In this community, we published many posts mainly for DevOps Engineers, but this time it’s for software engineers. Traditionally, the advice was for DevOps Engineers to learn to write high-quality code to deliver better automation, tooling, and engineering practices across the organization. However, in the AI era, there is a clear shift that affects everyone: All Software Engineers should learn DevOps fundamentals to deliver better products and excel in their careers! Understanding how software moves from code to production helps engineers make better technical decisions.
Let’s dive into that in more detail … especially the recent T-Shaped skills shift.
You probably read about the T-Shaped Skills in the Dynamic DevOps Roadmap. In fact, it could be one of the most important traits of high-quality DevOps engineers. Just in case you didn’t, here is the definition:
The T-shaped skills refer to combining broad and deep skills in a specific field. The horizontal bar of the “T” represents a broad range of general knowledge and skills across different disciplines or areas, and the vertical stem of the “T” represents deep expertise in a specific area. It’s simply a mix between being a specialist and a generalist at the same time!
However, in the age of AI, we can see a clear shift in that model. Now, learning the foundations of any skill could make a massive difference than ever before! That’s basically because the AI is able to increase your outcome if you know enough to guide it. In other words, the more you understand the fundamentals, the more effective you become at using the AI and producing way better outcomes (regardless of your role).
It’s well known that the best software engineers are those with T-shaped skills, especially when they have strong knowledge of DevOps. That’s for sure still relevant and valuable, as these software engineers have the big picture and can judge beyond the code.
But over the past years, with the rise of AI and its becoming a de facto standard in software production, it’s clear that the T-Shaped Skills themselves have been changed! Now, if you put more effort into learning the fundamentals of any domain (DevOps, QA, Security, etc), you will produce way higher quality results! That’s because you can assess the quality of the AI’s output and steer it in the right direction.
So here is my advice: Save some time each week to learn the foundations of other areas of software production, which will benefit you sooner rather than later! So if you are a software engineer, start to learn about DevOps, QA, Product Management, and even UX. In fact, that’s applied to all roles (DevOps Engineer, QA Engineer, Security Engineer, etc. It’s not just the way you work that will change, but the way you approach anything will change dramatically as well!
BTW, do you know that? In all modules on the Dynamic DevOps Roadmap website, there is an option to filter for in-depth DevOps topics and show only the general DevOps information everyone in the software industry needs.
DevOps is for everyone!
Thanks for your time, and hope you enjoy the journey! Here is a kickoff checklist:
📃 Read the frequently asked questions page (it has much valuable information).
⭐ Star the project repo on GitHub (for better visibility).
🌐 Join the Telegram group (for interactive communication).
Happy DevOpsing ♾️