What Is CI/CD?

Continuous integration and continuous delivery or deployment (CI/CD) is a method of organizing a software development project's workflow and task management to regularly deliver minor updates to the central code. DevOps teams use CI/CD tools to automate testing, delivery, and deployment iterations. CI/CD is an important aspect of DevOps and helps teams create code with fewer errors in shorter amounts of time, saving time and money.

Explore what CI/CD is and the benefits of implementing a CI/CD pipeline in your software development projects. Then, delve into some career paths you might take that involve familiarity with this essential process.

What is CI/CD?

CI/CD is the standard way to refer to continuous integration and continuous deployment or delivery. Each of these phrases breaks down individually into a set of processes that help a DevOps team automate the testing, delivery, and deployment of software updates and code. 

• Continuous integration: CI uses version control and other software to allow multiple developers to work on code simultaneously. It copies small sections of code that developers can manipulate in an isolated setting and merges completed updates back into the main code repository. CI encourages team members to submit their code updates frequently, resulting in new code that continuously moves forward for testing. 

• Continuous delivery or deployment: Continuous delivery refers to the next phase of the process when the DevOps team packages code for testing environments and prepares for deployment. The main difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment is how automated the process is. Continuous delivery leaves room for human intervention, while continuous deployment focuses on a more advanced level of automation. 

Principles of CI/CD

Certain hallmarks of CI/CD are common across all projects using these frameworks, including using a single central code. In one central location, often called the repository, you can find all the source code, libraries, files, and other tools needed to create or manage new code. 

Additional CI/CD principles include the following:

• Integration of new code in small chunks: A small piece of code is easier to troubleshoot and roll back if anything goes awry. 

• Automated builds and testing: Testing is integral to CI/CD to ensure everything works as expected. Automation speeds up and simplifies iterating processes by removing time-intensive and tedious work from DevOps team members. 

• Short, repeated iterations: It is vital to deliver small amounts of code and create a timely workflow. To achieve that, you will need to repeat iterations frequently. 

• Low-risk and predictable deployments: Frequent and predictable deployments help build confidence in the DevOps team and limit potential problems. 

Read more: 11 DevOps Tools for 2024

CI/CD pipeline

The CI/CD pipeline is a way of structuring the workflow in CI/CD projects. This approach involves several stages in each iteration, including the source, build, test, and deployment stages. 

In the source stage, a change to the main repository signals that code is entering the CI/CD pipeline. User requests or regularly scheduled maintenance can also trigger the pipeline to start. 

The build stage refers to when developers create and compile the code. It also includes archiving code into an artifact repository, an essential element that allows you to return to previous builds if your current one experiences a problem. 

The next stage, testing, is automated in continuous integration workflows. This stage helps avoid easily preventable errors and spots for bugs early in the process. You might perform integration, unit, and regression tests in this stage. 

Lastly, the code is ready to be deployed in the deployment stages. It will go to the testing and staging environments and then to production.

Who uses CI/CD?

CI/CD is critical for DevOps teams. Depending on the size of your team, you may have more individuals performing multiple roles at once or professionals specializing in specific roles of DevOps. A few job titles in DevOps include: 

• DevOps engineer

• Build engineer

• Site reliability engineer

• Release manager

• Product manager

• Data analyst

Benefits of CI/CD

Continuous integration and continuous delivery add value to software development teams, including: 

• Fewer errors in code: By testing each update individually, development teams can spot problems faster and spend less time debugging. 

• End product designed with the user in mind: Each iteration allows you to gather feedback from the end user and client, enabling you to develop your project with their needs in mind. 

• More productive development team: Encouraging automation allows your team to spend more time building new code and less on testing, building, and deployment. 

• Shorter time to market: When your developers are more productive and spend more time building new code, you’ll be able to get your product to market faster and for less money. 

How to start with CI/CD

To gain experience with CI/CD, three entry-level jobs for you to consider are DevOps engineer, software engineer, or software developer. 

Entry-level DevOps engineer

Average salary: $84,882  [1]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2022 to 2032): 25 percent [2]

Education requirements: DevOps engineers usually have a bachelor’s degree, typically in computer science, electrical engineering, or computer engineering 

DevOps engineers work on a team that combines traditional departments of developers and operations into one central team. In this role, you will work with other professionals to manage code deployment, including building infrastructure to support code in various environments, testing for errors, and troubleshooting problems.

Entry-level software engineer

Average salary: $97,136 [3]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2022 to 2032): 25 percent [2]

Education requirements: Software engineers typically have a bachelor’s degree, commonly in computer science, electrical engineering, or computer engineering 

A software engineer creates and builds computer software with other professionals. In this role, you may be responsible for directly developing new products, processing data, debugging programs and looking for errors, working with databases, working to provide data security, and more.

Entry-level software developer

Average salary: $82,842 [4]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2022 to 2032): 25 percent [2]

Education requirements: Software developers often have a bachelor’s degree, typically in computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering 

A software developer creates, tests, and maintains software applications. In this role, you may be responsible for directly coding new programs, working with designers and other project stakeholders, looking for bugs, and correcting errors in code, among other tasks.

Read more: How to Become a Software Developer (With or Without a Degree)

Learn more on Coursera.

CI/CD, or continuous integration/continuous delivery and deployment, is a strategy for managing workflow for DevOps teams that can help you deliver faster, more accurate code tailored to your customer’s needs. If you are ready to begin a career in DevOps, take the next step and earn your IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate on Coursera. This beginner-level, 14-course series is designed to help you learn skills in CI/CD, DevOps, Cloud Computing, Agile, Scrum, automated testing, version control systems, and more.