The year is ending, it is October already. In just a blink, it would be April, and all of us would be anxiously waiting to hear that one word that we crave to hear our bosses say – promotion. If you are a DevOps professional and are keen to get promoted, then in this blog, we give some valuable tips to dot your Is and cross your Ts, and bag that much-awaited promotion.
The world of DevOps sees cut-throat competition. There is a huge demand for skilled DevOps professionals. There are ample opportunities for growth and development in the space. But to make your mark, you need to tick some boxes. You need to prove that you are an invaluable asset for your organization, more than just a regular, easily replaceable employee.
How do you do that? Read on.
Deliver Value Beyond the IT Department
The idea of DevOps was born out of the need for collaboration and breaking silos the teams used to operate in earlier. To move up the ladder, you need to embody just that. Prove your value beyond just the IT department. Be enthusiastic about opportunities to collaborate with other teams or to lead interactions/projects that involve multiple disciplines and teams. One invaluable asset to facilitate this is outstanding communication skills. Build on this, and you ticked the first box and probably got your foot in the door even.
Focus on the Bigger Picture
What differentiates an entry-level or a basic DevOps engineer and one taking the next step to a senior role? Their ability to focus on the bigger picture and tweak their approach accordingly. If it’s a promotion you are keen on, then always be company-focused as well as customer-focused and never lose sight of the transformational goals at an enterprise level. Go beyond seeing yourself as a tiny piece of the value chain but see whatever projects you handle right to the end. The goal is to own the project and ensure successful outcomes not just for your tasks but for the projects at large.
Be Organized and Have a Plan
From day-to-day tasks to long-term goals and aspirations, be organized and have a plan in place to achieve them, no matter how rough. Always be professional and prepared. The slicker you are, the better placed you will be to bag that promotion to a senior DevOps role. When you walk into work each morning, have a clear idea of what you are going to achieve that day and how. Then, work with your team and any other teams you have to collaborate with to achieve those goals.
Widen Your Technical Horizons
The importance of soft skills can never be emphasized enough. At the same time, technical skills are just as important. Technology evolves faster than most of us can keep up. So, strive to widen your technical horizons by upskilling. Learn new tools and software and explore how tasks can be done more efficiently. Keep abreast of what is happening around the world in DevOps and which development you can embrace. Go beyond DevOps and your defined role too. For instance, explore concepts of cloud computing, infrastructure automation, continuous integration, and containerization. Get a certificate or two to validate the skills you have learned.
Be Supportive and Encourage Your Team
You may not be a leader just yet but that shouldn’t stop you from behaving like one. Inspire, influence, and drive your team members toward successful outcomes. Encourage and motivate the team, be the one that the team as well as your manager depends on. Hone those project management skills and lead from the front. Emerge as the natural leader everyone banks on, and we assure you, that promotion is yours.
Seek Out New Challenges & Projects
Being hungry for more would be crucial in swaying that promotion tide in your favor. When the management sees how you are excitedly seeking out new challenges as well as feedback to improve, you definitely make it to the top of the line of contenders for promotion. Strive to make a business impact. Ask relevant questions, showcase curiosity, seek feedback on how to improve, think on your feet, and find your joy in solving complex problems. Don’t let challenges bog you down.
Be Technically Sound ++
When an individual transitions to a senior role after promotion, their responsibilities increase. This requires sounder and wider technical skills, undoubtedly. But there is more to a senior role than that. A senior DevOps role generally comes with some direct reporting individuals and greater expectations from you. This requires you to be comfortable in formulating and implementing the right strategies as well as being a sharp leader. As a senior DevOps professional, you don’t just have individual goals to meet, but also team goals to achieve. Prove to the management that you can easily do this.
Keep Up with Developments and Advances
Read blogs and follow the developments in the space. For instance, DevOps has now evolved to DevSecOps, so learn all you can about it and try coming up with ideas on how you could implement it in your organization. Keep an eye on new updates being released for all the tools you use at work and try calculating any impact it might have on your projects. If there is a new tool on the market that can make your team more efficient or productive, learn it thoroughly and be prepared to make a case for it. Learn new scripting languages if it helps you be better at what you do.
Know How to Get Things Done
You can’t do every task by yourself, nor can you know everything there is to know. We all need help sometimes. DevOps is all about collaboration, after all. But a smart leader knows whom to reach out to for what to get things done right. Be that person. Network within and outside your organization. It is a skill to know who to talk to and seek help to ensure you meet your goals and get the assistance you need in time. Hone that skill well. Your manager should feel you are the person to reach out to when they need to get things done right.
Be a Mentor You Would Have Wanted
A transition to a senior role usually comes with some direct reporting individuals that you would be responsible for guiding and training. Be a servant leader. Strive to be a mentor that you would have wanted when you were in their role.
Learn DevOps with Cognixia
Enroll in Cognixia’s DevOps Training to strengthen your career. Take a step to boost your career opportunities and prospects. Get into our DevOps certification course that is hands-on, collaborative, and instructor-led. Cognixia is here to provide you with a great online learning experience, to assist you in expanding your knowledge through entertaining training sessions, and to add considerable value to your skillset in today’s competitive market. Individuals and the corporate workforce can both benefit from Cognixia’s online courses.
Regardless of your familiarity with IT technology and procedures, the DevOps Plus course gives a complete look at the discipline, covering all critical ideas, approaches, and tools. It covers the fundamentals of virtualization, its advantages, and the different virtualization tools that play a vital part in both learning & implementing the DevOps culture, starting with a core introduction to DevOps. You’ll also discover the DevOps tools like Vagrant, Containerization, VCS, and Docker and Configuration Management using Chef, Puppet, SaltStack, and Ansible.
This DevOps course covers intermediate to advanced aspects. Get certified in DevOps and become acquainted with concepts such as the open-source monitoring tool Nagios, including its plugins, and its usage as a graphical user interface. The Advanced DevOps fundamentals and Docker container clustering leveraging Docker Swarm & Kubernetes in the CI/CD Pipeline Automation are thoroughly discussed.
Our online DevOps training covers the following concepts –
- Introduction to DevOps
- GIT: Version Control
- Maven
- Docker – Containers
- Puppet for configuration management
- Ansible
- Nagios: Monitoring
- Jenkins – Continuous Integration
- Docker Container Clustering using Docker Swarm
- Docker Container Clustering using Kubernetes
- Advanced DevOps (CI/CD Pipeline Automation)
Prerequisites
This course requires just a basic grasp of programming & software development. These requirements are helpful but not compulsory because this all-inclusive training is aimed at newcomers and experienced professionals.
