Fatima had been quietly studying the tech job market for the last few years. Currently working as a DevOps Engineer, she was becoming tired of the daily grind of being a generalist in IT and the mid-sized logistics company she worked for wasn’t interested in improving employee engagement. She knew her degree and past 5 years of professional tech experience would make her a marketable candidate if she was looking to find more meaningful employment with better employee benefits.
Fatima recalls an internship she did in her final year at college at a cybersecurity firm. She enjoyed the work and decided to focus her current job market research on opportunities in cybersecurity.
What Fatima came across in her search was something called the DevSecOps discipline. According to IT research firm, Gartner, DevSecOps involves the “integration of security into emerging agile IT and DevOps development as seamlessly and as transparently as possible. Ideally, this is done without reducing the agility or speed of developers or requiring them to leave their development toolchain environment.”
This sparked Fatima’s interest in job prospects within the DevSecOps sector. She began to dive in and explore more about the field, find out what skills and certifications might be needed, as well as how to best prepare for any potential interviews she might get.
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Exploring DevSecOps
As Fatima uncovered during her research, DevSecOps involves the integration of cybersecurity practices into the development cycle from the beginning. As more companies rely on cloud-based solutions for fast growth and allow WFH employees remote access to data, files, and servers, organizations need to be able to quickly deploy new applications while still ensuring their work is secured against cyber-attacks.
Unfortunately, prioritizing cybersecurity can slow the development and growth processes of many companies. The DevSecOps nickname is derived from companies’ renewed focus on incorporating development, security, and operations into one process. When cybersecurity is implemented directly into the process, it can be much less expensive to address. DevSecOps is also becoming a widely sought-after approach for companies looking to improve communication within their tech teams and responsiveness to challenges when they arise.
The good news for job seekers like Fatima is that the popularity of the DevSecOps sector is creating a strong employment market for prospective employees. Bridging the gap between writing secure code and cybersecurity, leads to high salaries and solid benefits. A Glassdoor survey puts the average yearly salary for a DevSecOps Engineer to be $102,572 per year.
Skills & Certifications to Set You Apart
As Fatima continued her research into DevSecOps, she found something surprising. Because the field is so new and transformational, companies are still defining what DevSecOps roles look like to them. At first, Fatima was concerned about this. Job descriptions aren’t standardized across the industry and salaries can vary wildly when there’s a lack of standardization.
But this also inspired Fatima in some way. While her job description might not be set in stone, it did mean that she would be working on a variety of challenges that change over time. The ability to defy labels and continually learn new skills appealed greatly to her. Fatima now needed to see what skills she would need to add to her tech toolbox to complement her skill set.
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Skills & Certifications for DevSecOps Roles:
– Understand how to assess applications for security weaknesses
– Knowledge of tools like:
- static application security testing (SAST)
- software composition analysis (SCA)
- dynamic application security testing (DAST)
– Penetration testing
– Knowledge of threat modeling
– Analytic Capabilities
– Excellent written, verbal, and oral communication skills
– DevSecOps Foundation certification offered by the DevOps Institute
– Certified Ethical Hacker certificate
– General certifications, including:
- Dev certifications
- SysAdmin certifications
- Security certifications
Acing the DevSecOps Interview
Concerned by the moving targets that might arise during an interview for a DevSecOps position, Fatima decided to work with a tech recruiter to ensure she was on the right track. She wanted her resume to reflect the needs of this niche employment market and to understand what questions might be asked. The recruiter reaffirmed that each interview and its questions would vary based on the company’s industry and their current needs. Fatima would have to approach her prep a little differently for every interview she landed.
After meeting with a recruiter, Fatima reviewed their advice:
- Know your hard coding skills inside and out (and prepare for technical skill assessments)
- Up-to-date on best practices in cybersecurity
- Demonstrate comprehensive command of dev, languages, and platforms
- Demonstrate the ability to solve tech and cultural problems and work with people and automation to solve them
- Watch out for: During the interview, if the company only wants to know about your familiarity with a specific tool or program, they could just be using a “DevSecOps” Engineer title to sound “cool” and attract more applicants
Based on all her research and preparation, Fatima decided to test the waters and pursue a career path in DevSecOps. Fatima also made the smart decision to use a tech recruiter to help her move through the process easily and confidently. Her research and thoughtfulness paid off. Within six months, Fatima was working for a healthcare company, and she was able to negotiate a remote work schedule and a higher salary than she had previously earned.
For those interested in exploring a DevSecOps engineering career, flexibility, and a willingness to learn new things are necessities. The DevSecOps field requires employees to work across many different tech sectors, often across many different cloud platforms. The good news is, that it’s a fast-growing and well-paying field that offers new opportunities for job seekers looking to build new skills while solving complex problems. Knowing what skills are necessary, along with how to ace a DevSecOps interview, can help job seekers transition seamlessly and successfully into a new role.
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About the Company:
Peterson Technology Partners (PTP) has partnered with some of the biggest Fortune brands to offer excellence of service and best-in-class team building for the last 25 years.
PTP’s diverse and global team of recruiting, consulting, and project development experts specialize in a variety of IT competencies which include:
- Cybersecurity
- DevOps
- Cloud Computing
- Data Science
- AI/ML
- Salesforce Optimization
- VR/AR
Peterson Technology Partners is an equal opportunities employer. As an industry leader in IT consulting and recruitment, specializing in diversity hiring, we aim to help our clients build equitable workplaces.
