Soft Skills for DevOps

Why DevOps needs them

This time, I would like to touch on the topic of so-called soft skills, namely the ability to communicate with people.

Perhaps for DevOps engineers, these skills are even more important than for developers. This is because, by the nature of their work, DevOps engineers have to interact with a wide variety of people in different positions and specializations.

• Tasks are not always clearly defined, and it often takes several contacts to understand what the task entails and to start working on it. Then you realize that you don't have all the data needed to complete the task, and you have to reach out to colleagues again.

And believe me, it's not always a stereotype that IT people are introverts; this really happens. There's nothing wrong with that, but to do your job, you need to find an approach to each person. Some people are fine with a message, while others need an online meeting.

Yes, teamwork is like that, 50% of the time is spent on communication in various forms.

The hardest part is finding the right person when you don't know exactly who you need. You reach out to one person, and they say, "That's not my area, ask Kolya." And Kolya redirects you to Tolya.

You need to be prepared for this because communication is also part of the job, whether you like it or not.