.

How to become a DevOps Engineer? Skills and Roadmap 2025

By committing to continuous learning and staying adaptable, you can ensure that you remain at the forefront of this dynamic field, driving innovation and delivering value in your organization. Success in DevOps is about cultivating a well-rounded skill set that combines technical expertise with strong collaboration, Programming language communication, and problem-solving abilities. Several tools have emerged to support the integration of security into the DevOps practice. These tools help automate security tasks, identify vulnerabilities, and enforce security policies, making it easier for teams to adopt DevSecOps practices. Another key technical skill for DevOps engineers is to understand not only cloud-native tools and services but also the architectural patterns that define modern application development.

Implement and Manage Infrastructure as Code

Familiarity with collaboration tools like Jira, Confluence, and Slack helps DevOps engineers coordinate with development and operations teams. Skills required for a DevOps engineer include proficiency in automation tools, cloud services, and scripting languages, along with strong problem-solving abilities and effective communication skills. On Coursera, you can find several highly rated courses to learn more about DevOps and DevOps engineering. IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate can help you begin your career as a DevOps engineer. In this course, you will earn an employer-recognized Professional Certificate while learning demonstrable skills for employers, including building applications and using automation tools. DevOps engineers are crucial in ensuring the continuous integration, delivery, and deployment of software, which improves organizational efficiency and competitiveness.

Observability and AI-Based Monitoring

Organizations embracing DevOps practices are experiencing substantial growth and heightened performance. Consequently, many global enterprises are gravitating toward adopting this methodology. According to the Puppetlabs State of DevOps report, companies embracing DevOps principles can deploy their code up to 30 times more frequently than their industry counterparts.

• They also need strong non-technical skills like communication, problem-solving, and monitoring to collaborate effectively, tackle challenges, and optimize performance.
• As DevOps continues to grow in popularity, certifications have emerged for professionals to demonstrate their DevOps skills and knowledge.
• They show proficiency in container orchestration, networking, and security, which are essential for managing containerized applications.
• By leveraging machine learning models, DevOps engineers enhance proactive troubleshooting and performance tuning.
• Their skill set extends to a deep comprehension of prevalent system architectures, provisioning, and administration.

Maintains Security

For example, picking Bash is a safe bet, as Bash is the native Middle+ DevOps Engineer job scripting language in most Linux distros. On top of that, you can pick something like Python or Ruby; both are great options. With an English-like syntax that’s very easy to read and understand and a set of very powerful DevOps automation libraries and tools available, you should be more than fine. For example, if you’re picking Python, you’ll be able to work on Ansible playbooks or custom modules, and if you go with Ruby, you can write Chef cookbooks. This person sits between both sides and has intimate knowledge of one of them and a great deal of knowledge about the other side.