The 2025 DevOps Roadmap: How To Become A DevOps Engineer In 8 Steps Valewood DevOps Consulting

Although you’ll be working with cybersecurity experts during your DevOps projects, it’s also worth learning the core elements of cybersecurity for yourself. AWS is one of the leading cloud providers and has a comprehensive suite of infrastructure and platform services that allow you to build, deploy, and manage applications and services at scale. DevOps Engineers help manage and communicate between teams, and then build systems to ensure everything works as it should, now and in the future.

This often involves configuring cloud environments, implementing security best practices, optimizing deployment pipelines, and setting up observability tools to monitor performance. DevOps is not a specific job title or role, but rather a set of principles and practices that can be applied across a variety of roles in software development and IT operations. Most DevOps positions will require a bachelor’s degree in computer science, software design, software engineering, computer programming or related IT field. A master’s degree is usually preferred, if not required, for some positions. DevOps is a subfield in the IT industry that acts as an intersection between software development (Dev) and production environment operations (Ops).

Apart from this, there are several skills that a DevOps Engineer should master to be successful, such as programming skills, cloud computing,  system administration, security practices, and monitoring. DevOps Engineer in 2025 is a trending and rapidly growing position. A DevOps engineer highly focuses on collaboration, automation, cloud infrastructure, scripting languages, and using tools like Kubernetes. Organizations worldwide are adopting DevOps practices to streamline software development and IT operations. This course provides comprehensive training in DevOps methodologies, emphasizing automation, continuous integration, and deployment.

This helps to enable efficient communication among teams as well as enabling steady improvement of software development processes. To become a DevOps Engineer, you need to have a combination of technical and soft skills. Technical skills include knowledge of programming languages, automation tools, containerization, cloud platforms, CI/CD pipelines, configuration management tools, and monitoring and logging tools. Learning how to automate activities, such as the management of servers or the deployment of software products, is an essential skill for DevOps engineers.

• DevOps engineers apply tools and methodologies to optimize production and reduce the complexity of specific tasks.
• I have seen teams babysitting pipeline jobs for the infra/app build and release process.
• By learning to use these tools, you can increase your output and perform repeatable tasks in minutes vs hours or days.
• Simultaneously, there has been a remarkable 50% increase in the mention of DevOps as a skill on LinkedIn.
• DevOps engineers can start with an entry-level system administrator, support, or help desk role to gain experience with software maintenance.

EDUCATION & BEST DEGREES

Before DevOps became a common practice, software development and operations were two distinct processes. Developers would write code and pass it to the operations team who would then deploy it in the production environment. Whether it be the task of source code management or configuration & deployment or any other, all are required to be automated.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities of DevOps Engineers

Furthermore, once you purchase the hardware, you need more time and resources to manage the new hardware. Depending upon the complexity of the application, choosing the cloud instead of on-premise hardware can significantly reduce deployment time and cost. Shift-left practices include implementing automated testing, code reviews, and security checks early on to catch and fix issues before they become more costly to address. In short, coding is a big part of a DevOps Engineer’s toolkit, but the focus is on automation, efficiency, and system reliability rather than pure application development. Gain experience by working on DevOps projects, develop a DevOps mindset, get certified, and apply for DevOps Engineer positions by highlighting your DevOps skills and experience in your resume.

Is DevOps a good career?

Leverage existing network connections and inquire about transitioning into DevOps positions. Their skill set extends to a deep comprehension of prevalent system architectures, provisioning, and administration. Additionally, they are well-versed in developer toolsets and practices, including employing source control, conducting code reviews, crafting unit tests, and embracing agile principles. Spacelift is a CI/CD platform for infrastructure-as-code that supports tools like Terraform, Pulumi, Kubernetes, and more.

To become a DevOps Engineer, you need to have technical skills in areas such as development, automation, containerization, cloud, CI/CD pipelines etc. While being an expert on all of them is hardly ever possible, what ends up happening is that different DevOps engineers specialize in different aspects of the DevOps culture. Ultimately, a DevOps Engineer helps organizations build and maintain scalable, resilient systems while reducing manual processes and helping minimize downtime.

DevOps Engineer Roles and Responsibilities

• In today’s AI-driven landscape, a DevOps engineer plays a crucial role in managing AI/ML model deployments.
• To become a DevOps engineer, you will need a strong foundation in programming and scripting languages such as Java, Ruby, PERL, and Python.
• DevOps engineers usually need a bachelor’s degree, certifications, and hands-on experience.
• DevOps engineer salaries can vary depending on the state where the engineer works.

Understanding operating systems will help you to optimize your applications, manage infrastructure, and troubleshoot deployment pipelines effectively. As organizations are clearly moving towards adopting DevOps practices to enhance collaboration, automation, and cloud management, it is no longer an unknown position. Learning at least one scripting language like Bash, Ruby, or Python contributes directly to the core of the DevOps journey. On the other hand, one should also have experience in systems like Linux, automation, and cloud platforms in order to handle the given tasks smoothly. DevOps is highly suited to a more agile and faster development process with frequent releases than traditional software development. By acquiring relevant certifications and continuously improving your problem-solving abilities, you’ll be well-equipped to succeed in this dynamic field.

Step Three: Build Experience

A DevOps engineer interview involves a blend of technical and behavioral questions. Technical interviews usually include questions about the candidate’s experience with DevOps tools like Docker, Kubernetes, and Ansible, as well as questions about how to be a devops engineer system design and scripting. The demand for DevOps professionals in the current IT marketplace has increased exponentially over the years.

You’ll often require more powerful scripting using the likes of Python, Perl, or Ruby. Most companies hiring for DevOps engineers will require that candidates have at least a bachelor’s degree in computer programming, software engineering, software development or a related field. While a master’s degree isn’t usually required, it may be preferred for some positions and can be necessary to qualify for higher-paying leadership positions.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job outlook for software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers is projected to grow 25% from 2022 to 2032. Zippia shows that DevOps engineers enjoy steady employment, with a low average unemployment rate that has remained under 2.67% since 2012. Also, working actively on DevOps projects will enhance your skillsets. Even if you don’t get an opportunity in your organization, you can make use of free cloud credits to do POCs in real-world scenarios. Also, the tools and processes involved in DevOps are not limited to what is mentioned in this article. However, these are commonly used open-source tools and technologies you can start with to become a DevOps engineer.

Linux Learning Resources

Learning networking fundamentals becomes vital to the DevOps team when working with software components constantly communicating with other services. Knowledge of networks comes in handy when setting up resources in the public cloud. At a minimum, you should clearly understand standard protocols(TCP/IP, UDP), routing, IP addressing, subnetting, and ports. To demonstrate your understanding of Python, you can create a web scraper (or other coding projects) that extracts a list of hotels, their address, prices, reviews, and locations from a site like booking.com. This section presents a concise version of the DevOps engineering roadmap.

Some positions may also require knowledge of specific tools, programming languages or certifications. The certification focuses on Azure-based DevOps practices, including automation, CI/CD implementation, and security management. It is ideal for engineers working with AI-driven applications in Microsoft’s cloud ecosystem. By leveraging machine learning models, DevOps engineers enhance proactive troubleshooting and performance tuning. Their ability to analyze large volumes of data in real-time ensures seamless operations and minimizes downtime in AI-driven applications.