DevOps vs SRE: Which is Better, Differences, Responsibilities, Salary

DevOps and Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) are two of the most important approaches in software development and operations. On the surface, they both look very similar requiring similar skill sets. You can find the distinctions between DevOps vs SRE when you take a deep dive into these roles.

 DevOps embraces lean and agile principles to focus on continuous delivery and automation throughout development. It combines development and operations aspects of software development, thereby ensuring frequent releases and efficient development & deployment.

 SRE[1] [2]  emerged as a solution in 2003 to support the development of large-scale applications. Today, an SRE team consists of experts from development backgrounds who apply the best engineering practices to manage common production challenges.

 To become a DevOps or an SRE professional, you require similar skill sets. Both professions strive to achieve the same goals. However, depending on the company, the industry, etc. the lines between these two roles either get blurred or become too prominent.

 For instance, in smaller organizations, only one engineer might carry out the responsibilities of both DevOps and SRE. However, in large-scale or multinational companies, these roles might be segregated into different teams and departments.

 In this article, we delve into the DevOps vs SRE debate and present their differences from the viewpoint of the roles and responsibilities they carry out, the problems they help solve, the tools they use, and even their salaries.

 Also read: DevOps vs. Software Engineer

Exploring Key Differences Between DevOps and SRE

Today, SRE and DevOps are two of the most demanded tech jobs in the world. Since their scope of work, the tools, and even the objectives are similar, understanding the differences between them becomes crucial.

A DevOps creates the software and then refines it, while an SRE focuses on maintaining the existing software and ensures it works smoothly. The key areas of focus of DevOps and SRE are:

Now, that we have understood what DevOps and SRE are, let’s look at some of the key differences between them:

• Implementing new features: A DevOps professional is responsible for ensuring the implementation of new feature requests to the software. On the other hand, an SRE ensures that the new features do not increase the failure rate in the system.

• Process flow: DevOps uses the product environments to add changes from development to production, while SRE gives suggestions to the development team to limit the failure rate.

• Focus: DevOps focuses on ensuring continuity and production speed. SREs focus on maintaining the reliability, scalability, and availability of the systems.

Understanding DevOps vs SRE Roles and Responsibilities

DevOps and SREs are an important part of the development process. Even with several overlapping areas, their job roles are different from each other.

Let’s look at the DevOps vs SRE differences through the following table:

Let’s understand the differences between DevOps vs SRE through two case studies.

Implementing DevOps at Company X

Background

Company X, specializing in e-commerce solutions,  is a rapidly growing software development company. It recently decided to adopt DevOps to improve its development and deployment processes.

Challenges

The following are the key challenges of this project:

• Slow and unreliable deployment process
• Regular integration issues
• Inconsistent development environments

DevOps implementation

To implement DevOps, the Company X has to pay attention to the following aspects:

• Solution focus: Company X wants to streamline its development and deployment processes and build solutions to its related problems as well as automate the Continous Integration (CI) and Continous Development (CD) pipelines.
• Tools: The tech of Company X can use integrated development environments to write and test the code efficiently, along with Jenkins to set up the CI/CD pipelines and automate code integration, testing, and deployment.
• Reporting bugs: Developers and DevOps collaborate to identify and fix bugs. They also perform debugging in the CI/CD pipelines.
• Measurement metrics: DevOps tracks how often the new code is deployed to production. They also monitor the failure rate of deployments.
• Incident handling: They work on the feedback to quickly resolve the issues.

Outcome

Company X has seen a significant increase in the deployment speed along with an improvement in reliability. Automating the CI/CD pipelines has helped reduce manual errors and integration issues, leading to a more efficient development process.

Implementing SRE at Company Y

Background

Company Y is a cloud service provider that focuses on enhancing the reliability and scalability of its services. The company uses SRE to achieve these goals.

Challenges

The following are the key challenges of this project:

• Service outages and downtime
• Scalability issues during peak time
• Lack of any robust monitoring & alerting system

DevOps implementation

To implement DevOps, the Company Y has to pay attention to the following aspects:

• Solution focus: Company Y builds resilient, scalable, robust, and reliable solutions to maintain its applications. It aims to address and resolve operational problems to ensure high service reliability.
• Tools: SREs use tools like Prometheus and Grafana to collect and visualize metrics like CPU and memory usage, disk space, etc. They also use incident alert tools such as PagerDuty for any incident alerting and response. Further, the SREs also use container orchestration and cloud platforms like Kubernetes and AWS to manage & scale the infrastructure.
• Reporting bugs: Site reliability engineers report any bugs to the development team but do not debug them. SREs only focus on maintaining service reliability.
• Measurement metrics: SREs can use error budgets to define acceptable error rates. They also use other metrics such as Service Level Objectives (SLOs), Service Level Indicators (SLIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• Incident handling: Site reliability engineers conduct post-incident reviews to identify the root cause of any incident and record the findings. Then they use these insights to improve the reliability of the system.

Outcome

Company Y has been able to successfully achieve higher service reliability and scalability by implementing SRE. The use of robust monitoring has helped in proactive incident management, thereby reducing downtime and improving customer satisfaction.

DevOps vs SRE: Problems They Solve

In order to understand the DevOps vs SRE differences, it is important to know the problems they solve and thereby contribute to the company’s targets.

Let’s look at some of the key problems solved by DevOps and SRE.

Key Problems Solved by DevOps

The DevOps practices are key to reducing the friction between development and operations teams. A DevOps professional helps deliver the end product reliably while mitigating other challenges and problems.

The following are some of the key problems they help resolve:

• Reduced development and maintenance costs: As DevOps work towards CI/CD, they put more effort into automating testing instead of doing it manually. This helps quickly identify any bugs and remove them, thereby reducing the overall cost of development and maintenance.
• Shorter release cycle: One of the key advantages of having a DevOps team is that they improve delivery, making it faster and shortening the release cycle for new updates and software. Shortening the release cycle is easily manageable and can be called back if any issues or bugs are found in the version after its release.
• Automated and continuous testing: In DevOps, testing is a key part right from the beginning of the development process. DevOps facilitates continuous and automated testing by using CI/CD tools like Jenkins and version control tools such as Git and BitBucket.

Key Problems Solved by SRE

SREs are important for the development and deployment process. They help ensure the application is maintained effectively and there are no issues in its operations.

Let’s look at some of the key problems and issues solved by SRE:

• Reduced mean time to recovery (MTTR): The SRE team maintains the production and ensures that the system runs without any issues. If they find any bug, the SRE team can roll back the system to the previous version, thereby reducing the MTTR.
• Automate everything: SRE teams focus on automating everything, thereby reducing inconsistencies and the probability of human errors. As a good practice, site reliability engineers use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to solve the problem of automation.
• Incident documentation: Often the site reliability engineers focus on recording unforeseen incidents and their troubleshooting steps to ensure it is easily resolved if it happens in the future.

Tools of the Trade: DevOps vs SRE Toolsets Compared

In the DevOps vs SRE debate, it is important to understand the tools a DevOps engineer uses in comparison to an SRE to carry out their responsibilities is important. Often, the tools they use are common because many of their roles also overlap.

The following are some of the tools DevOps and SRE use:

Salary Insights: DevOps vs SRE Compensation Comparison

One important point of differentiation between DevOps vs SRE is the salary they earn. This is a crucial factor that helps an individual decide if they want to pursue DevOps or SRE roles.

According to Indeed, the average salary of a DevOps engineer in the US is $126,240, while the minimum they earn is $86,425, and the maximum is $184,397. They also get a cash bonus of $9000.

Indeed further reports, the highest paying city for DevOps engineers is Palo Alto, California with $156,704, and the least paying city is Raleigh with $118,381.

On the other hand, the average salary of an SRE in the US is $142,600, according to Indeed. Their minimum salary is $95,264, and the maximum is $213,457.

Site reliability engineers from Sunnyvale are the highest-paid SREs in the US with a compensation of $171,738. Atlanta is where SREs are paid the least with $124,429.

Finding Common Ground: Similarities Between DevOps and SRE

The debate of DevOps vs SRE continues to understand their similarities as well. These can help in determining when to use one of these approaches.

Both these approaches have emerged from a desire to improve the overall customer experience while building an efficient IT infrastructure and system. Their focus is on automating the majority of the tasks and improving collaboration between the team and team members.

They also help in developing a holistic approach to software development, simplifying and automating it to a great extent. In addition, both DevOps and site reliability engineers also help in enhancing the overall delivery process.

SRE and DevOps, both use similar metrics to measure their functioning and success. Such professionals focus on developing a strong, bug-free system which is not only easy to use, but also gives the best user experience.

Master Site Reliability Engineer or DevOps Interview with Interview Kickstart

As the tech world grows, the importance of SRE and DevOps professionals also continues to increase. The first hurdle to land such a role is to ace the interview. Interview Kickstart’s Site Reliability Engineering Interview Masterclass is the right option to prepare for such an interview.

It is designed and taught by top FAANG+ instructors who have real-world experience working in these domains. They know what type of questions are asked in DevOps interviews. Their expert knowledge and tips will help you clear even the toughest of SRE interviews with flying colors.

Enroll in this course to learn the fundamentals of data structures and algorithms, system design, as well as DevOps and SRE. In addition, our experts will also help you create ATS-clearing resumes, build a strong online personal brand, and optimize your LinkedIn profile.

FAQs: DevOps vs SRE

1. What are the Educational Backgrounds Typically Required for DevOps and SRE Roles?

DevOps and SRE roles often require a strong foundation in computer science, software engineering, or related fields. Many professionals hold bachelor’s or master’s degrees in these areas. However, practical experience, certifications, and knowledge of specific tools and methodologies can be equally important.

2. How Does the Onboarding Process Differ for DevOps and SRE Roles?

Onboarding for DevOps roles usually involves familiarizing new hires with the development and deployment pipelines, automation tools, and existing CI/CD practices. For SRE roles, onboarding focuses on understanding the existing monitoring and alerting systems, incident management processes, and overall infrastructure reliability protocols.

3. What is the Impact of Company Size on the Responsibilities of DevOps and SRE Roles?

In smaller companies, a single individual may take on both DevOps and SRE responsibilities due to resource constraints. In larger organizations, these roles are often more distinct, with dedicated teams for each function, allowing for greater specialization and focus on specific areas.

Can DevOps and SRE Roles Transition into Each Other?

Yes, professionals in DevOps can transition to SRE roles and vice versa. Both roles require a similar skill set, including knowledge of automation, coding, and system management. The main difference lies in the focus areas—development and deployment for DevOps versus reliability and scalability for SRE.

What is the Role of Platform Engineers Compared to DevOps and SRE?

Platform Engineers focus on building and maintaining the underlying infrastructure that supports development and operations, often providing a self-service platform for developers. While DevOps focuses on CI/CD and SRE on reliability, Platform Engineers ensure that the infrastructure is scalable, secure, and efficient, acting as a bridge between DevOps and SRE in many organizations.

Related Reads:

• Top Azure DevOps Interview Questions to Practice
• Top DevOps Interview Questions
• Google SRE Interview Process
• Google SRE Interview Preparation