How to Become a DevOps Engineer (2026 Guide)

DevOps EngineerUpdated December 2025

DevOps engineers bridge development and operations, automating infrastructure and ensuring reliable deployments. Demand is high and salaries are competitive ($120-180k). The role suits people who enjoy both coding and systems work. Here's how to break in.

Key Facts

Most DevOps roles require some coding - Python and Go are most common
AWS certification significantly improves job prospects
On-call responsibilities are common - be prepared for incident response
Remote-friendly field with high demand for skilled engineers
Clear progression path to Staff/Principal level at $200k+

The DevOps Learning Path

1. Linux Fundamentals (1-2 months)
You'll live in the terminal. Master bash scripting, process management, file systems, networking. Get comfortable with servers.

2. Networking (1 month)
TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, load balancers, firewalls. Understand how the internet actually works. This knowledge underpins everything.

3. Version Control (2 weeks)
Git is essential. Understand branching strategies, merge conflicts, CI/CD triggers. Every team uses Git differently.

4. Containers & Orchestration (2-3 months)
Docker is table stakes. Kubernetes is where the jobs are. Understand pods, services, deployments, helm charts.

5. Cloud Platforms (2-3 months)
Pick one: AWS, GCP, or Azure. AWS has the most jobs. Learn compute, networking, storage, IAM. Get certified.

6. Infrastructure as Code (1-2 months)
Terraform is industry standard. Learn to define infrastructure declaratively. Understand state management, modules, best practices.

7. CI/CD (1 month)
GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Jenkins. Build automated pipelines for testing, building, and deploying applications.

Career Advice

The best way to learn DevOps is to build and deploy real applications. Create a personal project and deploy it with a full CI/CD pipeline, monitoring, and infrastructure as code. Document everything in a public repo - this becomes your portfolio.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between DevOps and SRE?

DevOps focuses on automation and tooling to speed up deployments. SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) focuses on system reliability, monitoring, and incident response. There's significant overlap, and titles are often used interchangeably.

Which cloud should I learn first?

AWS has the most jobs (60%+ of the market). Learn AWS first, then concepts transfer easily to GCP/Azure. An AWS Solutions Architect certification is valuable for getting interviews.