Sometimes the best career fields are ones we don’t know too much about. A little over three years ago, if you asked me what a software developer did daily, I would probably mumble something about mysterious command line interfaces and social isolation. Thankfully, someone took the time out of their day back in 2021 to say that none of that is true. The profession is highly transparent and very social.

I’ve been working as a full-time software engineer for a little over a year now, and I’m already starting down another new career path! No, I’m not leaving software development behind. I’ve been brought on as a DevOps engineer consultant for a major pharmaceutical company. 

I can still remember the trepidations of becoming a new software developer, and more recently a DevOps engineer. Whether you work in software or you are new to the field, changing career focus can be daunting. Today I want to enlighten you on what DevOps engineers are and encourage you to venture down this career path. I’ll include some context of what the profession is and some helpful things I wish I had known before I started as a DevOps engineer.

WHAT ARE DEVOPS ENGINEERS?

You may be asking, what is a DevOps engineer? Well, that takes some context around where they exist and what kind of environment they exist in. DevOps engineers sit between software developers and operations personnel. Developers are generally the folks who write the code, while operations folks focus on deploying, monitoring, and maintaining applications. DevOps engineers bridge the gap between these two functions by easing workflows, increasing speed of delivery, and ensuring security throughout the process. In the end, DevOps engineers, much like operations and development, are focused on getting quality software into the hands of customers. 8th Light has published some articles that explore specific practices and challenges in DevOps. Amazon Web Services provides a deeper overview as well.

WHAT DOES A DEVOPS ENGINEER DO?

DevOps engineers manage the workflows and delivery cycles for software teams across the organization and all of its digital products. They create shared systems that allow other teams to thrive, and they create custom solutions for their platform’s unique needs.

DevOps Engineers Support Teams

Imagine the following: You are a DevOps engineer supporting a large healthcare corporation. You have seven teams of software engineers delivering applications using different programming languages. You have a bit of .Net in C#, some Java, a bunch of bash scripting, and even some PowerShell! That is a lot of developers and complexity to support.

Your job as a DevOps Engineer is not to understand all of their applications in-depth, but to understand the team’s difficulties and frustrations when working with their apps. Your main concern is ensuring obstacles are removed from their path in the delivery pipeline, processes have quick response times, and only high-quality code is reaching the deployment cycle.

DevOps Engineers Create Custom Solutions

Your engineers already have a lengthy process flow to get code to production. They have to run unit tests, user interface tests, and security analyses on their changes. Then they notify their seniors that their code is ready for review. Once that code is ready for deployment, your teams have to notify their seniors that their code is ready for review. They may have to email the operations team to schedule deployment and generate required government compliance reports.

As a DevOps engineer, you create automation solutions for their workflow. You can write custom programs that automatically test new code before it is uploaded to Github. You can even write custom scripts that run new code through a security analysis. All this is created to improve your supported teams’ quality of life.

One great tool that I’ve been able to master in my first few months on the job has been Github Actions, and my colleague has written an introductory article on the tool.

DevOps Engineers are Problem Solvers

As one of my team leads points out, “anyone can build a website.” Although they might not be sustainable or well-written websites, I completely agree. The amount of documentation out there on every web framework is extensive. Sometimes it feels like everything has a StackOverflow post written about it.

DevOps is different because it’s dependent on the implementation details. DevOps is composed of methods and best practices that have to be applied in a myriad of different situations. You’ll find great articles talking about the best methodologies for ensuring continuous compliance on AWS, but you’ll rarely come across exact instructions for how to integrate a 10-year-old legacy .NET Framework 3.0 application into a security workflow. As a DevOps engineer, you have to be flexible in your approach and be tenacious in figuring out solutions.

Some of the tools and examples of what I use every day are free for public and personal projects. I encourage you to explore open-source projects that pique your interest. If you’re interested in checking out a tool that handles security check automation, try SonarCloud.

CAN YOU BECOME A DEVOPS ENGINEER?

Only you can answer that question, but I have found the work tremendously satisfying. I get to improve the quality of life of engineers. I work on complicated problems and create novel solutions. I am constantly exposed to new technologies, and I always feel like there are new learning paths to go down.

I won’t lie — the DevOps engineer career path is not an easy one and is far from glamorous. This career field is all about support, and if you are doing your job, you won’t be in the limelight. You enable others to reach their full potential, but you’ll rarely get recognition. You sometimes have to stand in the developers’ way, but you do know that the code that customers will receive will be secure. You frequently question process workflows and break down obstacles, but organizational norms are hard to change.

So, if you are ready to impact the lives of software developers and operations personnel, I hope to see you on my DevOps team in the future.

This post originally appeared as What to Know When Becoming a DevOps Engineer, on January 19, 2023. Code Platoon thanks 8th Light for its permission to repost this blog.

Seth Thomas is a Software Crafter at 8th Light. Before joining 8th Light, Seth graduated from Code Platoon’s military Coding Bootcamp, which he attended via the DoD SkillBridge program. Seth lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and enjoys rock climbing, mountaineering, sailing, and running.

Code Platoon’s Full-stack Software Engineering: Immersive Sierra Platoon completed their final group projects and graduated from Coding Bootcamp. During graduation, the Veteran tech graduates showcased the capstone web applications they developed in teams during the Coding Bootcamp. Here they are presenting their final projects and describing the technical knowledge and soft skills they developed during the program.

First up is WaddleBot–a multifunctional Discord bot. Discord is a popular online chat and voice chat application. The Discord bot is a simulated Discord user with dictated responses to specific commands. WaddleBot can play music in voice calls, share new YouTube video links on Discord chat, pull the latest lottery numbers, and more. WaddleBot uses React and Bootstrap on the front-end; the back-end database uses PostgreSQL.

Check out the WaddleBot presentation by the team of two Air Force Veterans, an Army Veteran, a Navy Veteran, an Army National Guard Veteran, and an Air Force Reservist.

Huge Finance App is the next presentation. Huge Finance App is a budgeting app for Active Duty Servicemembers. Users can log in, view and categorize their recent transactions, and learn how to read their military Leave and Earning Statement (LES) and Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). Huge Finance App used Chart.js to build their data visualizations.

A team of two Active Duty Airmen, an Active Duty Soldier, and an Army Veteran developed Huge Finance App.

 

Idle Platoon is a fantasy RPG idle game developed by two Navy Veterans and three Air Force Veterans. The game features include character creation, leveling, gathering and refining resources, combat, and a marketplace of character items. 

Idle Platoon uses JavaScript, React.js, CSS, HTML, and Bootstrap on the front-end. Python, Django, and PostgreSQL make up the back-end of Idle Platoon.

The last demonstration by Sierra graduates is Cyber Mystics. Cyber Mystics is a tarot card app that prompts users to self-reflect and save their card draws. The application also features user authentication, tarot guidance, and a dream journal. Cyber Mystics was developed using Python, Django, and PostgreSQL on the back-end and JavaScript, React.js, Vite, Bootstrap, and Figma. Supporting technologies include Visual Studio Code, Git/Github, and Twilio.

The Cyber Mystics team is two Army Veterans, a Marine Corps Veteran, and a military spouse.

Congratulations, Sierra Platoon graduates! We’re proud of the accomplishments showcased during this cohort’s final project demonstrations.

The entire project showcase and graduation ceremony is available to watch on Code Platoon’s YouTube, Facebook, and LinkedIn channels.

As students start Code Platoon, we ask them to share their most significant worries about the upcoming program. Inevitably the topic of imposter syndrome arises, with most students expressing doubts about their ability to learn and perform this skill.

After doing a fair amount of research on the subject, it came to my attention that there is a great deal lacking on the topic of imposter syndrome in general, but specifically as it relates to the tech world – in our case, that of software engineering. The intent here is to offer a more profound perspective that I sincerely hope sparks some meaningful conversation.

I found two things, in particular, missing from the literature on imposter syndrome, both of which are crucial to our understanding. The first of these is more academic, but I will boil it down to basics before moving on to the second, which is more of a common sense-based approach to how we begin viewing it.

First, I want you to cast your mind back to any point before the 20th Century and ask yourself: what would I be doing for a living if I existed during that period? Whatever answer you come up with, there is approximately a 99% guarantee that you would be working with your hands, making some tangible thing.

Let’s say you worked in metals in the 17th Century. Maybe you made horseshoes or swords (or both). You used techniques and materials that were very hands-on, and, at the end of any given job, you could hold the result of the work but also – and perhaps more importantly – see it immediately put to use (or watch it fail). 

In other words, the results of your labor were instantly recognizable in a tangible sense. It was either a success, or you didn’t get paid.

You could trade out metal work for other professions like farming, livestock preparation, tending, textiles, etc., and it’s the same: noticeable, physical results from your labor.

In other words, there wasn’t a lot of mystery in what you did to earn a living.

Fast-forward to today and most of us work on a computer that displays an interface of some sort that graphically interprets the reality of 1s and 0s into a format that our minds can work with, but in an entirely intangible manner. I can’t touch my work beyond the computer screen I access it through, which divorces me from the end-user.

This separation leads to an anxiety that may have been there in a small way in my ancestors but is now turned up to 11 by the disconnection from tangibility. Am I doing my job? Is it actually successful beyond numeric representations on a screen?

How do I know I’m truly good at my chosen profession??

Simply put, we as a species have been predominantly working with our hands for thousands upon thousands of years, and now, suddenly – at least in the scope of history – we’re not. 

Again, the self-doubt about whether or not we are good enough to do a particular role has assuredly always been there, as it is simply a product of being human (not having that doubt is called narcissism, but we’ll get back to that in a minute). It’s just that this shift in the type of work we do as a species has thrown us for a bit of a loop, and we have to adapt.

Lest anyone think that I am advocating for a return to the way things used to be, let me put your mind at ease and assure you that I am doing no such thing. We are here now and need to learn how to deal with what is.

On that note, we turn to point number two, which is going to be blunt but also meant as a relief, so bear with me as you read this.

You are an imposter. That’s right. I said it. You’re an imposter. 

If you are doing a new job, or you’ve taken on a new role – even a promotion at the company you’ve worked at for a while – you are, by definition, an imposter in that position. 

Until you’re not.

At some magical point that none of us can ever truly pin down, we become whatever we started doing. We act as a practitioner of a role until the point where we are that role.

I’ve spoken with physicians who echoed this very thing – they completed their residency and felt like complete frauds, like they had no business doing what they were doing.

And then, mysteriously, they became what they set out to be. 

When I was in the Army, we had a saying, “fake it ‘til you make it!” There is more truth to that than what many people want to realize, especially in our modern society.

We typically didn’t have a lot of motivation for doing specific tasks, but if we pretended we did, that turned genuine, and, voila, we went from imposters to the real deal. To be sure, the power of acting as something before you are that thing is real, as I promise you that I was never motivated to do a ruck-march, but I went after it like I was more than once. 

The simple fact is that if you don’t feel like an imposter, as pointed out above, this makes you a narcissist. If you genuinely believe that you are something you’re not, that is a hallmark of narcissism, so in actuality, imposter syndrome is decidedly healthy.

The real question is: what do you do with it?

If you are taking those feelings of being an imposter and going to hide in the corner, that will only reinforce those doubts and turn something healthy into being unhealthy. 

Conversely, if you are using those feelings as motivation for learning more, you are on the right track.

So, with all that in mind, how do we turn a healthy skepticism about ourselves into an even more positive thing?

1. Recognize your relationship to time and space. I know this sounds a bit esoteric, but it is quite basic. Remember what I said above about working with a physical product? A lot of imposter syndrome is wrapped up in how big your work and the world seems, so to counter that, we need to embrace where we are right now. Don’t get overwhelmed by what’s “out there” and around the corner; focus on small steps in front of you.
   
2. About that, use the “chunking” method advocated for by people like Dr. Barbara Oakley, in which you go for shorter but more intense periods (about 20 minutes) of work. Focus on one task for 20 minutes with the promise that you’ll take a ten-minute break, and you’ll be amazed at how much you can achieve, but also how effective it is at removing those doubts after doing this method for a week.
   
3. Purposefully seek out “black belts” in your field with humility for learning. When I did Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I always sought out the top-ranked guy in the room to roll with, not because I thought I could beat him, but because I knew I would lose – I would just lose while learning the most.

If you find the experts and ask basic questions, if they are even remotely professional, they will gladly help you. Humble ignorance is an excellent approach to learning. 

Although there is much more to be said on this topic, the goal here is not to offer an academic tome on all there is to say about imposter syndrome. Instead, the intent is to get the ball rolling with some conversational points that I rarely see discussed on this subject but ones that I believe to be fundamental to our understanding of it.

On that note, I will offer one final thought in closing. Our modern world affords us something unprecedented in human history: the concept of choice. Abundant choices for everything exist in plethora around us, whether in our entertainment (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.), our food, or our careers. 

Along with that exists the anxiety that arises from the possibility of choosing incorrectly. We feel this even when we’re picking a Netflix title to watch, but nowhere is it more panic-inducing than determining our vocation.

So, at the heart of the modern version of imposter syndrome lies a fear-based internal question: did I choose the wrong career??

The short-term answer to that question is simple: it doesn’t matter. You’re where you are right now, so embrace it until you move on to the next thing (see #1 above).

The long-term and more involved answer to that question is not one for this post, as it involves far too many variables to discuss here. For right now, just focus on the short term and start the conversation with some of these points above with your co-workers and friends and see where it goes.

Since 2016, DRW has been a trusted partner of Code Platoon, a nonprofit organization that helps Veterans and military spouses transition into the workforce by providing technical training and career placement. Hear from two Veterans about how this program and the military shaped them for a career as a software engineer.

Megan, Software Engineer, served for six years in the Navy as an Electronics Technician. She was responsible for troubleshooting any issues and making necessary repairs to circuit card assemblies and various types of other equipment.

Michael, Software Engineer, served in the Army Reserves and trained initially as a Combat Medic, then went straight to the enlisted Licensed Practical Nursing school.

What was your path to DRW?

Megan: As I was navigating my transition from active duty to civilian life, I joined the Transition Assistance Program (TAP). During that process, I learned about Code Platoon. After doing more research, my family and I decided it would be the best next steps for my career so we moved to Chicago so I could attend in person. Once I joined the program, I was given a mentor who happened to be a DRW employee. He was vital in helping me get acclimated and to this day he continues to be an amazing resource. After the completion of Code Platoon, I went through the interview process with a few partner companies and ended up getting brought on as an intern with the tech team at DRW.

Michael: I graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and started working for United Airlines as a project manager. Due to the immediate and devastating impact that COVID had on airlines, I was laid off only 8 months after starting. I saw that as an opportunity to pivot my career field to something more resilient. I happened to come across Code Platoon because a friend of mine was a TA for a short time and said I should look into it. The thing that stuck out the most about Code Platoon was the partnerships with different companies and the possibility of moving straight from the bootcamp to an apprenticeship, and hopefully a full-time role. While I was going through the bootcamp, they announced that one spot had opened up with DRW in their Technical Software Services team. This was immediately my top choice for available apprenticeships. Luckily, I did a decent job getting through the program, and got the position following the interview. It felt a little too good to be true at the time, still does to be honest.

Can you give us insight into your military background?

Megan: I served for six years in the Navy as an Electronics Technician. In this role, I was responsible for troubleshooting any issues and making necessary repairs to circuit card assemblies and various types of other equipment, like radars.

Michael: I enlisted in the Army Reserves in 2012 and had a dual MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) where I trained initially as a Combat Medic, then went straight to the enlisted Licensed Practical Nursing school. In total I did about a year and a half of didactic and clinical training, then came back home and joined my reserve unit which was based out of Fort Sheridan, just north of Chicago. Although I was never deployed, I used the training and certifications that I received in the military to sustain a career in nursing as I put myself through college.

What is your current role? (and/or) Could you describe a current project you’re working on?

Megan: I started at DRW as an intern and my first project was Traffic Control, an app that tracks the status of shipments. Now, as a full-time Software Engineer, it is a project that I still work on and really enjoy. I have learned so much working on it, and it is a lot of fun to design and make all the different elements work together.

Michael: My current role is a Software Engineer on Technical Software Services. Most of the projects I work on are kind of fun because we are a newer team and many of the applications that we build and maintain are things that we started from scratch! Because of this, I have been able to learn about many different aspects of the software development process. Without getting too much into the weeds, I had a hand in developing several new, cutting-edge applications that vary in size and scope. I also help modernize our deployment process.

What valuable skills did the military provide that have helped you build a career in tech?

Megan: The most valuable skills I’ve brought with me from the military would be time management and problem-solving skills. The military presented a wide variety of problems and challenges and I developed the skills to manage them simultaneously.

Michael: Honestly, before the military I was kind of rudderless. I didn’t have much guidance and never had someone to push me to accomplish much of anything. I had this idea that things would sort of just happen for me at some point. I joined the military in my early twenties, I think partially because of a break up and also because I had trouble waking up and getting to work on time. I also needed to pay for college somehow. Once I enlisted and went off to training, I realized there was no way out and I didn’t have the option of quitting. To my surprise, I finished training near the top of my class. The entire process taught me how difficult it was to achieve anything, and in reality, nothing really just happens for most people. I used that mentality to get myself through college and ultimately, doing what it took to get a job at DRW.

What advice would you give others looking to transition from military to tech?

Megan: My number one piece of advice to any military member is to start building your network sooner rather than later (LinkedIn, Veteran Facebook groups) and talk to people about the different benefits and programs that are available to you. There are so many that it’s impossible to learn about all of them all during the TAP classes. The only reason I heard about Code Platoon, and how I ultimately ended up working full-time at DRW, was because I heard people talking about it in the hallway when I was on break from the TAP class I was attending that day. Also, to those who are currently active duty and know they will be separating in the future, look into the SkillBridge program.

Michael:

1. Do it, you won’t regret it.
2. If you can get into Code Platoon, do it, you won’t regret that either.
3. You won’t know much when you start out. Then when you start to learn a little, you’ll feel like you know even less. Rather than letting that stress you out, get comfortable with that feeling and be confident in your ability to figure things out.
4. This is more of a side note, but when you start interviewing for positions try to remember that most people interviewing you actually want you to succeed. It’s natural to go into an interview scared that they will want to bury you in the technical portion and make a fool out of you, but that’s usually not the case. I feel like that always helps relax some of my anxiety.

This post originally appeared as These veterans share how their experience in the military prepared them for a career as a software engineer, on November 11, 2022. Code Platoon thanks DRW for its permission to repost this blog.