Why Hiring DevOps Engineers Is Hard

If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur. This is perhaps the perfect line to demonstrate how important hiring is in today’s perspectives. The task becomes more difficult when it comes to hiring DevOps engineers. In recent times, companies are finding it harder and harder to find good DevOps engineers. 

While there has been a constant argument that the reason is the lack of good DevOps engineers, it is only part of the problem. Take India, for example, one of the backbones of the global Information Technology industry. According to LinkedIn India, 22,000 DevOps Engineer job postings were made on the platform each month for the entirety of 2023. Another job portal called Naukri.com similarly posted over 19000 DevOps engineer vacancies in December 2023.

This comes despite the fact that the global DevOps market is expected to grow at a Compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 57.44 percent from $13.2 billion in 2024 to $81.1 billion in 2028. So, companies are now scrambling to find the best DevOps engineers as they race to outcompete their rivals. 

As mentioned earlier, lack of talent and resumes is not the only reason why companies are struggling to find talented DevOps engineers. 

DevOps Is Broad and Ambiguous

The biggest challenge is that there is no clear definition and scope of the term DevOps. It is not a single-skill tool that can be mastered to become a competent DevOps engineer. Rather, it is more like philosophy where each developer is unique in their own way. For example, there are many tools under the DevOps umbrella. And it is not possible for every developer to master each tool. 

Every developer is different not only in terms of the skills they have but also in terms of the responsibility they have. For example, a company may want a DevOps engineer who is adept at CI/CD, while another company may want an expert in Kubernetes. Some

may want both along with the ability to run production. So, many times, companies find it hard to find a DevOps engineer who fits their definition of DevOps.

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Hiring takes time 

Companies are facing the challenge of hiring too quickly. One reason is that the term DevOps is too broad and ambiguous. However, there are other reasons. Since the role is too broad and requires deep technical knowledge, the interview process is long and cumbersome. This means conducting multiple technical round interviews. During these interviews, candidates are also given complex real-life scenarios to test their skills.

Furthermore, a good DevOps engineer is always in demand, so they are always being monitored by top companies. When these DevOps engineers apply, they do so in multiple companies. It is here that companies that take too much time can lose out. So, a company that is in the process of hiring them could be beaten by a competitor who might offer them a better package.

Also Read: How To Reduce Time-to-Hire with IaaS

Talent Pool Can’t Keep Up with Demand

The 2023 State of Platform Engineering Report from Puppet found an interesting observation. Over 33 per cent of companies stated that the lack of DevOps engineers was their number one bottleneck. The reason for the lack of demand is simple. Earlier, the fashion of having DevOps engineers was limited to tech giants who were pioneers in their field, such as the Big Five (Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta). However, now, with the rapid advancements of technology, every company wants to have DevOps capabilities.

The problem is that this rise in demand was far more than the supply that was being created in the universities. In addition, companies not only want DevOps but they want them to be good at everything ranging from coding, cloud, infrastructure, and security knowledge. However, most of these skills are learned on the job as the employee gets used to the specific skills and responsibilities of the company.

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Rapid Technological Advancements

The main reason why DevOps became a revolution across the world was because of the rapid technological advancements it made. See, for example, how mobile software updates have grown more powerful in recent years. However, these rapid technological advancements have proved to be a double-edged sword, as they also mean that DevOps engineers have to constantly upgrade their skills as they become obsolete at a rapid pace. The same task that was performed with a tool can overnight be replaced by a newer tool that is faster and more efficient but also requires quick upskilling on the part of the employee.

Here’s a table to guide you on the changes that DevOps has gone through in recent years

Area	Traditional Tool(s)	New / Emerging Tool(s)
Infrastructure as Code (IaC)	Terraform	Pulumi, Crossplane
Containers	Docker	Podman, BuildKit
Container Orchestration	Kubernetes	K3s, OpenShift, Nomad
CI/CD Pipelines	Jenkins	GitHub Actions, Argo CD
Monitoring	Nagios, Zabbix	Prometheus, Grafana, Loki
Observability	ELK Stack	OpenTelemetry, Datadog
Secrets Management	Vault	Doppler, SOPS

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Culture Fit Matters

As mentioned earlier, DevOps is not a skill but rather a philosophy. This phjilospo[phy is at an intersection where developers, quality assurance, product managers, and system administrators work together to deliver a single product. Therefore, it is not only about having talented DevOps engineers but also having ones who have good communication skills and who can resolve conflicts easily when they arise.

So, a DevOps engineer who cannot work with these other teams is bound to struggle, no matter how good they are. In addition, in an industry where skills and tools are changing overnight, employees need to have patience and be able to navigate these challenges with ease.

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How companies can address the DevOps talent shortage 

While hiring DevOps engineers is only getting harder, companies have started to realize that they need an alternative if they are to survive and thrive. So, here are some of the methods that organizations are applying to overcome this shortage.

Upskilling 

The most effective solution to this problem remains upskilling. Companies are now spending money to create an internal talent pipeline. Under this, recruiters identify the best fit who can be upskilled. These can be developers, system administrators, cloud engineers, site reliability engineers, platform engineers, and security engineers. Since the existing employees are already familiar with the systems (such as stack and product) and product, they can easily get up to speed in their new role. 

Offering upskilling is also a great opportunity for employees to grow in their careers. This means candidates are more motivated as it will offer them better pay and career growth. The company’s leadership can also mold these DevOps engineers according to their required skills and responsibilities.

Also Read: Why Enterprise Companies are Shifting to IaaS for hiring top talent

Invest in Learning & Development

Even companies that do have good DevOps need to invest in learning and development because of the rapid technological advancements. However, during the learning process, the employees should be made to feel safe as learning is a time-consuming process. Continuous learning also improves the quality of the team, leading to better retention rates and fewer mistakes. 

Companies should also ensure that their employees have access to high-quality knowledge material. Online learning resources such as LinkedIn Learning and Udemy are of great use under these circumstances. In addition, companies should invest in hiring experts from specific domains to mentor junior engineers.

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Widen the Talent Pool

After the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of remote working skyrocketed. At the peak of the pandemic, more than half of the employees in the United States were working from home in April 2020. However, it also proved highly beneficial to organizations, as hiring remotely allowed them to greatly widen their talent pool.

This allows the company to explore markets with lower average salaries than its main job market. Offering remote working also helps save money for both the company (office space, IT infrastructure) and the employee (commute time, rent).

Another way of widening the talent pool is to hire or promote people working in adjacent roles. This can be done by offering them opportunities for upskilling, learning, and development, as mentioned earlier in the article. 

Also Read: Biggest Hiring Challenges in 2025 and How IaaS Can Help

Improve Your Employer Brand for DevOps

We have already touched on the topic that good DevOps engineers are always in demand and thus end up being picky about which organizations to join. Companies should also invest to make their employer brand more attractive for DevOps engineers. A great way to start any such venture is to have a blog page that has content related to the latest developments in the DevOps industry,

Companies should also create a positive environment for employees in their offices, which will then be reflected in their reviews on online platforms such as GlassDoor. This, coupled with an active LinkedIn page, can, in the long run, work wonders for an organization.

Also Read: The Rise of Remote Hiring And How IaaS Fits In

Start Using Automation Tools in Hiring 

Companies have to also adapt to the new realities of Artificial Intelligence which has given birth to several tools that offer what we call Interview as a Service (IaaS), an end-to-end hiring solution.

The rise of IaaS platforms has been rapid, with a host of platforms offering their services. While some offer end-to-end hiring solutions, others only help with a specific part of it, and some only help with technical platforms (HackerRank, CodeSignal, and Karat).

One such platform is BarRaiser, which offers end-to-end hiring solutions. Our tool guarantees to take your hiring to the next level. Firstly, with our AI Interview Copilot, an interviewer gets a digital assistant who helps them navigate the interview process.

Also Read: Recruitment agency vs RPO: What is better for hiring?

Even before the Interview begins, an interviewer can simply ask the AI Interview Copilot to create a structured interview question format within seconds. An example of this would be as follows:

‘Create a questionnaire for the post of a senior product manager. The candidate should have at least five years of experience. Candidates should have experience with SaaS, B2B/B2C products, and platform development and should also be proficient in tools such as SQL, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Tableau.’

After this, the tool takes seconds to create a thorough question set. However, that is not all. During an interview, if the interviewer runs out of questions, they can simply ask the interviewer to create new questions by going through the candidate’s CVs or the interview context (as the entire Interview is recorded and transcribed).

Moreover, our tool also monitors the behavior of both the candidate and the interviewer. The reasoning behind this is simple: a recruitment process is efficient as long as there is no bias present. This is why our AI bot creates two reports. The first is created with the recruiter’s help, and the candidate is judged on multiple metrics. The second report, however, is created by the AI on its own on the interviewer’s behavior to ensure that no candidates suffer from bias. This report is shared with all the stakeholders of the interview process, through which the interviewer can also give some feedback.

Using BarRaiser, we guarantee quality hiring that will bolster diversity and inclusion. BarRaiser is the best AI interview platform that features structured interviews and tools to ensure quality hiring while eliminating recruitment bias. With BarRaiser’s support, you’ll be well-equipped to build a strong team of sales associates who will drive sales and deliver exceptional customer service.