What tools have you used for build and deployment automation, and what made you choose those tools?

In my previous role, I used Jenkins and GitLab CI for build and deployment automation. I chose Jenkins because it's widely recognized and has a strong community, offering lots of plugins, which made integrating with our other tools pretty easy. GitLab CI, on the other hand, was chosen because we had our repositories on GitLab, and it allowed for seamless CI/CD configurations right alongside our code. These tools helped streamline our deployment process, which was crucial in our fast-paced environment.

As a Release Engineer with a dedication to quality and efficiency, I've primarily used Jenkins and GitLab CI for build and deployment automation. My proficiency with these tools stemmed from their adaptability and robust communities. Jenkins, with its extensive plugin ecosystem, enabled us to integrate disparate systems seamlessly, complementing our Agile methodology by supporting a wide range of development, testing, and deployment tools. GitLab CI was an integral part of our workflow since it harnessed the power of our existing GitLab repositories to ensure that CI/CD activities were closely coupled with our source code management. In a cloud-based environment, these tools were instrumental in swiftly moving code from commit to production, bolstering our team's ability to manage multistage deployment pipelines and troubleshoot build issues in real-time.

In my tenure as a Release Engineer, I've harnessed the capabilities of Jenkins and GitLab CI to align with our robust release and deployment philosophies. My choice of Jenkins was deliberate due to its extensive plugin architecture, which I leveraged to streamline our build and test workflows, while ensuring our deployment strategies were scalable across AWS-hosted environments. This was critical in meeting the pace of our Agile iterations, facilitating collaborative efforts across development, QA, and operations teams. GitLab CI's integration with GitLab epitomized our DevOps approach, enabling us to maintain a single source of truth for our CI/CD pipeline definitions alongside our code repositories. My hands-on experiences also extended to customizing these tools with automation scripts using Python, ensuring that our build and deployment processes were not only effective but also compliant with industry best practices. Addressing bottlenecks and complex troubleshooting became second nature, which fostered a reliable release process that consistently met our high-quality benchmarks.