Chef jobs in 2026 — demand, top roles hiring, and related skills

As of 2026-10-29, Chef appears in 832 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the past 90 days — DevOps Engineer has the most postings mentioning Chef, with demand share down 0.3% vs the prior 4 weeks.

Last updated · 90d ending 2026-10-29

Postings · last 90 days
832
Demand vs prior month
down 0.3% vs the prior 4 weeks
Top role · 19.1% of skill postings
Top hiring metro
Pune

Which roles want Chef?

Upload your resume and Skillenai will show which roles your Chef experience fits, which skills you already cover, and what is missing.

Frequently asked questions about Chef

+Is Chef in demand in 2026?

Yes. Chef appears in 832 job postings indexed by Skillenai over the 90 days ending 2026-10-29. DevOps Engineer accounts for the most postings mentioning Chef (19.1% of all postings mentioning Chef).

+What jobs require Chef?

According to the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-10-29, among roles with at least 20 postings, the highest shares mentioning Chef are Professional Services Engineer (29.1% of that role’s postings mention Chef), Professional Services Consultant (28.0% of that role’s postings mention Chef), Systems Development Engineer (15.0% of that role’s postings mention Chef).

+What skills are commonly paired with Chef?

Across job postings indexed by Skillenai (90 days ending 2026-10-29), Chef most often appears alongside Ansible, Terraform, Python, Puppet, Kubernetes.

+Where is Chef most in demand?

As of 2026-10-29, the metro areas posting the most jobs requiring Chef are Pune, Bengaluru, San Francisco, Dublin, New York City, according to the Skillenai jobs index.

+How can I keep up with new Chef content and jobs?

Skillenai indexes news, blog posts, and research papers mentioning Chef alongside the jobs index. You can subscribe to a daily email digest of new Chef content from your Skillenai account.

+Which skills come before and after Chef?

The skill-flow chart shows skills documented in adjacent positions across observed employer changes. An outgoing skill is documented in the following position but not the preceding one. These are ideas to explore, not proven prerequisites, acquisition dates, or levels of mastery. Each ribbon counts employer moves with that skill pair; one move can contribute several pairs.

Weekly indexed postings requiring Chef — last 90 days

Salary distribution

Box = 25th–75th percentile · tick = median · whisker = 10th–90th · USD, annualized

Career paths around Chef

Skills documented before and after this skill across employer changes.

Historical career profiles · all locations

Skills before Chef

Before ChefJenkins → Chef: 60 observed employer moves with this skill pairAWS → Chef: 36 observed employer moves with this skill pairAnsible → Chef: 30 observed employer moves with this skill pairdocker → Chef: 29 observed employer moves with this skill pairpython → Chef: 28 observed employer moves with this skill pairterraform → Chef: 26 observed employer moves with this skill pairkubernetes → Chef: 23 observed employer moves with this skill pairLinux → Chef: 22 observed employer moves with this skill pairChefJenkins: 60 movesJenkins60 movesAWS: 36 movesAWS36 movesAnsible: 30 movesAnsible30 movesdocker: 29 movesdocker29 movespython: 28 movespython28 movesterraform: 26 movesterraform26 moveskubernetes: 23 moveskubernetes23 movesLinux: 22 movesLinux22 moves

Skills after Chef

After ChefChef → Ansible: 35 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → kubernetes: 28 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → python: 28 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → terraform: 28 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → docker: 27 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → AWS: 26 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → RDS: 21 observed employer moves with this skill pairChef → ci/cd: 20 observed employer moves with this skill pairChefAnsible: 35 movesAnsible35 moveskubernetes: 28 moveskubernetes28 movespython: 28 movespython28 movesterraform: 28 movesterraform28 movesdocker: 27 movesdocker27 movesAWS: 26 movesAWS26 movesRDS: 21 movesRDS21 movesci/cd: 20 movesci/cd20 moves
How to read this chart · view counts

Each side is an independent set of observed employer moves, not the same people followed through three stages. Ribbon widths compare move counts within that side. Internal moves are not included.

The following position documents a skill that the preceding position does not. Skills must be linked to both positions, with clear dates and no overlap. One move can connect several skill pairs. These patterns suggest skills to explore; they do not establish prerequisites, when a skill was learned, or a higher skill level.

Source: Skillenai talent graph, historical career profiles. Historical descriptions and coverage can change. Only the leading published connections are shown.

Observed connections and move counts
ConnectionMoves
Before: Jenkins60
Before: AWS36
Before: Ansible30
Before: docker29
Before: python28
Before: terraform26
Before: kubernetes23
Before: Linux22
After: Ansible35
After: kubernetes28
After: python28
After: terraform28
After: docker27
After: AWS26
After: RDS21
After: ci/cd20

Roles most likely to require Chef

Among roles with at least 20 postings in the same period.

RolePostings mentioning skill% of role postings mentioning skill
Professional Services Engineer1629.1%
Professional Services Consultant728.0%
Systems Development Engineer315.0%
Linux Systems Engineer414.8%
DevOps Architect412.5%
CloudOps Engineer311.1%
System Engineer510.2%
Technical Support Engineer29.5%
Cloud Data Engineer48.2%
Infrastructure Automation Engineer28.0%

Roles with the most Chef postings

RolePostings mentioning skillShare of skill postings
DevOps Engineer15919.1%
Site Reliability Engineer12214.7%
Software Engineer9811.8%
Platform Engineer344.1%
Cloud Engineer232.8%
Systems Engineer222.6%
Professional Services Engineer161.9%
Infrastructure Engineer131.6%
Cloud Architect81.0%
Network Engineer81.0%

Top companies posting jobs requiring Chef

Employers ranked by indexed job postings in the last 90 days.

Top companies posting jobs requiring Chef
CompanyPostings · 90 days
Mastercard46
CrowdStrike33
Barclays19
Gitlab19
Devoteam15
Disney13
Anduril Industries13
Accenture Federal Services11
Workday9
Vinted9

Job postings indexed over the past 90 days, grouped by resolved employer. Counts are postings, not hires. Companies without a published page appear without a link.

Top metros hiring for Chef

NamePostingsShare
Pune394.7%
Bengaluru313.7%
San Francisco212.5%
Dublin202.4%
New York City141.7%
Chicago131.6%
Toronto111.3%
Herndon101.2%
Seattle101.2%

Skills commonly paired with Chef

Explore related pages

How this was computed

Weekly job-count charts omit the incomplete current week (weeks start Monday, UTC). Totals include all postings in the stated window. Counts derive from the Skillenai jobs index over the 90 days ending 2026-10-29. Skills are resolved against the Skillenai canonical taxonomy, so the same entity is counted whether a posting writes 'Python', 'Python 3', or 'python'. Role prevalence divides postings mentioning Chef by all postings for each role in the same window, ranking roles with at least 20 postings. Role distribution divides each role’s Chef postings by all Chef postings, including postings without a role. Shares need not sum to 100% for the displayed roles. Pages refresh weekly (or daily for the top-50 most-requested skills). Adjusted posting share: 0.3% to 0.3%. Demand share change is the relative percentage change between these adjusted shares. Each employer-and-ATS group has at least 10 postings in each 90-day window; its earlier posting count supplies the same weight in both windows. The panel includes 2,482 identified employers and covers 71% of earlier and 70% of latest indexed postings. Windows: 2026-06-30 to 2026-09-28 and 2026-07-28 to 2026-10-26 (UTC; end dates excluded). The windows overlap by 62 days. Dates reflect indexing, not the employer’s posting date. This measures posting mix, not total hiring or market-wide demand. Matching excludes entrants and exits; changes in crawl completeness within an employer or ATS can still affect the result.

source
Skillenai jobs index, deduplicated daily
entity_id
6a30f564e1a5fedd
data_as_of
2026-10-29
window_days
90
Compiled by Jared Rand · Data sourced from the Skillenai labor market index