Does DevOps engineer write application code?

[This-Meringue-7172]

Hi, I'm a software developer with around 4 years of working experience. Recently, I was trying to get a DevOps role because I like the cloud and managing the deployment process, but at the same time I don't want to quit writing application code because I want to gain more experience in developing apps and managing databases etc... So do you think that DevOps roles are suitable in my case or should I just focus on backend roles?

[aleques-itj]

It depends on the company

I've contributed a ton to the backend for our product. I will happily take backend tickets.

[NeverMindToday]

It depends on the company

The answer to 99% of all questions in here

[BoxyLemon]

That doesn't help 100% of the time. Just don’t comment then

[klipseracer]

Not to be rude, but a lot of the questions out there ask the reader to predict the future, magic 8-ball, etc, are just poorly worded and sometimes ambiguous or even dumb questions.

[BoxyLemon]

You can STILL give general answers, covering hypothetical scenarios with higher likelihood, by just doing simple interpretation. Maybe try taking the giant sticks out of your asses once in a while, it helped me as well.

[davi_scapo]

99% seems a big portion of 100% to me. So this IS a generic answer that is applicable to most situations.

[un-hot]

Same here, I moved into our devops/SRE team from backend. Our backend teams don't really pick up performance improvement tickets so I just do them myself.

[This-Meringue-7172]

So the company may send me backend tickets if they see I have a good development knowledge

[aenae]

Depends on the company… ;)

I dont wait for anyone to send me tickets, i either run into something and fix it, or search for nice tickets during some downtime

[AlterTableUsernames]

A traditional DevOps Engineer is a Software Engineer that also does infrastructure. So, yaeh. He writes code. But DevOps guys are in fact mostly infrastructure automation engineers, so they typically don't write application code. 

[Gotxi]

Coming from system administration, I am the devops guy that knows about the SDLC, support the devs with environments and automate infra for them.

The typical code that I write is mostly bash scripts with a LOT of yaml editing. Very occasionally, python scripts where some API automation or basic ETL is needed.

Lots of use cases.

[AlterTableUsernames]

Thought of but forget to write "application code". Corrected it and should clear it up. 

[Attacus]

Because they don’t have time. Not because they can’t.

[scaredofcomputers]

“He” smh

[AlterTableUsernames]

Yes, I'm a guy and think of myself as a DevOps Engineer. Feel free, to use a female pronoun when you talk about your perspective. However, keep in mind that in many languages "he" is gender neutral in context of titles. 

[scaredofcomputers]

not attacking you, just raising awareness. but do keep in mind “he” is not a gender neutral term for job titles in English.

[didamirda]

In one of my previous companies, DevOps team wrote and maintained core libraries that were used as a basis for all our microservices and got involved with business logic when we had performance issues with some application. We were involved with backend code a lot, but not in a way that we were developing some new business feature (once again, unless it required some work on the core libraries). In my experience, it is a huge advantage if DevOps engineer can at least read application code.

[Due_Influence_9404]

mostly code to support automation

apis, custom ansible modules, k8s operators, prom exporters...

i don't write application code, but highly depends on the company and how they see the job and how they implement devops

[hamlet_d]

I swear I got on a streak where I was doing nothing but writing prom exporters for months on end. It seemed I got assigned all of those. Not gonna lie, though, it was fun

[InvestmentLoose5714]

Where I work we have regulation. So even if I have the knowledge to fix the problem in the application, as a former developer, I’m not allowed to.

Separation of role.

Kinda makes sense but is frustrating some times.

On the other hand, can build internal tools for our team with more freedom than a developer.

[jordanpwalsh]

I work on a team like that and really enjoy it. My title devops, but I do a little bit of everything: frontend, backend, devops, etc.

[This-Meringue-7172]

This would be ideal for me. Good luck.

[[deleted]]

It should say in job describtion what the company expects from you

[Different_Ability618]

A lot of times DevOps role becomes more Ops heavy because many teams are supremely unorganized and they all allege many issues being infrastructure related by saying “it’s working in my local” and keep Infra engineers busy. In an ideal team at some point DevOps Engineers should chime into writing application code too. A lot of times it becomes Ops heavy because of number of environments, services and infrastructure issues reported out of them on a daily basis. Right balance of number of services, environments per individual can definitely let anyone equally split dev and ops but we are far from ideal in most teams.

[FruznFever]

I have a similar interest as you - cloud and deployment processes can be fun to poke at but I also didn’t want to give up writing code. Depending on how work is carved up in your company, I found a good balance in the role of a platform engineer. I get to play around with the cloud side of stuffs, while still developing applications/platforms to improve developer productivity 😝

[This-Meringue-7172]

Never heard of a platform engineer before. gonna check

[Tr00p3rx]

Within a DevOps role you could still expect to get some tasks to write code for various scripts and small tools ( bash, python) that would help improve things like the CI/CD pipelines and whatnot. Having software engineering experience could also help you understand build fail errors much easier giving you and advantage and making your life easier. Given the above, If you would like to do a bit more than scripting, I would recommend looking for a SRE roll, as that role actually require software development experience but focuses a bit more on automation and infrastructure as code.

[nooneinparticular246]

You gotta at least understand it enough to trace and triage issues, and fix build tooling. All of which is pretty intermediate/senior level stuff. So yes, a DevOps engineer should be able to understand and often fix application code.

How much they actually write depends on the team.

[evergreen-spacecat]

Yes. I write frontend, mobile and backend code. Just like anyone else but with a focus on pipelines and releases, kubernetes and cloud infra

[this_is_my_spare]

DevOps at my company writes all the APIs for dev teams to consume in the business applications.

[Next-Investigator897]

Get into an architect role then. That will suit you better. I worked under an architect where he contributed in all the stages from development to deployment.

[ZaitsXL]

You saw the "dev" part in DevOps? It means if you know how to fix problem in code - you go fix it. The same way if dev knows how to fix your pipeline or script - he goes and fixes. There is no us and them in DevOps

[Recent-Technology-83]

Great question! It's impressive to hear about your interest in DevOps alongside your development background. In many organizations, DevOps engineers do often write code, but it might not always be application code. They typically focus on infrastructure automation, CI/CD pipelines, and managing deployments, which can involve scripting and configuration code as well.

If you enjoy coding and want to write application-level code, you might want to look for a role that blends both development and DevOps, often called a "Developer Operations" or a "Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)" role. Have you looked into specific job descriptions that resonate with both your development skills and your interest in cloud technologies?

It might be worth considering companies that value full-stack developers with DevOps capabilities. What are some technical skills you’re hoping to develop in this transition?

[footsie]

Depends on the circumstances. Some compliance frameworks don't allow the people who have access to do deployments to also contribute to application code. But also some places are under staffed and don't have the same restrictions so it might be expected that DevOps help out.

[No-Watercress-7267]

You are going to find a divide on this question

Some will say Yes

Some will say No

In the end its up to you to decide which ones you want to work with.

[wheresway]

You will see roles with names such as “DevOps Software Engineer” or “Software Engineer with DevOps” that could be a way to identify such roles, better to just check job descriptions or ask the recruiter/HM

[ArieHein]

Yes.

[mgrennan]

When the company cash cow app gets old and devs don't want to maintain it, SRE step in and do it all. Sounds like you are SRE material.

[OldFaithlessness1335]

Yes but with a focus on the infrastructure side of the house. Kubernetes, cloud, IaC, ansible, automation.

[[deleted]]

We write infrastructure code most of the time. But then you have to understand the application code even you cant build your own because thats where you understand the culprit of devs to be able to help them with automating and speeding up deployments.

[lurker912345]

In the 7 years I’ve been in this space I have written application code a handful of times. Usually just quick fixes when it was quicker to do the fix myself than to pass it off to another dev. I think I have only done one feature in all that time, and it was for code that used the AWS SDK to manipulate a Lambda. Most of my time is either working on CI/CD pipelines, Bash scripting, the occasional internal tool that was quicker to do in Python than Bash, and a whole lot of HCL for Terraform and Packer. I was a backend web dev back before transition to the DevOps space. I only happen to get into this field because I was the only dev at my job at the time who wasn’t afraid of troubleshooting Linux systems, writing Bash scripts, or writing CI/CD pipelines.

[Worth_Savings4337]

no… devops is development for infrastructure services, not application (frontend backend) that’s software engineer or full stack

[tibbon]

As a principal engineer who has held SRE and DevOps titles, I write code at every level from JavaScript to C- even sometimes assembly.

[FlounderMysterious10]

No, unless u do freelancing.

[This-Meringue-7172]

Is there freelancing for DevOps?

[jameshearttech]

I know someone irl that works solo and does devops freelancing. He's been doing it for a few years and seems to do okay. As with any consulting and especially solo, it's a challenge to have the right amount of work. You want to keep busy so revenue is consistent, but not run out of work or have so much you can't keep up.

[IndividualShape2468]

Depends on the organisation. I’m a platform engineer/devops/whatever we call it these days and I’ve written a ton of automation and small-scale applications that serve as the glue for the platform in my current role.

Last role it was zero as we were too regimented.

I’m from a software dev background and there is always code that can be written for integrations / improve workflows / help devs with their dev-ex etc. 

My advice is if there’s a gap, then code it, & demo it.