“If I had to start my DevOps career over today, here’s the roadmap I’d follow…”
Breaking into DevOps can feel overwhelming — there’s cloud, automation, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, containers, monitoring… the list goes on. The truth is, you don’t need to master everything at once. A successful DevOps career is built in layers — and each stage prepares you for the next.
In this post, I’ll outline the path from Junior to Senior DevOps engineer, with practical skill milestones at each step.
Stage 1: Junior DevOps Engineer — Build Strong Foundations
Timeframe: ~0–2 years experience Goal: Understand the basics of infrastructure, automation, and collaborative development.
Skills to Focus On:
- Linux fundamentals — file system, permissions, package management
- Basic scripting — Bash, Python for simple automation tasks
- Version control — Git basics, branching, pull requests
- Cloud basics — AWS, Azure, or GCP; understand core services (compute, storage, networking)
- Containers 101 — Docker basics: build, run, and push images
- CI/CD basics — simple pipelines with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins
Pro tip: Early on, focus on doing small tasks well and consistently — reliability matters more than speed.
Stage 2: Mid-Level DevOps Engineer — Master Automation & Scale
Timeframe: ~2–5 years experience Goal: Own end-to-end delivery pipelines and infrastructure automation.
Skills to Focus On:
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC) — Terraform, Ansible, or CloudFormation
- Advanced CI/CD — multi-stage pipelines, automated testing, deployments
- Kubernetes — deploy workloads, manage clusters, understand networking and storage in K8s
- Monitoring & observability — Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, or OpenTelemetry
- Security basics — least privilege access, secrets management, vulnerability scanning
If you already have skills and are not an IT newbie, then focus on expanding those skills with a DevOps mindset first to help build confidence. If you know all about Cloudflare and DNS, start with the Terraform provider for Cloudflare. Once you learn one piece it is dramatically easier to learn the add-ons. I’ll talk about my journey but it probably won’t look like yours. If you struggle with Git, try Terraform first. Start with something you are interested in and learn; the rest will come.
Mindset shift: Move from just building things to building things that scale and can be maintained by the team.
Stage 3: Senior DevOps Engineer — Architect & Lead
Timeframe: ~5+ years experience Goal: Design systems, mentor others, and influence technical direction.
Skills to Focus On:
- Architecture design — design resilient, secure, and cost-effective systems
- Cross-cloud and hybrid strategies — avoid vendor lock-in
- Performance tuning — optimize infrastructure for speed and cost
- Team leadership — mentoring, reviewing designs, guiding adoption of best practices
- Business alignment — understand the why behind technical decisions
Your role at this stage: You’re no longer just writing code — you’re shaping systems, processes, and culture.
The Continuous Learning Loop
DevOps isn’t a static role. New tools, practices, and challenges appear constantly. Build a habit of:
- Reading release notes for tools you use
- Following DevOps thought leaders
- Contributing to open source
- Sharing what you learn (blog posts, talks, internal demos)
- Learning how to use tools to help you understand and improve your craft. Remember, when AI is wrong you need to understand the code that AI is providing. We don’t ask a saw to build a house—a master carpenter uses that saw to craft a home.
- Reading the manual
My Advice If You’re Starting Today
- Pick one cloud provider and learn it deeply before branching out.
- Learn Terraform early — it’s the common language for infrastructure now.
- Don’t avoid Kubernetes — even if it feels complex, it’s worth understanding.
- Practice CI/CD by automating your personal projects.
- Document everything — clarity is a skill that will set you apart. I can’t express this enough. Learn how to comment your code. Use a note system like MS OneNote so you can go back and see what you learned before.
- To use a cliché: the hardest part of a journey is the first step.
Git up, pick a direction and head that way. Don’t be afraid of mistakes — that’s part of the journey in growth.
Next Steps: In upcoming posts, I’ll break down each stage into detailed skill maps and hands-on projects you can use to advance your DevOps career without wasting time on the wrong things.
Have a question about your DevOps journey? Drop me a message — I might turn it into a post.