Hiring a DevOps Engineer vs Using a DevOps Partner

What Actually Makes Sense for Growing Teams

As teams grow, cloud infrastructure stops being “something that just works” and starts becoming a real bottleneck. Deployments slow down. Costs creep up. Reliability questions start showing up in sprint reviews.

At this point, most teams ask the same question:
Should we hire a DevOps engineer, or work with a DevOps partner?

The answer depends less on company size and more on where your infrastructure maturity actually is.

The Case for Hiring a DevOps Engineer

Hiring an in-house DevOps engineer can make sense when:

• Infrastructure is already critical to daily operations

• You run complex systems (multiple services, heavy traffic, compliance needs)

• You know exactly what the role should own

• You can support and onboard the role properly

But there’s a catch many teams underestimate.

The hidden cost of hiring

Hiring DevOps is rarely “one hire and done”.

In reality, teams face:

• 3–6 months to hire the right profile

• High salary expectations

• Knowledge silo risk (one person owning everything)

• Pressure on that person to both design and fix existing mistakes

Most first DevOps hires inherit infrastructure decisions they didn’t make — and spend months untangling them before adding real value.

The Case for a DevOps Partner

A DevOps partner like Cloudwise works best when:

• AWS is already in use but not standardized

• Backend engineers are handling infrastructure “on the side”

• You need improvements now, not after a long hiring cycle

• Reliability, security, or cost issues are starting to hurt

Instead of waiting for one person to ramp up, you get:

• Immediate access to experienced AWS engineers

• Proven patterns instead of experimental setups

• Coverage across availability, security, cost, and automation

• A team that can both fix and improve in parallel

The Hybrid Approach Most Teams End Up With

What we see most often:

1. Teams use a DevOps partner to stabilize and standardize AWS

2. Infrastructure debt is reduced

3. Hiring becomes easier because the role is clearly defined

4. The internal DevOps hire starts from a clean baseline

This approach avoids burning months on firefighting and sets up long-term ownership properly.

The Real Question to Ask

Instead of “Should we hire or outsource?”, ask:

• Do we know what “good AWS” looks like for us?

• Are we fixing infra problems or creating new ones?

• Can we afford to wait months before things improve?

If the answer to the last question is no, a DevOps partner is usually the fastest and safest move

Cloudwise helps teams build production-ready AWS setups without waiting for the perfect hire.
If you’re hiring for DevOps, or thinking about it, it’s often the clearest signal that external support makes sense first.