DevOps engineering is the work of building the pipelines, infrastructure and feedback loops that let software move from a developer’s commit to production quickly and safely, with development and operations sharing ownership of the result. The DevOps movement took shape around the first devopsdays, held in Ghent, Belgium, in 2009 and founded by Patrick Debois. Its measurement side was formalised by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim in Accelerate (2018), the source of the DORA metrics.
How it works
Where you see it today
DORA’s Accelerate State of DevOps Report 2024 found that AI adoption raised individual productivity, flow and job satisfaction, but was associated with lower software delivery stability and throughput (DORA, 2024). More code written faster still has to pass the same tests, reviews and deploys.
DORA’s State of AI-assisted Software Development 2025 describes AI’s main role as an amplifier of an organisation’s existing strengths and weaknesses (DORA, 2025). Teams with fast, well-tested pipelines gain; teams with fragile ones ship their fragility faster.
GitHub’s Copilot cloud agent takes a task, works in a GitHub Actions-based environment and opens a pull request for review. The CI pipeline and code review become the control point for machine-written changes, which makes DevOps engineering more central, not less.
Many companies now package their tooling into an internal developer platform. DORA (2024) found such platforms improve productivity and team performance but can reduce change stability and throughput if badly run. In parallel, NIST’s Secure Software Development Framework (SP 800-218, February 2022) asks teams to build security practices into every lifecycle, the core idea of DevSecOps.
DevOps engineering vs related roles
How to use it
- Measure the four DORA delivery metrics for one service before buying any new tool.
- Shrink the size of each change: small batches make tests faster and failures easier to trace.
- Put every environment in code and make the pipeline the only way to change production.
- Agree an error budget with product owners so the speed-versus-reliability call is made by data, not by rank.
- Route AI-generated code through the same tests, reviews and security checks as human code, and watch change fail rate as AI use grows.
When AI makes writing code cheap, the bottleneck moves to verifying and shipping it safely, which is exactly what DevOps engineering owns. The Business Engineer reads delivery pipelines as the control layer that decides whether AI coding gains reach customers or turn into incidents.
Read: The Emerging Agentic Software Stack →Explore everything we publish →Related: Continuous integration · Continuous delivery · Site reliability engineering · DevSecOps · Agile methodology
Frequently asked questions
What does a DevOps engineer do?
They build and run the automated path from code commit to production: CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, monitoring and the feedback that drives the next change.
How is DevOps performance measured?
DORA uses delivery throughput (change lead time, deployment frequency, failed deployment recovery time) and instability (change fail rate, deployment rework rate).
Is DevOps the same as SRE?
They overlap. DevOps is a broad culture and set of practices; SRE is Google's engineering approach to reliability, built around SLOs and error budgets.
Does AI replace DevOps engineers?
DORA's research suggests the opposite pressure: AI raises individual output but can hurt delivery stability, so strong pipelines, tests and reviews matter more.
Sources
- Forsgren, Humble & Kim (2018), Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps, IT Revolution
- DORA (2024), Accelerate State of DevOps Report 2024
- DORA (2025), State of AI-assisted Software Development 2025
- DORA, DORA's software delivery performance metrics
- Google, Site Reliability Engineering, ch. 3: Embracing Risk (error budgets)
- NIST (2022), SP 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework v1.1
- devopsdays, About (first devopsdays, Ghent, 2009)
- GitHub Docs, About Copilot cloud agent
The full guide
The complete explainer, cleaned up and reformatted for mobile.
A majority of DevOps engineering roles are focused on introducing tools and processes that streamline software development.
SecDevOps engineers manage the security of the software.
Layout refreshed 7 October 2026. The article text below is unchanged.
With DevOps, IT teams can produce innovative solutions and deliver high-value products more efficiently.
Challenges in DevOps Engineering include the complexity of managing automation scripts and infrastructure, ensuring proper security measures, and addressing cultural resistance to change.
Visual overview and quick answers (tap to expand)
DevOps refers to a series of practices performed to perform automated software development processes. It is a conjugation of the term “development” and “operations” to emphasize how functions integrate across IT teams. DevOps strategies promote seamless building, testing, and deployment of products. It aims to bridge a gap between development and operations teams to streamline the development altogether.
1. Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Infrastructure is defined and managed through code, allowing for version control, repeatability, and automation.
2. Automation: Repetitive tasks, from provisioning servers to testing, are automated to increase efficiency and reduce errors.
3. Scalability: Systems are designed to scale dynamically to accommodate changing workloads.
4. Monitoring and Feedback: Continuous monitoring provides feedback on system performance and health.
5. Collaboration: DevOps Engineers work closely with development, operations, and other teams to align objectives and processes.
1. Tooling and Automation: Developing and maintaining automation scripts, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment tools.
2. Infrastructure Management: Managing and optimizing cloud or on-premises infrastructure using IaC.
3. Release Management: Ensuring smooth and reliable releases of software updates.
4. Monitoring and Troubleshooting: Setting up monitoring tools, analyzing performance metrics, and troubleshooting issues.
5. Security: Integrating security practices and tools into the DevOps process.
6. Collaboration: Collaborating with development and operations teams to facilitate communication and streamline workflows.
1. Infrastructure Provisioning: DevOps Engineers use IaC to provision infrastructure resources.
2. Automation: Automation scripts and CI/CD pipelines are developed to build, test, and deploy applications.
3. Monitoring and Feedback: Continuous monitoring provides insights into system performance and alerts on anomalies.
4. Scalability and Optimization: Engineers ensure that systems can scale efficiently and optimize resources.
5. Security Integration: Security practices are integrated into the DevOps pipeline.
6. Collaboration: Engineers work closely with development teams to align on deployment and release strategies.
1. Faster Delivery: Automation and CI/CD pipelines accelerate software delivery.
2. Reliability: Automated testing and monitoring enhance system reliability.
3. Scalability: Dynamic scaling accommodates changing workloads.
4. Cost Efficiency: Efficient resource management reduces infrastructure costs.
5. Collaboration: Collaboration between teams fosters a culture of shared responsibility.
Defining DevOps
DevOps is a set of practices in which development and operations teams share ownership of building, testing, deploying and running software.
Without them on your IT team, you cannot establish a cloud infrastructure that is powerful enough to stand in a hybrid environment.
DevOps engineering is a newly emerging role in the business landscape. It develops into a product of a dynamic workforce that is yet to flourish.
For this reason, a majority of businesses have not yet established a clear career path to DevOps engineering roles.
To fully define what encompasses DevOps engineering, one must understand what it takes to be one.
The collaboration between teams paves the way for quick integration and deployment of software and product.
With DevOps, IT teams can produce innovative solutions and deliver high-value products more efficiently.
What Does a DevOps Engineer Do?
A majority of DevOps engineering roles are focused on introducing tools and processes that streamline software development.
Simply put, DevOps engineers are there from start to finish.
This title means that they manage software development from coding and deployment to maintenance and updates.
They collaborate with developers, programmers, and QA specialists when working on one product.
The DevOps Engineer unifies the team to take necessary actions that ensure the quality and prioritize the seamless customer experience.
Responsibilities of a DevOps Engineer
DevOps engineers are responsible for the IT infrastructure throughout the software development cycle.
Typically, DevOps engineers handle the following tasks
- They should maintain continuous integration and continuous delivery using appropriate tools when testing, building, and deploying a product.
- Successful DevOps engineers have access to the leading tools and technologies that address the needs of the company.
- A skillful DevOps engineer knows ways to automate testing, deployment, and monitoring of code.
- They should be able to coordinate across IT teams to address concerns that answer to customer expectations.
Skills of a Promising DevOps Engineer
DevOps engineers aim to bridge the gap between development and operations teams.
In bringing these IT functions together, they can deploy products that consumers find valuable.
DevOps engineers must possess considerable skills that they can bring to the table to emphasize an agile methodology.
DevOps engineers must have familiarity with the most common tools utilized in the industry.
To stay in-demand, they should have extensive knowledge in hosting applications of Linux operating systems.
They should also know how to run configuration management tools like Puppet, Chef and Ansible, and CI servers such as Jenkins.
These tools play a fundamental role in the automation of processes and infrastructure provisioning.
Moreover, DevOps engineering roles are all hands on deck when it comes to automation and infrastructure management.
Apart from their access to complex tools, they should have impeccable interpersonal skills.
They foster a collaborative partnership across IT functions, so they should know how to approach them.
A Look at a Comprehensive DevOps Team
If you are looking to augment a comprehensive DevOps team to your existing IT functions, you might want to look into the following roles:
Release Manager
A DevOps team needs to have a release manager who will handle the process and deployment.
They are the ones who will make plans, prepare schedules, and monitor the entire process to ensure it runs seamlessly.
Simply put, release managers carry out the tasks that the team performs to streamline the process. Without them, the development and operations team cannot function in unison.
Release managers are especially vital during the deployment of the product.
They have the final say whether the current build of the software is suitable for release.
It is their responsibility to check the software’s quality using the CI/CD pipeline and check issues.
Automation Engineer
Automation engineers make use of the CI/CD pipeline to streamline the software development process.
They deploy CI/CD to implement specific changes more efficiently.
Automation engineers are the ones who create and maintain the CI/CD pipeline to facilitate the real-time implementation of code modifications.
For this reason, automation engineers rely on CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Maven, Git, and more.
Software Tester
Software testers are responsible for monitoring and fixing any error surrounding the code.
When any error gets overlooked, it can compromise the quality of the product.
The worst-case scenario is that users cannot utilize the software’s key features because of a minute bug.
Software testers come into the picture soon after developing the product to monitor for any occurring bugs and errors.
They test all aspects of the software to check for anything wrong with it.
From the design, certain situations that test user experience — as explored in the interface layer wars reshaping consumer tech — , to the features make sure that the software is seamless.
Additionally, it is the software tester’s responsibility to verify the cohesiveness of the code and its functionality.
It has to meet the release manager’s standards before the product launches to the public.
Integration Specialist
The integration specialist plays a fundamental role in the DevOps ecosystem.
They ensure that infrastructure requirements get fulfilled using integration and testing strategies.
These specialists utilize an agile methodology to support automation processes and engineering procedures.
SecDevOps Engineer
SecDevOps engineers manage the security of the software.
It is their job to ensure that the tools used are secured, from configuration management to log management to Quality Assurance.
They usually follow security protocols established by the business as their guide. Simply, SecDevOps engineers ensure that every member of the team adheres to the guidelines.
Finally, DevOps engineers possess the right amount of balance in cross-functional IT teams.
They are not confined to a particular position, as they should coordinate the development and operations team to streamline software development.
These requirements mean that the job title is all-inclusive and requires an extremely skilled and versatile developer to execute this role successfully.
Key Highlights
- DevOps Engineer Role: DevOps engineers are crucial for creating a seamless cloud infrastructure in modern businesses. They play a key role in developing a powerful cloud infrastructure suitable for hybrid environments. The role of a DevOps engineer is still emerging, and many businesses are yet to define clear career paths for this role.
- Collaboration and Efficiency: DevOps emphasizes collaboration between development and operations teams, enabling quick integration and deployment of software and products. This collaboration leads to innovative solutions and efficient product delivery.
- Responsibilities of DevOps Engineer: DevOps engineers are involved in the entire software development lifecycle. They manage everything from coding and deployment to maintenance and updates. They collaborate with various teams, including developers, programmers, and QA specialists, to ensure a seamless customer experience.
- Key Responsibilities:
- Maintain continuous integration and continuous delivery using appropriate tools.
- Automate testing, deployment, and monitoring of code.
- Coordinate with IT teams to meet customer expectations.
- Skills of a DevOps Engineer: DevOps engineers bridge the gap between development and operations, deploying valuable products. They need skills in automation, hosting applications, and configuration management tools like Puppet, Chef and Ansible, and CI servers such as Jenkins. Interpersonal skills are also important to foster collaboration across IT functions.
- Roles in a Comprehensive DevOps Team:
- Release Manager: Handles deployment process, plans, schedules, and monitors to ensure a seamless process.
- Automation Engineer: Creates and maintains the CI/CD pipeline for efficient code implementation using tools like Jenkins, Maven, and Git.
- Software Tester: Monitors and fixes errors in the code, ensuring a seamless user experience by testing all aspects of the software.
- Integration Specialist: Ensures infrastructure requirements are met through integration and testing strategies using agile methodologies.
- SecDevOps Engineer: Manages software security, following established protocols to secure tools, configurations, and adherence to guidelines.
- Balance and Versatility: DevOps engineers balance cross-functional IT teams, coordinating between development and operations. This versatile role requires skilled individuals who can successfully execute their responsibilities and promote efficient software development.
Main Case Studies
- Amazon Business Model
- Apple Mission Statement
- Nike Mission Statement
- Amazon Mission Statement
- Apple Distribution
