Hiring DevOps and Cloud Engineers? Here’s What You Need to Know About the State of the Market

Hiring DevOps and Cloud Engineers? Here’s What You Need to Know About the State of the Market

Millenilink Founder and Director Sabe Mpofu recently had the opportunity to speak with Gurpreet Singh Kambo of Accenture to discuss a major disconnect in the DevOps and Cloud Engineering job market. The following opinions are Gurpreet’s personal views and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Accenture.  

The Catch-22

If you’ve tried to hire experienced Cloud or DevOps engineers, you’re probably aware that demand significantly outweighs supply. This isn’t for lack of interested applicants; the problem is attributable to experience constraints. The vast majority of job requirements request multiple years of experience, but the industry hasn’t facilitated enough entry level opportunities for candidates to advance their skill levels.

As an active mentor to workers looking to get into DevOps or Cloud work, Gurpreet has found that while his connections are regularly interviewed, they’re disqualified for a lack of experience.

So, workers need experience to get hired, but can’t get hired without experience. The reasoning is understandable – these are high-risk positions, especially in regulated industries such as banking and healthcare. As Gurpreet points out, DevOps mistakes can destroy infrastructure and significantly impact a business. Companies feel safer hiring senior workers.

Exacerbating the Shortage

Gurpreet has also noticed a surge in US and even European companies seeking Canadian workers. With the proliferation of remote work, US employers have greater leverage – the exchange rate is in their favour, and candidates are opting for the jobs that will pay more and stay 100% remote.

To retain our country’s best talent, Canadian businesses need to keep pace with global salaries, not just local markets, and offer flexibility in remote working.

Why is Experience so Important?

When it comes to Cloud and DevOps, certifications are important but there’s just no way around the fact that on-the-job experience is necessary to get qualified and to stay relevant and up to date.

Gurpreet believes there needs to be more industry participation when it comes to the certification process. While certifications are necessary to teach students how to execute tasks, they can’t teach what not to do to avoid unforeseen consequences. They don’t demonstrate how to contextualize tasks in different environments, or how to see the big picture and understand the chain of consequences.

Certifications also have the issue of quickly becoming obsolete. For example, three years ago the Amazon Web Services Solutions Architect Exam covered 26 services. Now it’s up to 95 services. Meaning education from three years ago is already outdated. But employers also need to understand that with 95 services covered, there’s no way you’re going to hire someone who is an expert in all of them.

The Ultimate Solution

If more certifications won’t solve the problem, then what can businesses do to source talent? Gurpreet believes that the industry needs to focus on creating accessible pathways for development with on-the-job learning.

The best way to increase the supply of skilled Cloud and DevOps workers is to give them an opportunity to gain experience. Businesses need to develop multiple layers of seniority, with junior staff working alongside veteran workers to constantly learn, but without responsibility for system failure if something should go wrong.

Gurpreet also suggests that hiring managers take a more practical approach to job requirements, noting that companies will ask for experience with a wide range of technologies, but 90% of the time the position only utilizes one or two of those technologies. The others are so rarely required they should be dropped from the screening process.

While globally competitive compensation and benefits are vital, to ensure a continual supply of experienced workers and the ongoing growth of the industry, Canadian businesses need to start building tactics for training and development.

Does your company have a strategy in place to develop a pipeline of DevOps or other critical IT staff within your organization? We want Canadian companies to get our best talent. If you’d like to collaborate in strategizing a long-term development pathway, contact Millenilink.