Insights from a senior DevOps Specialist

In our latest interview series, we introduce some of our expert software developers and consultants at NewRedo.

This time, get to know the man behind the machine – our very talented and dedicated Lead Consultant Engineer and DevOps specialist, Micheal Wilkinson.

Get To Know NewRedo’s Senior DevOps Specialist

Michael, thanks for sparing some time out of your busy schedule to chat! Firstly, could you tell us about your career journey and how you got to where you are now?

My tech career began when I left university and became a server technician at a data centre management company. This was a very hands on role, managing the day to day of the hardware.

During this time one of the customers asked for a website build, which ended up being my first professional website, and this is essentially how I moved from servers into software.

Shortly after that the DevOps movement started, and I found being able to sit at both sides of the skill sets (managing servers and developing the software) served me extremely well.

What’s one of the most important lessons you’ve learned as a DevOps Engineer?

Definitely never stop learning. There’s always something new to understand. Our clients hold us as experts in our field, and development is such a broad and ever-changing field that we have to be on a continuous learning path in order to retain that expertise.

What other skills would you say make a DevOps engineer successful?

A key aspect of the role is actually having good soft skills. Yes it’s important to know the tools and technology inside out, but a lot of organisations and engineers fall down when it comes to the communication side, which is essential for getting the job done effectively. Being able to effectively communicate between departments is key, so it’s about having a good mix of both hard and soft skills.

How would you define your development and consulting style?

My teaching style is to first understand how the person or team I’m dealing with likes to learn. Everyone learns differently, so it’s important to cater your teaching style to how people will understand it best.

In terms of my development style, I’d say flexible and people-focused. For me, again, it’s about understanding how people want to work and tailoring your approach to that. When I go into a client’s business, I have to fully understand how they prefer to do things in order to achieve success with them. Then I’ll be looking for ways we can make processes more efficient and work with the client’s existing team to incorporate these learnings together.

What’s your ideal project to work on?

For me, I enjoy helping companies to adopt new techniques and technologies. The teaching side is also the most rewarding, seeing that moment everything clicks and just knowing you’re making a measurable difference to a team and business.

How do you find working at NewRedo compared to previous jobs?

The biggest upside of working at NewRedo is the level of support I get from Royd, Phil and the rest of the team. Generally, when I’m working on a client’s project, both offsite and onsite, I don’t need to call on them for help, but it’s more just knowing that support system is there if you need it, which makes a big difference.

Thank you Michael for sharing your thoughts. Learn more about NewRedo and our bespoke software development projects on our popular industry blog.