What a devOps engineer does
A DevOps engineer sits between software development and IT operations. They build and maintain the pipelines that test and deploy code, manage cloud or on-premises infrastructure through code rather than manual changes, set up monitoring and alerting and help the team respond to incidents. In many organizations they also support security practices, cloud cost control and the container and orchestration tools that run applications.
When deployments are manual and fragile, releases slow down and outages last longer. A capable DevOps engineer makes releases routine and gives developers faster feedback on their changes. Finch screens candidates for hands-on experience with your cloud provider, CI/CD tools and container platform, for their security habits and for how they behave during incidents, so the people you interview can improve your delivery process.
Typical responsibilities
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for testing and deploying code
- Manage infrastructure as code with tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation
- Run and support containers and orchestration platforms such as Docker and Kubernetes
- Set up monitoring, logging and alerting, and take part in incident response
- Automate routine operational tasks with scripts
- Work with security and finance teams on access controls and cloud costs
Qualifications and credentials
- A degree or diploma in computer science, information technology or a related field, or equivalent experience
- Hands-on experience with at least one major cloud platform such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud
- Scripting skills in Bash, PowerShell or Python
- Experience with CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps or Jenkins
- Cloud provider or Kubernetes certifications are often listed as assets
Who hires a devOps engineer
- SaaS and software companies
- Banks, insurers and fintech firms
- E-commerce businesses with high-traffic sites
- Managed service providers and IT consultancies
- Telecom and media companies
Where we recruit devOps engineer candidates
We fill devOps engineer roles for employers across Toronto and the GTA, including North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, Vaughan, Markham, Richmond Hill, Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, Burlington, Oshawa and Pickering, and for employers across Canada. GTA employers can meet us at our North York office by appointment.
What Finch checks before you meet a candidate
- Pipelines and infrastructure they built or substantially improved, discussed in detail
- Depth with your cloud provider and container tools
- Incident experience: what broke, how they responded and what changed afterwards
- Security habits around secrets, access and patching
- Willingness to join an on-call rotation if your role requires it
Interview questions to ask
- Walk me through the deployment pipeline you are proudest of. What did it replace?
- Tell me about the worst outage you worked on. What did you change afterwards?
- How would you reduce our cloud bill without hurting reliability?