Álvaro
Data Scientist
“In a climate this uncertain, Shakers gives you a layer of reassurance and confidence. What I like most, without a doubt, is the flexibility and getting to work on top-tier projects.”
Join ShakersShakers for expert talent
Work as a DevOps Engineer on live pipelines
Projects where the automation is yours: which pipeline ships, what gets reproduced as code and what gets watched. Shakers connects you with teams that deploy by hand and want to stop.
The role reads in two places: the manual explaining DevOps philosophy and the job ad asking for five years in eight tools. Neither tells you how to start automating a real team's infrastructure project by project, engagement by engagement. Here goes that.
- Higher-paying projects
- More continuity between projects
- Greater recognition for your experience
+3,000
Tech projects published on Shakers
+90
Tech, Product and Data specialisms are part of Shakers
6 months
Average length of a project with Shakers
4.7/5
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Amelia
AI Agent Developer
“I have been building AI agents for years. Thanks to Shakers I stopped chasing clients and started genuinely choosing which projects I wanted to work on. I work with some of the best companies in Europe, at my own rate, and I focus on what I am good at and what I love: building.”
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Luz
Backend Developer & Data Engineer
“Shakers adds a lot of value because it connects you with sharper projects, already filtered and better defined. It saves you a big part of the upfront work of understanding the client, quoting and weighing up whether it is worth it, and that means that as a contractor you can go far more directly to the opportunities that genuinely fit you.”
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Rubén
Software Developer
“Life as a contractor has a lot going on and it is not always easy. We like to focus on what we are good at, but you also have to manage clients, invoicing and go looking for work. For me, Shakers has been key because it does that prospecting for me, it gives the client confidence from the very first moment, and it lets us be part of a community with real enthusiasm.”
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Alejandro
AI Developer
“Shakers was key to getting my company off the ground: it gave me the flexibility to keep contracting while I built my next chapter. Without Shakers, I would have had to raise funding or push the project back.”
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Toño
Product Designer
“With Shakers I have landed recurring projects that give me peace of mind and room to grow professionally. It is not just about reaching quality clients: it is feeling that you have a network behind you, one that connects you with real opportunities and helps you move forward as a freelancer.”
Join ShakersWhat a DevOps Engineer decides each week
A DevOps Engineer automates the software lifecycle: they build the CI/CD pipelines that take every release to production, reproduce infrastructure as code (IaC), run containers with Docker and Kubernetes and configure the observability that catches the failure before the user does. The three clouds (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) are their environments, not their identity.
You decide how each service deploys and with what review, which infrastructure gets reproduced as code and in which window, what gets watched and at what threshold. You also decide what the pipeline refuses: a release without rollback does not go in. The environment belongs to the team; the automation that keeps it alive is yours.
CI/CDDockerKubernetesTerraformIaCAWSAzureGoogle Cloudobservabilityautomationpipelinescontinuous deployment
CI/CD pipelinesInfrastructure as codeContainersObservabilityAutomationContinuous deployment
Free to join, no hidden fees
How Shakers works for talent
Create your profile
Tell us who you are, what you can do, the projects you want to work on and what your availability and rate are.
Get your certification
We certify your experience and your use of AI so companies understand and trust what you bring.
Match with projects
We connect you with well-paid projects that fit your expertise and your preferences.
DevOps and Cloud projects that live up to your expectations
Work on real projects, with teams that need your expertise, without wasting time looking for opportunities.
Projects that fit you
Work with companies that need your stack and experience to take their projects to production.
Opportunities that come to you
Our AI matching connects your profile with the projects that fit your preferences.
You build. Shakers handles the rest
Set your own terms based on your seniority. We manage contracts, payments and paperwork.
What a DevOps Engineer delivers on a Shakers project
The brief arrives with the problem
Shakers is hiring infrastructure: the project arrives with the deployment that hurts and its environments, not with a list of technologies.
A pipeline you can audit
You deliver the pipeline, the infrastructure as code and the why behind every threshold, including the automation you ruled out and why.
What happens when a deploy fails
You set the rollback, what gets alerted and at what threshold, and who answers while the environment recovers.
Sustained pipelines, not mockups
Having automated real deployments and being able to tell the story of an outage: what failed, what you did and what changed so it never repeated.
Kubernetes or not
Choosing orchestration by the real size of the problem, not by fashion. Sometimes the honest answer is plain Docker, and defending it.
Where your brief ends
You automate the cycle; you do not rewrite the application or run every engine. If the project needs platform design, you say so at kickoff.
Frequently asked questions
Any other questions? Write to us and we will reply.
What is the difference between a DevOps Engineer and a Cloud Architect?
The DevOps Engineer automates the software cycle: pipelines, infrastructure as code, containers. The Cloud Architect designs the cloud platform. One executes; the other decides the platform.
What should you learn to work as a DevOps Engineer?
CI/CD first: it is the most requested practice, ahead of any specific cloud. Docker and Terraform after that. What the certification measures is real pipelines, not certificates.
Which tools do you use day to day?
CI/CD pipelines, Docker and Terraform daily; Kubernetes when scale justifies it. The cloud is the client's environment: AWS, Azure or Google Cloud depending on where the stack already runs.
How much does a freelance DevOps Engineer make?
You invoice per project and the scope sets the budget: which pipelines, which infrastructure and whether there is on-call duty. At Shakers you agree the budget before accepting the brief.
Is DevOps work done remotely?
Almost all of it: the infrastructure lives in the cloud and team sessions run remote. Only the occasional physical deployment asks for on-site presence.
How do you join Shakers as a DevOps Engineer?
You create your profile, pass the certification process and enter the collective: only 4 percent make it. Then you choose which automation projects you take on.
The day to day of the trade
The Friday deployment nobody wants, the environment that only works on one machine, the 3 a.m. alert. Less manual work and more pipelines that sustain themselves.
The market embeds the trade
1,900 live UK tech vacancies mention devops engineer, according to Shakers' market analysis (n=39,811, September 2026), inside backend and platform titles. Whoever already automates finds projects in the collective.
From tutorial to engagement
The frequent door is the backend engineer tired of deploying by hand. Another comes from sysadmin: whoever already holds servers has half the trade, the pipeline is what's missing.
What this role is not
Not the sysadmin who installs machines or cloud in general. If the problem is platform design, the role is Cloud Architect; if it's a specific database engine, its specialist.
Roles that cross paths with a DevOps project
Four roles from the collective cross your path on an automation project, from the cloud specialist to the one who writes what you deploy.
AWS DevOps Engineer
The Amazon specialist: when the project lives entirely in AWS, that is the profile that joins the brief.
Cloud Architect
Designs the platform your pipelines execute: multicloud architecture and cost before automating anything.
Backend Developer
Their services are what your pipelines deploy: when the API will not start in production, the diagnosis is shared.
Python Developer
The scripts that close the gap when the standard tool falls short: from raw file to an automated step.
The boundaries between these roles are agreed on each project: the title does not set them.
Take the next step with Shakers
Want projects where you truly automate?
Pass the Shakers certification and choose which automation projects you take on.
