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Comment by crypt1d | Hacker News Reader

I've been listening to the "DevOps is a culture, not a role" mantras on HN and elsewhere for years now. Meanwhile, I've been working precisely as a DevOps Engineer/SRE and doubling my income every year or two.

The job is what you and your colleagues make it out to be. You are there to fill a certain need and a knowledge gap within the team. Figure out what that is and you are golden.

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You having a successful career is not really relevant to the discussion.

I do agree though that the most important part of a professional life is to fill the gap within your team. But that's another discussion.

Its relevant in the context of showing just how little weight the 'devops is not a role' view has in the real world :)

if it were to be called "Release Engineering" and the pay was the same, would it matter?

Totally agree. In my experience it seems engineering titles and the associated role/duty are wildly inconsistent between companies. The company size and industry have a huge impact.

For some reason "DevOps Engineer" is much more polarizing than "FullStack Engineer" or "Senior Developer"

How do you double your income yearly?

For the first couple of years it's possible. I'm not sure it's going to work past year 3 or maybe 4.

start with very low income and only have a small number of years in industry.

15k -> 30k -> 60k -> 120k

Heh I may have exaggerated a bit to make a point ;) realistically its more like every 2 years or so, and partially because I started from a junior role in an enterprise environment and worked my way up to independent consulting.

Part time junior -> full time junior -> senior -> lead over 5 or 6 years.

Also if you have stock at a successful company in the past couple of years things have gone vertical.

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