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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Azure DevOps Engineer

💰 $95,000 - $160,000

EngineeringDevOpsCloudAzureSRE

🎯 Role Definition

The Azure DevOps Engineer is a hands-on engineering role focused on automating software delivery, building and maintaining secure CI/CD pipelines, provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and enabling development teams to deliver high-quality, resilient applications on Microsoft Azure. This role partners with developers, security, QA, and product teams to implement modern DevOps practices (CI/CD, GitOps, IaC, containerization, observability) and to continuously improve deployment velocity, stability, and cost-efficiency.

Key SEO / LLM keywords: Azure DevOps Engineer, Azure Pipelines, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, Terraform, ARM/Bicep, AKS, Kubernetes, Docker, Git, GitHub Actions, observability, automation, security, release management, cloud operations.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Software Engineer with cloud/automation experience
  • Systems Engineer / Release Engineer familiar with CI/CD tools
  • Cloud Engineer or Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) focused on Azure

Advancement To:

  • Senior Azure DevOps Engineer / Principal DevOps Engineer
  • Cloud Platform Architect / Azure Solutions Architect
  • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Lead or Director of DevOps

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Infrastructure Engineer
  • Platform Engineer (internal developer platforms)
  • Security DevOps / DevSecOps Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, build, and maintain end-to-end CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps (Azure Pipelines) and YAML templates to automate builds, unit/integration tests, artifact creation, and multi-stage deployments to dev, test, staging, and production environments.
  • Implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep to provision and maintain Azure resources in a repeatable, version-controlled manner, including networking, compute, storage, and identity constructs.
  • Operate and optimize containerization and orchestration platforms such as Docker and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS); author Helm charts and deployment manifests for reliable, repeatable deployments.
  • Build automated release orchestration workflows that support blue/green, canary, and rolling deployment strategies; implement automated rollback, validation gates, and health checks to minimize deployment risk.
  • Integrate automated security scanning (SAST/DAST), dependency vulnerability checks, container image scanning (Trivy/Aqua), and static code analysis into CI pipelines to enforce security and compliance early in the development lifecycle.
  • Configure secure secrets management and configuration pipelines using Azure Key Vault, Managed Identities, and secure pipeline variable groups; ensure secrets never leak into logs or repositories.
  • Design and operate scalable build/test infrastructure, including hosted and self-hosted build agents, autoscaling VMSS agents, and pipeline resource management to optimize throughput and cost.
  • Implement Git-based workflows (GitFlow, trunk-based development) and branching strategies, enforce pull request policies, code reviews, and automated gating to improve code quality and accelerate reviews.
  • Integrate test automation (unit, integration, e2e) and quality gates into pipelines; collaborate with QA and developers to ensure high test coverage and deterministic pipeline results.
  • Implement observability and monitoring for pipelines, infrastructure, and applications using Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics, Prometheus, and Grafana; author alerts and runbooks for on-call teams.
  • Design and enforce automated infrastructure drift detection, configuration management, and remediation processes; maintain idempotent IaC modules and reusable pipeline templates across teams.
  • Implement and maintain artifact management using Azure Artifacts, container registries (ACR), and versioning strategies to support reproducible builds and secure supply chains.
  • Lead incident response for CI/CD and platform outages, perform root cause analysis, and implement post-incident improvements to prevent recurrence and reduce mean time to recovery (MTTR).
  • Manage cost governance and optimization for CI/CD and cloud resources: implement policies, automation to shut down non-production environments, right-size compute, and report on consumption trends.
  • Automate platform onboarding and developer self-service: provide templates, starter pipelines, and internal documentation to reduce time-to-value for new projects and services.
  • Implement GitOps patterns with tools such as Flux or ArgoCD where appropriate, enabling declarative delivery and reconciling cluster state from Git repositories.
  • Configure and manage networking, identity, and security components required for secure deployments, including VNETs, NSGs, Azure AD integration, service principals, and role-based access control (RBAC).
  • Maintain and extend CI/CD tooling integrations with external systems (Slack/MS Teams notifications, JIRA, ServiceNow), enabling traceability and faster feedback loops.
  • Mentor and coach development teams on CI/CD best practices, IaC hygiene, containerization, and cost-conscious cloud architecture decisions.
  • Liaise with security, compliance, and governance teams to implement policies, run periodic audits, and provide evidence for regulatory requirements and internal standards.
  • Create and maintain thorough documentation, runbooks, and knowledge-base articles for pipelines, infrastructure modules, and standard operating procedures to improve team autonomy and onboarding.
  • Continuously evaluate and prototype new DevOps tools and practices (e.g., GitHub Actions, HashiCorp Terraform Cloud, Azure DevTest Labs) to improve automation, reliability, and developer productivity.
  • Troubleshoot complex pipeline failures, environment provisioning errors, and runtime issues across CI/CD systems and cloud resources, providing clear remediation steps and long-term fixes.
  • Implement disaster recovery and business continuity practices for critical platform services, including automated backups, multi-region deployments, and recovery playbooks.

Secondary Functions

  • Respond to ad-hoc platform and pipeline requests; troubleshoot and deliver timely solutions to unblock engineering teams.
  • Assist in sprint planning, backlog grooming, and agile ceremonies with platform and engineering teams to prioritize automation and reliability work.
  • Participate in security and compliance reviews, provide technical input to risk assessments, and implement remediation items identified by audits.
  • Review and approve infrastructure and pipeline pull requests, ensuring adherence to standards and preventing configuration drift.
  • Support cost tracking and capacity planning initiatives by providing telemetry, forecast data, and recommendations for resource optimization.
  • Provide on-call support and escalation for CI/CD and platform incidents, participating in after-action reviews and implementing improvements.
  • Deliver training sessions, lunch-and-learns, and documentation to raise internal awareness of platform capabilities, best practices, and governance requirements.
  • Collaborate with DevSecOps to automate threat modeling, vulnerability scanning, and secrets rotation as part of the CI/CD lifecycle.
  • Evaluate vendor tools, open-source projects, and managed services; prepare proposals and POCs to inform platform roadmap decisions.
  • Coordinate with release management and product teams on major releases, feature flags, and deployment windows to ensure smooth rollouts and minimal customer impact.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Azure DevOps Services & Pipelines — author multi-stage YAML pipelines, build/release templates, gated builds, and pipeline variables.
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC) — hands-on with Terraform and/or ARM/Bicep, modular design, state management, and remote backends (Azure storage, Terraform Cloud).
  • Containerization & Orchestration — Docker, Kubernetes, AKS administration, Helm charts, deployment strategies, and troubleshooting.
  • Scripting & Automation — PowerShell, Azure CLI, Bash, and/or Python to automate platform operations and pipeline tasks.
  • Configuration Management & GitOps — experience with Git-based workflows, Flux/ArgoCD or equivalent GitOps tooling.
  • Artifact Management & Registries — Azure Artifacts, Azure Container Registry (ACR), semantic versioning and retention policies.
  • Monitoring, Logging & Observability — Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Prometheus, Grafana, Log Analytics, alerting and runbooks.
  • Security & Compliance — secure secrets management (Key Vault), RBAC, service principals, vulnerability scanning integration, CI/CD security best practices.
  • Networking & Identity on Azure — VNET, NSG, peering, Azure AD, Managed Identities, service endpoints, hybrid connectivity basics.
  • Release Management & Deployment Strategies — blue/green, canary, rolling updates, feature flags, rollback planning.
  • Build Infrastructure & Agents — managing hosted/self-hosted agents, VM scale sets, caching strategies, and pipeline optimization.
  • Testing & Quality Gates — integrating unit, integration, and e2e tests into pipelines; policy enforcement for quality metrics.
  • CI/CD Tooling Integration — familiarity with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Terraform Cloud, or other complementary tools.
  • Database Deployment & Migrations — automated schema migrations, data deployment strategies, and rollback considerations.
  • Container & Image Security — image scanning, signing, immutable registries, and supply chain security concepts.

Soft Skills

  • Strong communication skills — able to explain complex automation and cloud concepts to engineering and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Collaboration and stakeholder management — partner effectively with product, security, QA, and operations teams.
  • Problem solving and debugging mindset — analytic approach to incident response and root cause analysis.
  • Mentoring and coaching — support developer teams to adopt IaC and CI/CD practices.
  • Prioritization and planning — balance feature delivery, platform stability, and technical debt.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning — keep pace with evolving cloud-native and DevOps landscapes.
  • Attention to detail and documentation discipline — produce clear runbooks, design docs, and pipeline templates.
  • Customer-oriented mindset — ensure platform changes improve developer experience and delivery outcomes.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Computer Science, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, or related field, or relevant professional certifications (Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert, Azure Solutions Architect, HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Systems
  • Cloud Computing
  • DevOps / Site Reliability Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–8+ years in DevOps, Cloud Engineering, SRE, or Platform Engineering roles with demonstrable Azure experience.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years building and operating CI/CD systems and cloud infrastructure in production; hands-on experience with Azure DevOps Pipelines, Terraform/ARM/Bicep, AKS, containerization, and pipeline security best practices. Prior experience enabling developer self-service platforms and leading cross-functional automation initiatives is highly desirable.
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