DevOps Resume Examples Guide + Expert Tips & Templates

Would you say “I don’t always test my code, but when I do, I do it in production” ?

I hope not, but when it comes to your DevOps resume, that’s exactly what you’re doing!

Unfortunately, there’s no build pipeline that can take care of your resume and push the one that’s best.

Because it’s a role that demands broad skills, writing a DevOps engineer resume is indeed a challenge.

So, we did the hard work for you.

We wrote 100s of emails and asked everyone involved in hiring DevOps, and wrote this guide based on what we learned.

With this guide, we’ll show you:

• What we learned after talking to people hiring for DevOps
• Adding what makes your resume better than 99% of applicants
• How to improve job interview conversions with a high quality resume
• How to demonstrate that you’re the one for the job

3 DevOps Resume Templates

You're looking below at 3 different resumes for DevOps professionals, based on level of experience and preferred technology. If you'd like to use them as a base for your on, just click on the button next to them.

Let's see what makes them great.

Senior devops engineer resume

We really like the action-oriented bullet points - that candidate has also included real numbers to demonstrate what business outcomes have his actions led to. That's what we expect to see more of in Senior Dev Engineer resumes.

Junior DevOps engineer resume

As a junior applicant, you're going to have harder time standing out among a pile of applicants. This candidate has put a clever use of splitting his skills nicely by technology, as well as including a summary that mentions one of his biggest projects so far in his career. That's going to be relevant for the job he's applying for.

Aws devops engineer resume

This candidate baked his experience with AWS throughout the resume. Interestingly, it doesn't make it too heavy to read - he used a format that mitigated that. Bonus tip: the inclusion of a Stack Overflow profile makes up for a whole conversation out there with the technical recruiter - as we'd imagine he's one of the more active users on the platform.

Looking for other Information Technology resumes? Check those out:

• IT Resume
• Tech Resume
• Full Stack Developer Resume
• IT Manager Resume
• IT Director Resume
• Javascript Developer Resume

The question that you still have is…

How should I write a DevOps resume?

We hope those resume examples got you inspired.

But to write a good DevOps resume, you need to take a few steps back.

You need to look from a recruiter's perspective on what they value the most in a resume.

You then have to focus on presenting your information in a way that it is easy for a recruiter to scan.

And then, your resume will be tweaked to reflect you as a person.

That’s it!

What do recruiters value the most in a resume

Most recruiters and tech leaders valued impact over everything else in a DevOps engineer resume.

Some value real impact so much that they exclusively filter “tricky pony” DevOps resumes and toss them in the bin.

And the way most hiring managers do that is by looking at the resume experience. Skills and tooling familiarity are of secondary importance.

Overall, the resume has to scream culture, as DevOps is all about reflecting your knowledge and experience with DevOps practices and methodologies.

And note that most recruiters will use keywords to map relevance between who you are and what the role needs.

So, the right resume:

• Has the right keywords placed in it
• Builds a story of what you’ve done
• Describes the technical work you’ve done in a brief, yet comprehensive manner
• Would reflect the impact you made
• Contains your skills and certifications

Perfect, but what should be your DevOps resume layout?

The best resume layout for devops.

We’ve already found the answer for you!

Given the diverse experience, tooling, skills, certifications, etc. we usually see in a DevOps professional - you have two options:

• Follow a reverse chronological format
• Follow a hybrid resume that follow the reverse chronological layout but also highlights your skills and personality

We’d highly recommend building your resume using second layout if you are considering a career change.

And because you need to display a sharp focus on culture, show diverse skills and highlight the impact you made. Other layouts, like a functional one, don’t make a cut for a DevOps resume.

How to Write a DevOps Resume Header

The header of your resume should primarily contain your name, job title, experience, contact, email, and location (not your full address).

It’s important that you make it look tidy and share only the required information in this section.

If you have a certification like DOL, DSOE, CDA, DTE, CASM, CAPO etc., you should mention that in the header as well.

Remember to be concise.

Example of good and bad devops resume headers

When a recruiter sees the above header and your contact details, all they want to do is scroll down to make sure the rest of the resume reflects the same quality.

If the header is cluttered, the recruiter is most likely expecting the resume to be heavy with unorganized information and skip to the next resume.

Adding any blogs you have written and a portfolio link to contributions you’ve made on StackOverflow or GitHub gives you a huge advantage.

Since, more than 95% resumes don’t have these in their resume heading, your resume stands out.

Let’s move on to the next important thing - your resume summary.

How to write a resume summary or resume objective for DevOps

A good resume summary makes your resume sticky. This is extremely helpful, especially when you think about a recruiter who’s just going to spend a few seconds glancing through your resume before making a decision.

Write a good resume objective and you’ll have the hiring manager’s attention (and possibly the job).

Let’s look at a few resume summary examples.

Our goal here would be to help you understand what makes a resume summary good or bad.

DevOps resume summary examples"

The first resume summary is from a DevOps Engineer resume

We are not saying that this resume summary is garbage, but when there are 300 other applicants, it isn’t going to help you make the cut here.

Now, go through this one:

A hiring manager reading this DevOps resume objective would learn that you’ve worked for 10 years in BFSI and that you are a do-it-yourself person.

If the job application demanded someone that fits this criteria, you just got the recruiter’s attention, congrats!

Aws devops engineer resume objective

Here’s a good way to see how pushing specialization into your resume summary makes your resume even better.

As a general rule, we would suggest the following for writing a resume summary:

• Listing specialization within resume summary increases the impact. Let’s say if your specialization is in security, it should be up there on your DevOps resume summary.
• Mention tools and the impact you made in the summary

Now, a recruiter is curious to learn more about you, how you work, and how you fit in the job requirements.

Let’s see how you can cover that via your DevOps resume experience.

How to write a winning DevOps resume experience section

We had a very interesting conversation with an Engineering manager at a top Silicon Valley company. We asked her what she really looked into while looking at a DevOps manager resume experience.

Here’s what she said: “We try to filter ‘trick ponies’ and are trying to see if a candidate’s experience reflects a high degree of problem-solving capacity.”

She further elaborated and told us that “Rather than talking about 1,000 great things you can do, it would help me if I can see whether you implemented a docker container that was conformal to SACCC Matrix”.

We spoke with her for another hour, and using 10 other sessions like these collected a bunch of good and bad resume experience examples for you.

Examples of good and bad DevOps engineer resume experience

While the first one gets tossed, the second passes all criteria for a hiring manager. Add your own specialization to the second resume experience (engineering, SRE, security, etc.)

Examples of good and bad DevOps manager resume experience sections

It hard to get anything from this resume experience, let alone get a feel of DevOps. And someone with this resume experience in DevOps is most likely to get their resume tossed.

Someone reading through the last summary example can’t just keep themselves from contacting you.

How to write a DevOps resume with no experience

DevOps is primarily a role for experienced professionals, and so far has been dominated by them.

But, the industry is now changing. And thanks to open world of MOOCs and Opencourseware that employers are now hiring entry level professionals with no prior DevOps experience.

Clearly, you’ve a shot at getting that entry level DevOps job.

Entry level DevOps resume example

See how putting the right things into context delivers you a great entry level DevOps resume?

We’re 80% there now!

Imagine a recruiter getting two Sr DevOps resumes. Both have a good summary, header, layout and experience. But one Sr DevOps resume gets accepted and the other one gets rejected.

Why?

Let’s see in the next section.

List your important DevOps certifications

The reason the other resume got rejected was “certifications”.

Certifications not only reflect that you are a risk-free hire, but they often also reflect deep passion and curiosity.

So, craft a special section within your resume and add your resume certificates there.

But, you know what makes this resume 100% perfect? Your devops skills in your resume.

That’s how you build a perfect DevOps resume.

But, before you start writing yours, let’s summarize.

• Make sure that your resume is a modern layout hybrid resume
• Make sure your resume summary is highly impactful
• Display the impact and scale of your work in your resume experience section
• Add certifications and skills to your resume