DevOps Engineer job description template (India, 2026)
A DevOps Engineer job description written for Indian companies: responsibilities, requirements, CTC and notice-period framing, five screening questions, and the full text to copy or post on ofper.
Last updated 3 September 2026. Competitor pricing and plan limits are re-verified against each vendor’s own pages.
What does a DevOps Engineer do?
A product team hires its first DevOps Engineer when the founder or the backend developer can no longer be the person who understands the servers. The engineer sets up and runs the cloud accounts, the environments, the deploy pipeline, the monitoring and on-call tooling, the backups and their restores, the secrets and access, and the security basics — and keeps the monthly cloud bill visible and sane, which in a bootstrapped or lean company is half the job.
The posting should state the cloud provider and services, the current setup — containers, a managed platform, plain VMs — the scale, the team size, the on-call model, and the cost sensitivity. DevOps candidates from large companies may expect a platform team and Kubernetes everywhere; an SME needs someone who chooses the simplest reliable option and can justify the bill.
DevOps Engineer responsibilities
Written as work the person does, not qualities they have. A responsibility a candidate can picture is one they can decide about.
- Own the cloud accounts and environments on [AWS / GCP / Azure / other]: provisioning as code, networking, access control, and separation of production from everything else.
- Build and maintain the CI/CD pipeline: automated tests, builds, deployments with rollback, and preview or staging environments.
- Run monitoring, logging and alerting so that the team learns about problems before customers do, and tune alerts so on-call is sane.
- Own backups and disaster recovery: scheduled backups, tested restores, documented recovery procedures and realistic recovery targets.
- Own security hardening: secrets management, least-privilege IAM, patching, dependency and image scanning, TLS, and the evidence a customer security questionnaire needs.
- Own cloud cost: right-sizing, reserved or spot capacity where sensible, storage and egress hygiene, and a monthly cost review with the founder.
- Support developers with local environments, tooling and the deploy process, and write the runbooks the on-call rota depends on.
- Take part in incident response and lead the infrastructure side of post-incident fixes.
DevOps Engineer requirements and qualifications
Keep the required list to what you would actually reject a candidate for. Everything else goes under nice to have — a long required list mostly filters out the people you wanted.
- 3 to 6 years in DevOps, SRE or infrastructure roles, including at least 2 years running production on [cloud provider] for a product with real users.
- Hands-on with infrastructure as code (Terraform or equivalent), containers, a CI/CD system, and a monitoring stack.
- Solid Linux, networking and security fundamentals; comfortable with shell scripting and at least one programming language.
- Experience with backups and a restore you have actually performed, and with at least one real incident from page to post-mortem.
- Cost awareness: can explain a cloud bill and what you did to reduce one.
- Willing to work [from our office / hybrid / remote with overlap hours] and to be on the escalation rota.
Nice to have
- Experience with Kubernetes where the scale justified it — and the judgement to say when it did not.
- Experience preparing for a customer security review or a compliance audit.
- Database operations experience — replication, upgrades, performance — on our database.
Salary, CTC and terms for a DevOps Engineer in India
State a CTC range. Postings without one get fewer and worse-matched applications, and the range is the first thing an Indian candidate looks for. Say how the CTC is made up — fixed, variable, and any statutory components — so the in-hand figure is not a surprise at offer stage.
- State the CTC range with fixed and variable and any ESOP. DevOps salaries in India run high relative to other roles at the same experience; a range gets applicants who fit it.
- State the on-call and escalation model and how it is compensated.
- State the work-from-office policy exactly and whether notice buyout is offered.
- State the interview process and whether there is a practical exercise.
DevOps Engineer job description template
Replace every [placeholder]. Cut anything that is not true of your company — a generic paragraph is worse than no paragraph.
DevOps Engineer — [Company name], [City] Employment type: Full-time | Location: [City] / [On-site, hybrid or remote] | CTC: [range] per annum | Experience: [years] About the role A product team hires its first DevOps Engineer when the founder or the backend developer can no longer be the person who understands the servers. The engineer sets up and runs the cloud accounts, the environments, the deploy pipeline, the monitoring and on-call tooling, the backups and their restores, the secrets and access, and the security basics — and keeps the monthly cloud bill visible and sane, which in a bootstrapped or lean company is half the job. The posting should state the cloud provider and services, the current setup — containers, a managed platform, plain VMs — the scale, the team size, the on-call model, and the cost sensitivity. DevOps candidates from large companies may expect a platform team and Kubernetes everywhere; an SME needs someone who chooses the simplest reliable option and can justify the bill. What you will do - Own the cloud accounts and environments on [AWS / GCP / Azure / other]: provisioning as code, networking, access control, and separation of production from everything else. - Build and maintain the CI/CD pipeline: automated tests, builds, deployments with rollback, and preview or staging environments. - Run monitoring, logging and alerting so that the team learns about problems before customers do, and tune alerts so on-call is sane. - Own backups and disaster recovery: scheduled backups, tested restores, documented recovery procedures and realistic recovery targets. - Own security hardening: secrets management, least-privilege IAM, patching, dependency and image scanning, TLS, and the evidence a customer security questionnaire needs. - Own cloud cost: right-sizing, reserved or spot capacity where sensible, storage and egress hygiene, and a monthly cost review with the founder. - Support developers with local environments, tooling and the deploy process, and write the runbooks the on-call rota depends on. - Take part in incident response and lead the infrastructure side of post-incident fixes. What we are looking for - 3 to 6 years in DevOps, SRE or infrastructure roles, including at least 2 years running production on [cloud provider] for a product with real users. - Hands-on with infrastructure as code (Terraform or equivalent), containers, a CI/CD system, and a monitoring stack. - Solid Linux, networking and security fundamentals; comfortable with shell scripting and at least one programming language. - Experience with backups and a restore you have actually performed, and with at least one real incident from page to post-mortem. - Cost awareness: can explain a cloud bill and what you did to reduce one. - Willing to work [from our office / hybrid / remote with overlap hours] and to be on the escalation rota. Nice to have - Experience with Kubernetes where the scale justified it — and the judgement to say when it did not. - Experience preparing for a customer security review or a compliance audit. - Database operations experience — replication, upgrades, performance — on our database. Compensation and terms - State the CTC range with fixed and variable and any ESOP. DevOps salaries in India run high relative to other roles at the same experience; a range gets applicants who fit it. - State the on-call and escalation model and how it is compensated. - State the work-from-office policy exactly and whether notice buyout is offered. - State the interview process and whether there is a practical exercise. How to apply Apply with your resume through this page. We reply to every application, and shortlisted candidates hear from us within [number] working days.
Opens a free ofper workspace with the title, description and screening questions filled in.
Screening questions for DevOps Engineer applicants
Five questions is the ceiling on ofper, and it is the right ceiling: a form that asks more than that costs applications. Use them for the things that decide a shortlist, not for anything the resume already says.
| Question | Type | Knockout | Why it earns a slot |
|---|---|---|---|
| How many years have you run production infrastructure on [cloud provider] for a product with real users? | Number (pass: 2+) | Yes | Production experience on the actual cloud is the requirement. |
| Have you personally performed a backup restore in production or a realistic drill? | Yes / No (pass: Yes) | No | Not a knockout, but the single most telling question about operational maturity; it shapes the interview. |
| Are you able to work [from our City office / remote with overlap hours] and take part in an escalation rota? | Yes / No (pass: Yes) | Yes | WFO and rota settled first. |
| What is your current notice period, in days? | Number (pass: 0 to 90) | No | Timeline and buyout planning. |
Questions, answered straight
What should a DevOps Engineer job description include?
The cloud provider and services, the current setup, the scale, the team size, the on-call model and its compensation, the cost sensitivity, the work-from-office policy, the interview process and the CTC range. DevOps candidates decide on cloud, setup and on-call.
When does an SME need a DevOps Engineer?
When nobody on the team can confidently restore from backup, when deploys are manual and scary, when the cloud bill is a mystery, or when a customer security questionnaire cannot be answered. Usually somewhere between four and ten engineers.
Does an SME need Kubernetes?
Usually not. A managed platform or a simple container setup with a good pipeline serves most products at SME scale at a fraction of the operational load and cost. Ask candidates when Kubernetes is justified; the good ones say 'rarely at this scale'.