DevOps Lead Qualification Questions

In this article we’re going to be diving into the world of selling DevOps solutions and what we see sellers across DevOps companies look for to identify great leads and opportunities to reach out to. First, let’s zoom in on the space:

What is DevOps?

DevOps represents the fusion of software development ("Dev") and IT operations ("Ops") - a set of practices, tools, and cultural philosophies that aim to unify and automate the software development lifecycle. At its core, DevOps is about breaking down silos between traditionally separate teams to deliver applications and services at high velocity.

The DevOps market continues to expand rapidly, expecting to hit $25.5bn revenue by 2028, with more organizations than ever seeking solutions that help them release software faster, improve reliability, and enhance security throughout the development process. This growth has created a competitive landscape where numerous vendors offer specialized tools addressing different aspects of the DevOps lifecycle - from AI model management, source control and build automation to deployment, monitoring, and security.

For sales professionals targeting DevOps teams, understanding a prospect's current maturity level, technical stack, and specific pain points is crucial for meaningful engagement. DevOps transformations are often strategic initiatives with multiple stakeholders across development, operations, and executive leadership, making the qualification process particularly nuanced.

DevOps ICP and buyer personas products

There are three main things to consider when defining who the ideal buyer is for DevOps products: The team size, the scale of their services, and their technical maturity. 

Smaller teams may not have a high need for a sophisticated DevOps tooling. Communication lines are shorter and there are likely fewer silos. The larger the company gets, the more people need to work together, the more silos are created, the bigger the need is DevOps tooling that streamlines a growing engineering department. For smaller teams looking to grow, it is often the CTO or VP of Engineering that is the main decision maker for DevOps tools.

Companies that offer high-volume products at a global scale often need to make sure they can deliver those high volumes. Even if they run a small team, if the amount of transactions is exceedingly large, it would be critical for them to have the proper monitoring and deployment infrastructure in place. The more usage these companies get, the bigger the need for DevOps tooling.

Technical maturity could mean different things and will vary from industry to industry. Companies that are recently venturing into digital products, or companies that have for the longest time not modernised their stack, may be considered as companies with a low technical maturity. High tech companies are digitally native, often use one or more cloud providers, and are very familiar with the DevOps market. These are sophisticated buyers that have likely bought DevOps tools before.

DevOps Lead Qualification Questions

So what makes for a great DevOps lead and what are signals we can look for to identify them and craft messaging that is relevant, personalised and timed right? Here are some of the top examples we’ve come across:

Do they have a dedicated DevOps team and how big is their team?

Companies with a dedicated DevOps team are likely to have a dedicated budget for DevOps tools and a dedicated buyer or decision maker. Having a dedicated team shows they have already made investments into DevOps, and the size of the team can be used to determine how significant of a priority it is for them. The answer to this question can be found on LinkedIn, Job sites and their own company website.

Example of a preferred answer:

Yes, they have a dedicated DevOps team consisting of 5 people. John is the Head of DevOps and has been with the company for 1 year.

Example of a non-preferred answer:

No, they do not have a dedicated DevOps team and they do not have any open job roles as far as we can find to indicate they plan on hiring for this team.

Have they had any recent outages or downtime?

Companies that struggle with high availability are likely to be interested in DevOps products that increase their ability to roll out and monitor high performance software products. This could lead to a relevant messaging suggesting that the product you’re selling could have helped or even prevented certain incidents, resulting in a better customer experience for the prospect. The answer can be found on their status page or on review sites like Trustpilot or G2.

Example of a preferred answer:

Yes, users have mentioned experiencing downtime while not was mentioned on their status page

Is their product usage or popularity growing?

Companies that are growing, mainly in web traffic or product usage, are likely to run into inevitable challenges that come with scale. This means there might be interest in discussing if their current DevOps stack gives them the visibility and speed they require to handle that scale. The answer can be found by looking at their web traffic growth, search growth and review sites like Trustpilot or G2.

Example of a preferred answer:

Yes, since releasing their latest product, they’ve seen a significant increase in web traffic, suggesting they need to handle an exponentially growing volume of transactions

Is there someone in their engineering team that has used my product before?

Finding people in the company that have previously used your product at a previous company, or even better, have bought it before, gives an existing relationship to build on. Tracking these Champions has the potential to accelerate the chance of getting that first introduction or meeting, and speeding up decision making altogether. The answer to this question is found on LinkedIn and combined with your own CRM data.

Example of a preferred answer:

Yes, Jane used to work for ACME which is an existing customer of yours

Which cloud hosting providers do they use?

DevOps products are often already present in the marketplaces of big cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud Platform and Microsoft Azure. This not only makes it easier for the prospect to integrate these tools, but it also indicates the technical maturity of an organisation. The answer to this question is found in job descriptions, case studies and on their own website.

Example of a preferred answer:

They have a multi-cloud approach and are currently using both AWS and Google Cloud Platform.

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