I have worked a lot with DevOps people in general. The best ones had following : - Amazing shell scripting and linux command weaponry. - They keep up with the latest tools like docker, new relic or puppet - They over monitor stuff using tools like ganglia, zabbix, logstash(splunk), datadog, etc. - They have flexible mindset (to do quick hacks) to buy time for dev team. - They have flexible time schedule. (act to an alert at 3 AM) - They consider themselves to be part of Dev team, admin team, DB team and are clear in communicating their ideas.