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A public repository showcasing ColoredCow’s DevOps vision, roadmap, case studies, engineering expectations, and the practical assignment used in our hiring process. This repo helps candidates and collaborators understand how we build, operate, and grow our DevOps vertical.

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ColoredCow DevOps Vertical

Welcome to the public repository for the DevOps Vertical at ColoredCow — an initiative we are building with intention, long-term vision, and an entrepreneurial spirit. This repository exists not only as a window into how we think about DevOps, but also as a working space for candidates, collaborators, and future team members who want to help shape what this vertical becomes.

ColoredCow is in an exciting phase: we are expanding our capabilities across engineering disciplines, and DevOps is one of the pillars we want to build with depth, maturity, and excellence. At the same time, we operate like a lean, mission-driven team — built on ownership, learning, and the willingness to create things from scratch. This means early team members play a foundational role in shaping the systems, culture, marketing assets, customer engagement, and engineering capabilities that will define our DevOps function for years to come.

This repository is where that journey begins.


🌱 Why DevOps at ColoredCow?

DevOps enables us to deliver software that is reliable, scalable, secure, predictable, and fast — qualities that strengthen every product we build and every client relationship we hold.

Our vision for the DevOps vertical is documented in
👉 VISION.md

In summary:

  • We want to build a function that simplifies software delivery across the organisation.
  • We want to establish strong practices in CI/CD, cloud infrastructure, automation, observability, and incident management.
  • We want to create reusable assets and internal platforms that accelerate engineering teams.
  • And we want to take this capability to the market — gradually building DevOps as a revenue-generating service.

This requires not just engineers, but builders — people who care about crafting systems, processes, best practices, and culture.


🔍 Why We’re Being Open About This

ColoredCow is a small, transparent company with a culture of:

  • clarity over polish
  • ownership over hierarchy
  • momentum over bureaucracy

We don’t pretend to have every system, team, or process perfectly established. We are building — thoughtfully, intentionally, and with long-term direction.

Because of that:

Early DevOps hires won’t just “do DevOps work.”

They will help establish the vertical, shape best practices, create reusable assets, build early marketing materials, support initial sales conversations, and set the foundation others will build upon later.

We believe the people who thrive with us are those who:

  • are problem-solvers, not task-takers
  • enjoy building systems, not just executing orders
  • communicate clearly and proactively
  • take initiative and think long-term
  • like working in environments that are still evolving

If this describes you, you’ll likely enjoy the work here.


🛠️ Our Current Roadmap

You can read the detailed roadmap here:
👉 ROADMAP.md

High-level themes include:

  • Establishing foundational practices and tooling
  • Creating internal reusable DevOps assets
  • Publishing public-facing materials (like this repository)
  • Running DevOps capability development projects
  • Building marketing and case-study content
  • Supporting sales until dedicated teams emerge
  • Moving toward delivery and service excellence

This roadmap reflects a ground-up, entrepreneurial way of working.


👥 What We Expect From Early DevOps Team Members

We are shaping a vertical, not just running it.

Early DevOps engineers will:

  • Build CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, infrastructure, dashboards, and IaC
  • Create reusable components instead of one-off scripts
  • Define standards, templates, and DevOps playbooks
  • Contribute to documentation, case studies, public assets
  • Support sales and marketing efforts in the initial phase
  • Help create systems, processes, and culture

Read the full expectations here:
👉 EXPECTATIONS.md


🧭 Philosophy & Culture

Our DevOps philosophy is built around:

  • Clarity → Simple, predictable systems
  • Automation → Eliminate repetition
  • Visibility → Logs, metrics, alerts
  • Collaboration → Break silos
  • Ownership → Build momentum
  • Continuous Improvement → Iterate and refine

Document coming soon:
👉 PHILOSOPHY.md


📂 Case Studies

We share case studies that highlight:

  • Real DevOps problems we solved
  • Our decision-making and reasoning
  • Impact created
  • How early DevOps engineers played foundational roles

👉 PUBLIC_CASE_STUDIES.md


🧪 DevOps Assignment for Candidates

Our evaluation is conversation-led, not examination-led.
We want to understand how you think, not how many tools you know.

Assignment file:
👉 ASSIGNMENT.md


📚 How Candidates and Contributors Should Use This Repository

If you’re going through our evaluation: This section guides you through exploring, contributing, and understanding our DevOps vertical.

1. Read the Vision and Roadmap

  • Check out VISION.md for our long-term goals and principles.
  • Review ROADMAP.md for a high-level plan of our DevOps vertical development.

2. Explore Case Studies

  • Review PUBLIC_CASE_STUDIES.md to understand our past work and the kind of impact we aim to create.
  • Notice how early DevOps team members not only execute but also help establish marketing, sales, and best practices.

3. Understand Our Philosophy

  • Read PHILOSOPHY.md to learn about our culture, T-shaped engineers, and entrepreneurial mindset.

4. Follow Contribution Guidelines

  • General contribution process (branching, pull requests, etc.) is detailed in CONTRIBUTING.md.
  • For DevOps-specific contributions, case studies, and assignments, follow GUIDELINES.md.
  • These ensure your work demonstrates ownership, clear communication, and alignment with our philosophy.

5. Assignments & Hands-On Work

  • Candidates can find their evaluation tasks in ASSIGNMENT.md.
  • Remember: our evaluation is conversation-led, not examination-led — we want to see how you think, not just which tools you know.

6. Use Issues to Share Your Thinking

  • Ask clarifying questions or discuss your approach using GitHub issues.
  • Transparency, clarity, and proactive communication are highly valued.

We care deeply about:

  • clarity
  • thought process
  • structured thinking
  • how you approach ambiguity

Not about dumping tools, buzzwords, or commands.


🧩 Contribution Guide

For candidates and contributors:

👉 CONTRIBUTING.md

This outlines:

  • File structure
  • Naming conventions
  • PR guidelines
  • How to submit assignments
  • How to propose improvements

Case Studies & DevOps Contributions

For all DevOps-related contributions, including case studies, assignment solutions, or example repositories, please follow the DevOps Contribution Guidelines.

This ensures submissions demonstrate:

  • Ownership and problem-solving
  • Clear, business-focused communication
  • Alignment with our DevOps philosophy and entrepreneurial approach

🗂 Public Project Board

We maintain a transparent project board called
DevOps Capability Development, showing:

  • What we’re building
  • What’s in progress
  • What’s planned next

👉 (You will add a link once the GitHub project is created.)


📝 Issue Templates

This repo includes templates for:

  • Assignment submissions
  • Questions
  • Improvements
  • Repository issues

These help standardise interactions and keep discussions meaningful.


🚀 Final Note

This is a living project — intentionally unfinished, evolving, and open.

If you are someone who enjoys:

  • building from scratch
  • shaping systems
  • solving problems
  • creating clarity
  • contributing beyond your job description

then you will enjoy working here.

Welcome — we’re building something meaningful.

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A public repository showcasing ColoredCow’s DevOps vision, roadmap, case studies, engineering expectations, and the practical assignment used in our hiring process. This repo helps candidates and collaborators understand how we build, operate, and grow our DevOps vertical.

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