Continuous Integration Skills

All about Continuous Integration

What is Continuous Integration?

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice where developers integrate their code changes into a shared repository frequently, typically multiple times a day. Each integration triggers an automated build process, where the code is compiled, tested, and validated against predefined criteria, such as unit tests, integration tests, and coding standards.

If the build is successful, the changes are automatically deployed to a testing or staging environment, where they undergo further validation and verification. If any errors or issues are detected during the integration process, developers are notified immediately, allowing them to address the problems quickly and prevent them from propagating to other parts of the codebase.

New Data & Insights

Hired’s previous State of Software Engineers report has become an article series focused on Software Engineer Trends featuring:

Demand for Continuous Integration skills is on the rise

When we compared data of active open positions on Hired’s tech recruiting platform from 2022 to 2023, we found something interesting. Continuous Integration and Spark appear to be rising in employer demand, based on a 37% increase in job listings year over year. This may be linked to a more widespread use of DevOps practices in the industry.

CEO of Vero Chris Hexton says, “These days, I’d expect any experienced engineer to be familiar with CI practices, configuration, etc. It’s really a crucial part of ensuring you’re shipping high-quality code and a high-quality customer experience.”

Other tech skills growing in demand on the Hired talent marketplace were: Spring Boot, Azure, Linux, .Net, HTML, Terraform, and AWS.

What to use Continuous Integration skills for

Automated Builds: CI enables teams to automate the process of building software, including compiling source code, resolving dependencies, and generating executable artifacts. By automating builds, CI reduces the risk of human error, ensures consistency across environments, and accelerates the delivery of software updates, enabling teams to release new features and fixes more frequently and reliably.
Automated Testing: CI facilitates the automation of testing activities, including unit testing, integration testing, and regression testing. Developers can write automated tests that verify the functionality, performance, and security of their code changes, and integrate them into the CI pipeline to be executed automatically upon each code commit. By running tests continuously, CI helps teams identify defects and regressions early in the development cycle, enabling them to address issues promptly and maintain code quality throughout the development process.
Code Quality Assurance: CI enforces code quality standards and best practices by running static code analysis tools, such as linters and code formatters, as part of the build process. These tools check the codebase for syntax errors, coding style violations, and potential bugs, and provide feedback to developers on areas for improvement. By enforcing code quality standards, CI helps teams maintain clean, consistent, and maintainable codebases, reducing technical debt and enhancing the overall quality of software.
Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD): CI is often paired with Continuous Deployment (CD) to automate the process of deploying code changes to production environments. In a CI/CD pipeline, code changes that pass the CI tests are automatically deployed to production, enabling teams to release updates to users quickly and frequently. By automating deployment tasks, CI/CD reduces the risk of manual errors, minimizes downtime, and enables teams to deliver value to customers continuously and incrementally.

What is a Continuous Integration developer?

A Continuous Integration (CI) developer is a software developer who specializes in implementing and maintaining CI pipelines and workflows for software development projects. CI developers possess the following skills and attributes:

Proficiency in Version Control: CI developers are proficient in version control systems, such as Git, SVN, or Mercurial, and understand how to work with branches, commits, and pull requests. They know how to use version control effectively to collaborate with team members, track changes to the codebase, and manage code reviews and merge conflicts.
Knowledge of Build Automation: CI developers have knowledge of build automation tools and techniques for automating the process of compiling, testing, and packaging software. They are familiar with build tools such as Jenkins, Travis CI, CircleCI, or GitLab CI/CD, and understand how to configure and customize CI pipelines to meet the specific requirements of their projects.
Experience with Testing Frameworks: CI developers have experience with testing frameworks and libraries for writing and executing automated tests. They know how to write unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests using frameworks such as JUnit, NUnit, Pytest, or Mocha, and understand how to integrate tests into CI pipelines to validate code changes automatically.
Scripting and Automation Skills: CI developers have scripting and automation skills for writing scripts and automation tools to streamline CI workflows. They are proficient in scripting languages such as Bash, PowerShell, or Python, and understand how to automate repetitive tasks such as dependency management, environment setup, and deployment, to improve the efficiency and reliability of CI pipelines.

Continuous Integration (CI) Developer salaries

If you’re wondering about salary ranges for CI DevOps jobs, see Hired’s Salary Calculator. You can also check out our most recent tech compensation research study.

Most important Continuous Integration skills for tech talent in 2024

Infrastructure as Code (IaC): CI developers need to know about Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles and tools for automating the provisioning and configuration of infrastructure resources. They should be familiar with tools such as Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, and understand how to define infrastructure resources declaratively, version control infrastructure code, and manage infrastructure changes programmatically, to ensure consistency, repeatability, and scalability in CI environments.
Containerization and Orchestration: With the increasing adoption of containers and Kubernetes for deploying and managing applications, CI developers need to know containerization technologies, such as Docker, and container orchestration platforms, such as Kubernetes.
Microservices Architecture: CI developers need to have knowledge of microservices architecture and design patterns for building modular, scalable, and resilient applications. They should understand how to decompose monolithic applications into microservices, define service boundaries and contracts, and implement communication, resilience, and observability patterns, to enable teams to develop, test, and deploy microservices independently and continuously in CI/CD pipelines.
Serverless Computing: With the growing popularity of serverless computing for building event-driven and scalable applications, CI developers need to know serverless platforms, such as AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, or Google Cloud Functions.
Observability and Monitoring: CI developers need to have knowledge of observability and monitoring tools and techniques for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and applications in production environments. They should be able to collect, analyze, and visualize metrics, logs, and traces from CI/CD workflows, identify performance bottlenecks and failures, and set up alerts and notifications to detect and respond to issues proactively.

Why should you embrace Continuous Integration skills?

Streamlined Software Development: CI developers enable organizations to streamline software development workflows and accelerate the delivery of software updates by automating the process of building, testing, and deploying code changes. They help teams detect and resolve integration errors early in the development lifecycle, improve code quality, and deliver value to customers quickly and consistently, enabling organizations to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced and dynamic marketplace.
Quality Assurance and Code Stability: CI developers help ensure the quality and stability of software by implementing automated testing and validation processes in CI pipelines. They enable teams to identify defects and regressions early in the development cycle, enforce code quality standards and best practices, and maintain clean, consistent, and maintainable codebases, reducing technical debt and enhancing the overall quality of software.
Efficiency and Productivity: CI developers improve the efficiency and productivity of development teams by automating repetitive tasks and streamlining CI workflows. They enable teams to focus on building and delivering features, rather than on manual build, test, and deployment tasks, and empower them to iterate and innovate rapidly in response to changing requirements and market conditions, enabling organizations to achieve greater agility and responsiveness in software development.
Continuous Improvement and Innovation: CI developers foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation within organizations by embracing experimentation and learning, and by continuously optimizing and refining CI processes and practices.

Assess tech candidates for Continuous Integration skills

Looking for candidates skilled in CI skills? Technical assessments are a multi-pronged solution. They allow you to streamline the hiring process and reduce bias with tech skill-focused benchmarks.

Hired Assessments offers a library of hundreds of questions and customizable coding challenge campaigns tailored to technical preferences. Centralize and standardize your evaluation process as you surface top talent with specific, hard-to-find skills.

See how Mastercard and Axon used Hired Assessments to vet top candidates and other Customer Success Stories.

Are you interested in a new tech role using Continuous Integration skills?

Hired helps tech talent from around the world find new tech roles. Learn more about the (free) process for jobseekers and check out our career guidance resources. If you want to upskill, Hired partners with organizations providing bootcamps and other development opportunities.

Hired profiles help developers showcase their top tech skills

After passing Hired skills assessments, candidates have the chance to showcase their skills to employers. They can opt to present an ‘Assessments’ badge on their profile. Candidates may take various assessments including Programming Skills, Full Stack, Backend, Frontend, iOS, Android, Debugging, Dev Ops Generalist, and Dev Ops AWS.

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