devs vs devops engineers

Posted by Gina Rosenthal in #vDM30in30 | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Words are important. I think it’s time we examined what we mean when we say “devs”.

In my mind, there are two types of devs:

  1. A developer who creates the software for an application.
  2. A developer who creates the infrastructure that a cloud application runs on

These devs perform different functions, and need different tools to complete their dev-y tasks.

I’m really trying to stay away from saying things like “traditional dev” or “traditional ops”. I understand that these terms help us ladder our understanding from what we’ve known in the past to where we need to go as an industry, but they also subtly convey the connotation that one is better than the other, and that one is stagnant, old, and out of touch.

I’m sorry, devops engineers who come from the ops mentality are anything but stagnant, old or out of touch.

The tools a software developer needs will be different than the tools a devops engineer needs (full disclosure: we’re working on a survey to explore those needs).

 

Does any of this make sense?

One Response to devs vs devops engineers

  1. Great post, most informative, didn’t realise devops were into this.

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