DevOps is the unholy union of development and operations, two disciplines that have historically been at odds with each other. It's the latest buzzword that management types love to throw around, even though they don't really understand what it means.

How to use it in a sentence

"We need to implement DevOps practices to speed up our deployment process," said the CTO, knowing full well that it would just mean more work for the already overworked engineering team.

"I'm a DevOps engineer," she said proudly, as if that actually meant anything to the poor soul she was talking to at the company happy hour.

If you actually want to learn more...

• What is DevOps? - Amazon Web Services: A high-level overview of DevOps from everyone's favorite cloud overlord, Amazon. It covers the basics of what DevOps is and why it matters.

• DevOps Culture - Martin Fowler: A more in-depth look at the cultural aspects of DevOps, written by one of the OGs of software development. He dives into the importance of collaboration, shared responsibility, and automation.

• The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win: A novel that tells the story of a company's journey to DevOps nirvana. It's like a self-help book for your engineering organization, but with more references to Kanban boards and continuous integration.

Note: the Developer Dictionary is in Beta. Please direct feedback to skye@statsig.com.