Last Updated on February 18, 2023 by cscontents
Introduction
DevOps Engineer or Software Developer – Which has better job opportunity? Which will help to make good money? Who has better work-life balance? Etc.
I hope this article will help you to take a better decision. Before starting this article, one thing I want to make clear is that the final decision is your.
DevOps Engineer
DevOps Engineer is one of the hottest job in the market (as of November 2021) and has a good number of openings. This DevOps role is very dynamic because if we speak about the task a DevOps engineer has to do, there is a lot we can add in the list. You will see a DevOps Engineer works in a lot of roles, and sometimes it’s a mix of some roles. Some tasks of DevOps Engineer are –
- Infrastructure provisioning – Automation
- CI/CD pipeline configuration
- Application deployment & configuration – Automation
- Web Server installation & configuration – Automation
- Configuring containers platform
- Configuring container orchestration tool
- Networking (e.g. inbound & outbound rule configuration, network infrastructure etc.)
- Sometime DevOps Engineer work as Platform Engineer who manage the platform.
- In some case DevOps Engineer has to take care of the security part like installing various security agent in the VMs etc. which makes them DevSecOps Engineer from DevOps Engineer.
- And Many more task which comes on the way.
Software Developer Engineer (SDE)
Software Developer is like an evergreen role in software industry – it’s a subjective statement. I am not sure what will happen 10–15 years down the line as AI is growing, so AI may replace basic developer job. If we speak about openings of software developer in market, you will see its kind of steady, which means there is always requirement of software developer, which is very important. Developers have deep knowledge in their development tech stack. Some tasks of developers are –
- Requirement gathering
- Designing the architecture of application
- Writing code to develop an application
- Writing test cases to test that application, etc.
Comparison between DevOps Engineer and Software Developer:
Below is the comparison between DevOps Engineer & Software Developer.
In terms of job opportunity
Job opportunity of DevOps Engineer has increased hugely in last 5–6 years. The growing use of cloud computing has created more opportunity for DevOps Engineer.
On the other hand, software developer always has a good job opportunity.
In terms of Career Growth
DevOps Engineer role is very dynamic. DevOps is not a name of a task or group of task, it is a culture. As a DevOps Engineer you will have a never-ending learning opportunity since there is a lot to learn, a lot of tools. DevOps role is most suited for experienced people since you need experience to take those crucial decisions. Though freshers can work as a DevOps Engineer, but they have to learn a lot.
On the other hand, Software Developer role is well-defined, well-structured. Usually this role has 5 levels which are SDE I, SDE II, SDE III, Architect, Principal Architect. If you work hard and keep yourself updated with the new tech stacks, then you can also climb the ladder.
In terms of task they do
As a DevOps Engineer you might have to do many things since nothing is specifically defined in DevOps Engineer role, it’s not like that if you do this & this you are a good DevOps Engineer. Though I might be wrong that sometimes in the name of DevOps engineer you might have to work as support engineer etc.
As a software developer you will have the standard task which is mostly writing code, test cases etc.
In terms of money, they earn
From last 5–6 years the demand of DevOps engineer is growing rapidly. There is a mismatch between the number of skilled DevOps engineer and market demand. All those things made salary of DevOps engineer comparably high.
On the other hand, salary of developer might be little less in some case as we have pool of developers.
In terms of Work-Life Balance
Though it is a very subjective topic but below are my thinking,
DevOps engineer handles tasks which are behind the scene and all are highly responsible task and Developer has their standard job to be done which is mostly coding.
I feel as a software developer, you will have little better work-life balance, again this is my personal opinion, so it might not be correct from others point of view.
This is all about DevOps Engineer vs Software Developer. Final decision is your!
Thank You.
If you are interested in learning DevOps, please have a look at the below articles, which will help you greatly.
- Kubernetes Series: Part 1 – Introduction to Kubernetes | Background of Kubernetes
- Kubernetes Series: Part 2 – Components of Kubernetes cluster | Kubernetes cluster in detail
- Kubernetes Series: Part 3 – What is Minikube and How to create a Kubernetes cluster (on Linux) using Minikube?
- Docker Installation and sample application deployment
- Hypervisor vs Container technology – Let’s discuss
- Introduction to Ansible | High Level Understanding of Ansible
- Basics of automation using Ansible | Automate any task
- What is “Monitoring” in DevOps? Why do we need to Monitor App/DB servers, Transactions etc.?
- What is End-to-End Monitoring of any web application and Why do we need it?
- Network Connectivity Troubleshooting Guide for Beginners