Technology

How to become a DevOps Engineer

Starting from developer or sysadmin. Here is the whole route — what each step is, roughly how long it takes, and the credential it earns you.

Time to get there

3–5 years

Typical pay

$110k–$150k

Starting from

Developer or sysadmin

The steps

1. 1

   Come from development or systems

   Both routes are normal; nobody starts here.

   2–3 years

2. 2

   Learn CI/CD and containers

   Pipelines, Docker, then Kubernetes when the pipelines make sense.

   6–12 months

3. 3

   Get fluent in Terraform

   Infrastructure as code is the core discipline of the role.

   Course that covers thisTerraform for the Absolute Beginners with LabsUdemy · around $19.99 →
4. 4

   Own production

   Monitoring, alerting and being on the pager. That is the job.

   1–2 years

   Course that covers thisAWS Certified Solutions Architect Associate Practice ExamsUdemy · around $19.99 →

Course links are Udemy affiliate links — we earn a commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you. Licences and exams named above are issued by state boards and certifying bodies we have no relationship with; we list them because they are what the job actually requires.