Multiple job profiles are involved in creating and releasing software. But most people are often confused between the two IT roles – Software engineer and DevOps engineer. This is because a lot many things are common among the two roles, but the major difference is the focus area. A Software engineer focuses on creating features of the software as per the requirement, and a DevOps engineer focuses on automating development and release processes using DevOps tools and principles. So, in this article, I will discuss the key differences between these two roles: Software and DevOps engineers.
Who is a Software Engineer?
A software engineer is an IT professional who is responsible for developing software and applications as per the software development lifecycle. They are also responsible for applying engineering skills and mathematics in order to troubleshoot issues and bugs in the software code. After a certain year of experience, a software engineer has knowledge of multiple programming languages, databases, coding standards, etc. A software engineer will often be a coder as well as they will often be a software developer. So not only do they design applications, but they will actually be building the applications, writing the code themselves.
Software engineering, in general, can be classified more as the design side of things. In other words, you are not just programming, you also need to work on the design part as a software engineer, you are more of an architect. When you talk about design, you are putting some work into designing the blueprint of an application. Software engineers can be involved in architecting, designing the program, and figuring out what functionalities will be there. And the analogy there would be, a software engineer could be someone like an architect. So, an architect builds a plan for a house, that would be the software engineer, and the architect then gives the designs, the blueprints, for a house to a builder, the builder would be the computer programmer or software developer.
Who is a DevOps Engineer?
A lot of people have this confusion whether a DevOps engineer is a developer or is he an admin or a tester or is he responsible for the entire software delivery lifecycle. DevOps engineers are generally developers or admins, or even testers who have a passion for scripting and automation. They learn few concepts that can separate them from the crowd. For example, source code management tools like git, they have good hands-on knowledge of how these SCM tools or version control tools work. They are fully aware of concepts like branching, they even know how to connect the source code repository with continuous integration tools like Jenkins. In order to facilitate automation testing and deployment, generally distributed version control tools like git is preferred over the centralized version control systems because in the distributed version control system, you not only have a remote repository, but there is also a local repository which is nothing but the copy of your remote repository. So if by any chance the remote repository crashes, you can retrieve the complete version of the project from any of the developer’s hard drives.
Apart from source code management tool, they should also have experience in deploying applications on Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure. There is a shortage of people who understand IaaS vs PaaS, stateful vs stateless. It is no longer about lifting existing servers and applications to the cloud, now it is about designing and deploying applications using the best of the best, Amazon, Azure and Google have to offer. We are talking about compute, network and storage resources at the developer’s fingertip. They should also have good hands-on knowledge on automation testing tools like selenium, knowledge on continuous integration tools like Jenkins is also very important. They should also have expertise with automated delivery tools like puppet, chef, and ansible.
Nowadays, with companies adopting microservice architecture and because of the way resource utilization is optimized, with the help of containers, knowledge of software containerization platforms like docker is very important along with container orchestration tools like Kubernetes. Docker is basically an open platform for developers and system admins to build, ship, and run distributed applications on laptops, data centers, VM or the cloud. Last but not the least, they should also have experience with logging and monitoring tools like Splunk and Nagios.
DevOps vs Software Engineers: Key differences
Definition
A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to the design, development, maintenance, testing, and evaluation of computer software.
A DevOps engineer is an IT professional who works with software developers, system operators, and other production IT staff to oversee code releases and deployments.
Job Responsibilities
Below are the core responsibilities of a Software engineer:
- Work on the modifications of existing software applications
- Creating new software applications depending on the requirements from scratch
- Design and analyze software systems
- Create documentation and flowcharts to explain the working of the software
- Work with designers, developers, programmers, and others to build software features
- Align the design and development process by keeping factors such as cost, safety, and deadlines in mind
- Create software training manuals for new developers joining the team
Below are the core responsibilities of a DevOps engineer:
- Assess the needs of the stakeholders and the organization and choose the technological automation tools based on the requirement
- Get knowledge of new development tools and technologies
- Guide and lead a team of developers
- Automate the development and release processes using CICD pipelines
- Maintain security and compliance controls
- Ensure the systems are secure from cybersecurity attacks
- Monitor the organization’s IT operations using monitoring tools
Skills
A software engineer must have the below skills:
- Basic understanding of data structure and algorithms
- Hands-on experience in debugging large codebases
- Exposure to multiple programming languages and databases
- Experience in troubleshooting software issues
- Strong analytical and reasoning skills
A DevOps engineer must have the below skills:
- Experience in working on Linux systems
- Excellent understanding of few scripting languages such as Python
- Working knowledge of open-source technologies, and cloud services, and various DevOps tools
- Configuration and managing SQL and NoSQL databases
- Excellent in troubleshooting issues in the production environment
- Awareness of Agile and DevOps principles
Salary
The average salary which a software engineer earns is around $105,122 per year. If you are having 10+ years of experience with knowledge on multiple tools and technologies, you can earn lot more.
A DevOps engineer earns $115,666 per year on average. The salary of DevOps engineers will range between $90,000 to $160,000 per year. It will depend on the experience level, job location, and also the organization.
Focus
Software engineers and DevOps experts often use different methods to achieve their goals in carrying out their tasks. Software engineering projects aim to satisfy user needs by creating engaging products. The application or feature is the main focus. Users are attracted to or satisfied by the product.
DevOps engineers have a different focus. They are more business-minded and UX-oriented. DevOps engineers are focused on meeting user demand for software deployments and maintaining a baseline performance threshold to ensure smooth operation of the product. They aim to maximize efficiency and speed during SDLC, while minimizing the impact on existing infrastructure.
Speed
Software engineers follow the traditional SDLC process, which separates each stage of the work. The strictest models allow for feedback to be received late in the development process. This means that fixes and improvements can also be made later. Because the communication between evaluation and development is continuous, DevOps makes it easier to get feedback. DevOps engineers are able to resolve issues faster and deploy in less time.
Experience
It is possible to get a DevOps or software engineer position without any college or professional experience. However, it is less likely that you will succeed in one. Software engineers are more likely to be hired than DevOps engineers. Software engineers have a narrower job focus, which allows them to go straight from college or boot camp and start learning on the job.
However, DevOps engineers have a greater number of job requirements than other positions. There are fewer DevOps jobs that accept applicants without a college education. Many also require you to have at least three to four years experience in DevOps roles. This may be because of the greater responsibility of the role and the larger range of competencies needed, which a postsecondary education and hands-on learning can provide.
Job Profile
Here is a sample job profile for a Software engineer – PayPal, Austin: https://wd1.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/paypal/jobs/job/Austin-TX/Software-Engineer_R0074376
The candidate must have master’s in computer science with multiple years of experience in object-oriented programming language, SOAP/REST APIs, Spring, SQL, NoSQL, etc. The candidate will be responsible for designing and developing new capabilities as per the business need.
Here is a sample job profile for a DevOps engineer – PayPal, Timonium: https://wd1.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/paypal/jobs/job/Plymouth-Meeting-PA/Senior-MTS–DevOps-Engineer_R0071190-1
The candidate must have a bachelor’s degree in computer science with minimum 4 years of experience. The candidate is responsible for designing and building components of the public cloud infrastructure supporting PayPal Credit. The applicant must have knowledge on CI/CD tools, GCP and Azure platforms, relational databases, familiarity with industry security standards, etc.
Here is a table on the differences between Software and DevOps engineers.
| Software Engineer | DevOps Engineer | |
| Who is? | Deals with design and development of a software | Deals with development and operations of a software |
| Skills | Programming
Database knowledge Algorithms Mathematics |
Good communication
Collaboration skills DevOps tools Automation skills Software development knowledge Software operations knowledge Coding and scripting Experience on cloud |
| Role in the business | Works only on developing the software | Works on development and also on the operations side on the organization |
| Salary | $105,122 per year on an average | $115,666 per year on an average |
| Responsibilities | Installing software
Creating software features Improving and maintaining existing codebases Implement changes in code as per the requirement |
Collaborate with all stakeholders
Automate and improve development and deployment processes Maintain security and compliance controls Monitor IT operations Troubleshoot IT failures |
Software engineer or DevOps engineer: Who is better?
Say I am a software engineer, I will be part of a team and my responsibility would be to design the application, create some tasks and then implement the features for front-end or the backend and then manage the code and push it to the code repository. These are the responsibilities I will be doing day in and day out as a software engineer.
But when I talk about DevOps, they have more responsibilities than a software engineer. As a DevOps engineer, I will have more responsibilities like I will build the code, and I am also responsible for running the code in the cloud in production so that the customers can start using it, so in DevOps, I build it I run it. As a DevOps engineer, I will be part of the team which will be developing the product and then push the code of the repository, it will be pulled by the CI CD pipeline and then it will be built and deployed to the cloud. And the moment the application is up and running, it will also be monitored using tools like Grafana, DataDog, and Nagios.
As a DevOps engineer, I should have the skills to create this pipeline using Jenkins, TeamCity, or any other tool. Then I should also have the skills to create the infrastructure in the cloud environment. I should also know how to manage the resources in the cloud environment, such as AWS, Azure, Google cloud platform, then how to create the logs and manage the logs using ELK stack. So, you start with becoming a software engineer first, and then DevOps engineer. As a beginner/fresher, you cannot become a DevOps engineer.
Final Thoughts
So, that was all about the differences between a Software engineer and a DevOps engineer. Both Software engineer and DevOps engineer are among the popular job profiles in the IT industry. As per the current trend, lost many software engineers are making a transition to the DevOps engineer job role because it is a relevant path for them. So, if you are a beginner, become a software engineer first, and if you have experience of 3-4 years as a software engineer, you can think of making a transition to the DevOps domain.
