Contract
A vetted engineer embedded in your team for a defined term.
Hire DevOps engineers
Conntal places senior DevOps engineers who have run production platforms, not just pipelines. Every candidate is screened by a practitioner at Ace8 or AceMQ on a real incident scenario before you see them. Available contract, contract-to-hire or direct placement, onshore, nearshore or offshore.
The screen · DevOps engineerConntal Vetting Standard
Scenario put to the candidate
A RabbitMQ quorum queue loses its leader during a rolling Kubernetes node upgrade. Publishers keep accepting writes, consumer lag climbs, and the on-call dashboard shows the cluster as healthy. Walk me through the first ten minutes.
The full rubric, including what separates a senior answer from a mid one, is directly below.
Screened by practitioners
Ace8 and AceMQ engineers, not recruiters
130+
enterprises served across 26+ countries
Contract, C2H or direct
onshore, nearshore or offshore
The screen
What we actually ask.
This is the rubric a practitioner uses when they assess a devops engineer. We publish it so you can judge our bar before you engage us — and so candidates know exactly what they are walking into.
The screen · DevOps engineerConntal Vetting Standard
Scenario put to the candidate
A RabbitMQ quorum queue loses its leader during a rolling Kubernetes node upgrade. Publishers keep accepting writes, consumer lag climbs, and the on-call dashboard shows the cluster as healthy. Walk me through the first ten minutes.
A senior answer contains
- Asks what the quorum size and the `cluster_partition_handling` setting are before touching anything.
- Separates the two failures: leadership re-election is expected, the healthy dashboard is the actual bug.
- Checks whether the pod disruption budget allowed more than one broker down at once.
- Knows that publisher confirms and consumer acks answer 'did we lose messages', and says so rather than guessing.
Where a mid answer stops
- Restarts the pod first and reasons afterwards.
- Treats consumer lag as the incident rather than a symptom of it.
- Cannot say what the cluster does when a quorum is lost versus merely reduced.
Titles this covers
One brief, several job titles.
These titles overlap heavily and are used inconsistently between companies. Tell us the outcome you need and we will tell you which title actually fits it.
- DevOps engineer
- DevSecOps engineer
- Platform engineer
- CI/CD engineer
- Build and release engineer
- Infrastructure engineer
- Cloud engineer
- Kubernetes engineer
What we screen on
Technologies, by category.
Candidates are screened against the stack you actually run, not a generic checklist. Messaging appears on every role because it is where our deepest bench sits.
Orchestration
KubernetesEKSAKSGKEOpenShiftHelmVMware Tanzu
Pipelines
GitLab CIGitHub ActionsJenkinsArgoCDAzure DevOps
Infrastructure as code
TerraformAnsiblePulumiCloudFormation
Messaging in production
RabbitMQApache KafkaConfluentIBM MQRedis
Observability
PrometheusGrafanaOpenTelemetrySplunkDatadog
Security
FIPS-compliant buildssecrets managementpolicy as codeSBOM
Engagement
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct.
Platform work usually starts with a defined piece of change and becomes ongoing ownership, which is why most devops engineers engagements begin on contract.
Contract-to-hire
Work together first, convert when it is obviously working.
Direct placement
A permanent hire, screened to the same standard.
Location
Global bench, nearshore first.
We staff globally. Nearshore is our default recommendation because it preserves same-working-day overlap while aligning cost with budget.
OnshoreHighest rate
NearshoreOur default recommendation
OffshoreLowest rate
Rate bands and procurement detail on the delivery models page.
How it works
Three steps, and the first one is not a recruiter.
- 01
A practitioner scopes the role
An engineer who runs this technology reads your brief and tells you what is missing from it. Most briefs we receive ask for the wrong seniority or the wrong title.
- 02
We screen, then shortlist
Sourcing is ours; the technical decision belongs to the vetting practitioner. You see candidates who have already passed the scenario published on this page.
- 03
Start, convert or replace
Contract, contract-to-hire or direct. If the fit is wrong we say so first and replace rather than defend the placement.
Who vets devops engineers
A named engineer owns this screen.
Messaging practice lead
Runs production RabbitMQ and Kafka estates for regulated enterprises, including quorum-queue migrations and Tanzu/Broadcom licensing transitions.
Name and headshot pending — see /how-we-vet
The full rubric, the funnel and every vetting practitioner are on the Conntal Vetting Standard page.
FAQ
DevOps engineers: what buyers ask
How fast can Conntal produce DevOps candidates?
We scope the role with a practitioner rather than a recruiter, usually within one business day of your brief. Shortlist timing depends on the stack and the location model; nearshore is typically fastest because the bench is deepest there.
Do you offer contract-to-hire for DevOps roles?
Yes. All three models are available: contract, contract-to-hire and direct placement. Contract and contract-to-hire are the most common for platform work, because the scope usually starts as a migration and becomes ongoing ownership.
What is the difference between a DevOps engineer and an SRE?
A DevOps engineer usually owns the delivery path: pipelines, infrastructure as code, environments and release. An SRE owns production reliability: error budgets, on-call, capacity and incident response. Many candidates can do both, but the screen is different and we run them separately.
Can you staff DevOps engineers nearshore?
Yes, and it is what we recommend first. Nearshore keeps same-working-day overlap while aligning cost with budget. Onshore and offshore are both available where residency, clearance or follow-the-sun coverage decides it.
Who actually screens the candidates?
A practitioner from Ace8 or AceMQ who runs these platforms in production for enterprise clients. Recruiters source; engineers decide. The screen is a real production scenario, not a quiz.
Do you vet for DevSecOps and compliance-heavy environments?
Yes. Ace8's DevSecOps practice covers policy as code, secrets management, SBOM and FIPS-compliant build chains, and candidates for regulated clients are screened against those requirements explicitly.
What does a DevOps engineer cost?
Rate depends on seniority and location model rather than a single number. Onshore, nearshore and offshore bands are set out on the delivery models page, and we quote against your actual scope.
Need devops engineers? Start with the brief.
Send the requirement and an engineer who runs this technology will tell you what is missing before we source anyone.