How to Build a DevOps Team: The Complete Guide

Team Composition Strategy

The Foundation: Your First DevOps Hire

DevOps Engineer (First Hire)

• Sets up CI/CD pipelines
• Manages cloud infrastructure
• Implements monitoring and alerting
• Automates deployments
• Creates foundation for reliability

Why DevOps Engineer First:

• Without CI/CD, deployments are manual and error-prone
• Infrastructure needs to be managed from the start
• Early architectural decisions affect scalability
• One strong DevOps engineer can support 5-10 developers

Scaling to 3-5 Person Team

Option A: Reliability-Focused

1. DevOps Engineer (infrastructure and CI/CD)
2. SRE (reliability and monitoring)
3. Additional SRE (as systems grow)
4. Platform Engineer (developer tooling)

Option B: Platform-Focused

1. DevOps Engineer (infrastructure)
2. Platform Engineer (internal platforms)
3. Additional Platform Engineer (as needs grow)
4. SRE (reliability focus)

Option C: Balanced

1. DevOps Engineer (infrastructure and CI/CD)
2. SRE (reliability)
3. Platform Engineer (developer productivity)
4. Additional DevOps Engineer (coverage and specialization)

When to Add Specialists

Add SREs when:

• Reliability becomes critical (customer-facing systems)
• You have frequent incidents
• You need dedicated on-call coverage
• Monitoring and observability need dedicated focus

Add Platform Engineers when:

• Developer productivity is bottlenecked
• You need internal tools and platforms
• Self-service infrastructure becomes important
• Developer experience needs improvement

Add Cloud Engineers when:

• Cloud architecture becomes complex
• You're multi-cloud or have complex networking
• Cost optimization needs dedicated focus
• Security and compliance require specialization

Hiring Order Matters

Phase 1: DevOps Engineer (Weeks 1-10)

Why First:

• Sets up CI/CD and infrastructure
• Establishes deployment processes
• Implements basic monitoring
• Creates foundation for everything else

What to Look For:

• 3-5+ years DevOps/infrastructure experience
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• CI/CD tools (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins)
• Infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
• Can work independently

Phase 2: SRE or Platform Engineer (Weeks 6-12)

Choose SRE if:

• Reliability is your biggest concern
• You have frequent incidents
• You need dedicated on-call

Choose Platform Engineer if:

• Developer productivity is bottlenecked
• You need internal tools
• Self-service is important

What to Look For:

• 3-5 years experience
• Strong systems knowledge
• Experience with monitoring/observability (SRE) or platform building (Platform)
• Good communication skills

Phase 3: Additional Specialists (Months 3-6)

Add based on needs:

• Another SRE for coverage
• Platform Engineer for tooling
• Cloud Engineer for architecture
• Security-focused DevOps for compliance

Skills to Look For

DevOps Engineer Skills

Must-Have:

• Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• CI/CD tools (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, CircleCI)
• Infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation, Pulumi)
• Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Scripting (Bash, Python, or Go)
• Linux systems administration

Nice-to-Have:

• Monitoring tools (Datadog, New Relic, Prometheus)
• Configuration management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet)
• Security (security scanning, secrets management)
• Networking (VPCs, load balancers, CDNs)

SRE Skills

Must-Have:

• Systems reliability principles
• Monitoring and observability (metrics, logs, traces)
• Incident response and postmortems
• Capacity planning
• Error budgets and SLAs

Nice-to-Have:

• Chaos engineering
• Performance optimization
• On-call experience
• Reliability engineering practices

Platform Engineer Skills

Must-Have:

• Software engineering (can write production code)
• Internal tooling and platforms
• Developer experience focus
• API design
• Self-service infrastructure

Nice-to-Have:

• Kubernetes operators
• Service mesh
• Developer portals
• Internal platforms experience

Budget Planning

Salary Costs (US, 2026)

3-Person Team: $520K-725K annually
5-Person Team: $750K-1M annually

Other Costs

• Cloud Infrastructure: $10-50K/month (varies widely by scale)
• DevOps Tools: $2-5K/month (CI/CD, monitoring, security tools)
• Recruiting: 20-25% of salary if using agencies
• Equipment: $3-5K per person
• Training/Certifications: $2-5K per person annually

Common Mistakes

1. Hiring DevOps Too Late

Problem: Waiting until deployments are breaking or infrastructure is a mess. Much harder to fix than to build right.

Better approach: Hire DevOps engineer early, even before you have complex infrastructure. They'll set up processes that scale.

2. Not Defining DevOps vs. SRE Roles

Problem: Unclear boundaries lead to confusion about who does what.

Better approach: DevOps focuses on infrastructure and CI/CD. SRE focuses on reliability and incidents. Define clearly.

3. Ignoring Developer Experience

Problem: DevOps team builds infrastructure but developers can't use it easily.

Better approach: Invest in platform engineering and self-service tools. Make it easy for developers to deploy and operate.

4. Over-Engineering Infrastructure

Problem: Building complex Kubernetes clusters when simple solutions would work.

Better approach: Start simple (managed services, basic CI/CD), add complexity as needs grow.

5. Not Planning for On-Call

Problem: No on-call coverage leads to incidents going unhandled.

Better approach: Plan on-call rotation from the start. SREs typically handle on-call, but DevOps engineers may need to participate.

DevOps Team Culture

What Great DevOps Teams Have

1. Automation-First Mindset

• Automate repetitive tasks
• Infrastructure as code
• Self-service where possible
• Reduce manual toil

2. Reliability Focus

• SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets
• Proactive monitoring
• Incident response processes
• Postmortem culture

3. Developer Partnership

• Work closely with application teams
• Understand developer needs
• Build tools developers want to use
• Reduce friction in development workflow

4. Continuous Improvement

• Regular retrospectives
• Experiment with new tools
• Learn from incidents
• Share knowledge

How to Establish Culture

Start with Automation: DevOps engineer should automate everything possible.

Document Everything: Infrastructure, runbooks, incident procedures.

Regular Communication: Weekly syncs with engineering teams, monthly team reviews.

Learn from Incidents: Postmortems are learning opportunities, not blame sessions.

Interview Strategy

What to Assess

Technical Skills:

• Cloud platforms and services
• CI/CD pipeline design
• Infrastructure as code
• Containerization and orchestration
• Monitoring and observability
• Scripting and automation

Problem-Solving:

• Can they design reliable systems?
• Do they think about failure modes?
• Can they troubleshoot complex issues?
• Do they consider developer experience?

Communication:

• Can they explain infrastructure to developers?
• Do they document well?
• Can they work with non-technical stakeholders?

Red Flags

• Can't write infrastructure as code
• No experience with production systems
• Doesn't think about reliability
• Poor documentation habits
• Can't explain complex systems simply

Timeline Expectations

Realistic Hiring Timeline

Total: 3-5 months to build a 3-person team

Factors Affecting Timeline

• DevOps talent is competitive — Plan for longer timelines
• Remote expands pool — Consider remote-first
• Certifications help — AWS/GCP certs signal competence
• Compensation — Competitive offers attract faster

Recruiter's Cheat Sheet

Key Insights

• DevOps engineer is critical first hire — Don't compromise
• Define roles clearly — DevOps vs. SRE vs. Platform have different focuses
• Developer experience matters — DevOps should make developers' lives easier
• Reliability is foundational — Invest in monitoring and incident response
• Start simple — Don't over-engineer infrastructure

Common Questions from Founders

"Do I need DevOps or SRE?"
DevOps for infrastructure and CI/CD. SRE for reliability and incidents. Start with DevOps, add SRE as you scale.

"When do I need a DevOps team?"
As soon as you have deployments or infrastructure to manage. Don't wait until things are breaking.

"How much does infrastructure cost?"
$10-50K/month for cloud infrastructure, varies widely by scale. Can start lower, scale as you grow.

"Can one person handle all DevOps needs?"
One strong DevOps engineer can support 5-10 developers for early-stage companies. As you scale, add SREs and platform engineers.