

Ask HN: How do I stop getting assigned CI/CD/ops work? - atarian

Hi HN, my last job started off being a front-end developer for a large company. Eventually they had me do server-side work. And then CI&#x2F;CD and operations. I really did not enjoy doing the CI&#x2F;CD&#x2F;ops work so I complained that I wanted to do more development. Management didn&#x27;t listen so I quit my job and joined as a front-end developer for a different company.<p>Several months later, I&#x27;m doing ops work and there&#x27;s talk of assigning CI&#x2F;CD work to me. I&#x27;m pretty frustrated by this.<p>This time I&#x27;m planning to make it clear to management that if I continue to be assigned this kind of work, that I&#x27;m going to leave. Do you have any advice on how I should proceed?
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xpto123
Just leave again, and in the next interview ask what will the responsibilities
are, and if they include CI etc. The most important is to try to learn from
previous mistakes and take it from there.

In an early portion of a career, moving often to gain experience is a good
idea anyway.

In many companies these CI roles are handled by a different team, so apply for
a bigger company. The bigger the company the more separated the roles are, and
so the less likelly is to get assigned extra roles.

Also Remove CI from your CV, you would be doing yourself and recruiters/
hiring managers a favor by removing what you dont want to do anymore from your
CV. This is perfectly OK as long as you didn't spend the last 3 years doing CI
exclusively or something.

Almost all real world jobs are a combination of different responsibilities,
and not only what the role title indicates.

In general focus your CV mostly around what you want to do, not what you where
forced to do and didn't like, and don't want to do in anymore.

Send a CV with 2 years of CI experience on the frontpage? Get jobs that
require CI experience. Don't mention CI in the CV front page and mention it
briefly in the job detail section, the CV is still true but you don't get CI
requests anymore.

The CV is a way to find you a job, not a weapon to self-sabotage your career.
Focus the CV in what you want to do while still remain truthful and you will
be OK.

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christopherslee
On the bright side, I think that a good CI/CD process is really important, and
not a lot of devs have a good understanding of that part of the product. They
just write code and "throw it over the wall." I find that having working
devops knowledge is an important aspect of understanding a complete product
architecture.

On the other hand, is it possible you're doing something wrong on the front
end that they are trying to get you out of that area? Maybe they find you are
a valuable contributor, just not where you want to be?

I think you should just have a candid discussion with your manager. If they
can't accommodate you, it's a pretty good job market out there. Maybe you've
just had some bad luck.

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Ronsenshi
Check your contract and section about your responsibilities. If CI/CD is not
there, then you can try and explain to your supervisor that not only you do
not enjoy that type of work, but it does not fall under your responsibilities.

If it does fall under your responsibilities, then you can either hope that
supervisor is reasonable and can accommodate developer's wishes on type of
work or, as last resort, explain that you'd have to quit because that is not
something you enjoy doing.

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LarryMade2
Ask them why you are being pushed toward CI/CD/ops... maybe they see you as a
strong resource in those categories.

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JoachimSchipper
Have you considered automating/outsourcing yourself out of a job? Properly set
up Jenkins once, then convince the boss to move new development to Heroku?

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mattbillenstein
Just say no - seriously.

