Is it possible to outsource DevOps? What is the cost? Share your thoughts

Is it possible to outsource DevOps? The short answer is - yes. Should you outsource DevOps? Let's find out! To be fair, there are a lot of possible ways to hire a DevOps engineer for your company. You can find freelancers; you can also search for in-house DevOps specialists. And there is nothing wrong with such specialists; they all have their pros and cons. We also may include outstaffing, nearshoring, and outsourcing. But today, I want to take a closer look at outsourcing. By the way, if you want a post that describes each of these hiring types, let me know in the comment.

What is outsourcing? It's not a trendy business idea anymore; it's a perfect business strategy for managing your budget and making your life easier by shifting responsibility for development to another company. The best part here is that the cost depends on the country and the developer's expertise.

If it is possible to outsource DevOps, what would they do?

The most popular outsourced DevOps services that can bring additional value to the business are:

• continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) tools, with a focus on task automation;
• real-time monitoring, incident and configuration management;
• collaboration platforms creation;
• massively scalable and distributed systems with cloud computing, - microservices, and containers implementation;
• increased communications between IT groups;
• faster time to market/lead time;
• rapid improvement based on continuous feedback in the DevOps journey;
• zero downtime in the development process with a Blue-Green deployment;
• more accurate system performance due to less manual work and more automation;
• responsibility and code ownership in development results in better dev processes;
• possibility to distribute duties among broader specific roles for more accurate performance.

Basically, they do the same job but cheaper, and you don't need to control them every minute. In the previous post, I wrote about DevOps responsibilities and some real-life examples of using such specialists in business, so go check it out; it's already on IH.

But if such specialists do the same job as in-house specialists, for example, why do people even care about outsourcing something?

Being good at automation does not make your organization good at DevOps. As stated in the recent report, despite the pretty high level of automation, 62% of companies confessed they are stumped on their DevOps adoption somewhere in the middle of an evolution. But what are the real benefits of it, then, and why should a company use DevOps services outsourcing?

It has been proven by years that you get these benefits by outsourcing something:

• faster recovery from failures
• lower change failure rate
• less time spent on unplanned work and rework
• less time remediating security issues

But that's just a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the benefits you get from outsourcing. Apart from figures, a DevOps outsourcing partner is featured with the following bonuses:

1. Access to the top DevOps talents who are hard to onboard with no steps in DevOps before.
2. Broad expertise at an affordable price without domination in your projects.
3. Long-standing DevOps culture within a team with more profound peer-to-peer training and support.
4. No in-house challenges related to recruiting, training, spending, and benefits.
5. Shorter development cycles under the perfected over the years best DevOps practices.
6. Improved quality and flexibility with less responsibility for providing tools and resources.
7. Better control of risks and recoveries from exerts immersed better that newbies in the field.

What are the prices?

Let's consider the state of compensation for DevOps services in different countries based on Talent, Glassdoor, Erieri, SalaryExpert, and Pilot.
Rapid digitization in 2020 led to salary increases for DevOps specialists. For example, over a third of the USA employees have compensation from $150,000 and $250,000 per year. At such prices for professional services, it is difficult for companies to get accelerated with automation, even with obvious benefits from DevOps in the long run. Swedish specialists in CI/CD are near the same salary bracket as in the USA, with $120 000 for the middle DevOps engineer and $137 000 compensation per year for senior levels. Canada starts with $110 000 on average for middle specialists, moving to $156 000 for seniors per year. By the way, the biggest increase in DevOps salaries is observed in Japan, lifting the mark of $90 000 per year with the greatest $189 000. In the United Kingdom, the DevOps Engineer, on average, makes up £60 000 per year while most experienced workers make up to £80 000 respectively. €66 500 on average and €83 500 on maximum a DevOps professional is expected to get from their employer in Germany. The average pay for a DevOps Engineer in Finland is €70 000, reaching €86 500 maximum.

What is the best country for outsourcing that would provide the best quality and price?

In my opinion - it's Ukraine. In this region, you can find DevOps experts in all application areas. CI/CD development outsourcing in Ukraine has competitive cost pros. Middle-level positions will cost you $40-45 per hour and $50-60 for a senior-level position. In terms of value, they are not inferior to talents from your local tech pool and are available for an affordable price, though. More about the salaries of DevOps engineers can be found here.

Conclusion

An outsourced DevOps programmer can bring more value to your organization, freeing you up from long hiring, wasted time, and money in competition in the local tech market in DevOps talent shortage circumstances. An outsourced DevOps team doesn't need extra resources but often performs better than in-house. What are your thoughts on outsourcing? Have you ever considered it for your business? Write in the comments. Also, a big article about DevOps is this one - I really recommend it. Share your thoughts in the comments. Good luck!