DevOps Engineers vs. Build and Release Engineers

Responsibilities of DevOps Engineers vs. Build and Release Engineers

To make their job of building software possible, DevOps and build and release engineers are responsible for understanding the technical requirements of the project. Some companies use these titles interchangeably or bring the two professionals together on a team. DevOps engineers create pipelines to deliver tools and stacks for development teams. Build and release engineers also use automation tools, like Jenkins, Version One, or Ansible, to make building, finding bugs, and releasing the program faster.

DevOps Engineers

DevOps engineers work on Agile development teams with other developers and foundation architects. They design the application build, including suggesting the simplest and most cost-effective system options. Most importantly, these engineers create automated development practices to ensure architecture standardization for faster development processes. Additionally, they improve processes for delivering software to customers. This includes updates, because DevOps engineers test prototypes throughout the development and delivery processes to identify operational issues and automate fixes for those bugs.

Job responsibilities of a DevOps engineer include:

• Creating style guides for software and applications
• Maintaining company goals for the product's performance
• Tracking bottlenecking issues with the deployment of programs and updates
• Understanding tools such as Bamboo, Chef, and Puppet

Build and Release Engineers

Build and release engineers create and maintain infrastructure, often called a source control system or build system, full of tools and frameworks that will make the job of software building and deployment easier. As part of this system, they design scripts and tools used for software development that use Python or even Java programming and scripting to create source code. Part of their job is to seamlessly integrate updates of the software using continuous delivery pipelines, which will take the updates to the user faster.

Job responsibilities of a build and release engineer include:

• Utilizing the Linux or Unix operating system throughout the build process
• Reviewing code for the software build architecture
• Creating plugins that will improve the automation process
• Researching solutions to automation issues and integrating these into the system