Roadmap

DevOps Engineer

From shell prompt to production on-call: the complete path to a job-ready DevOps Engineer.

17stages157topics~195hours

Curated from the best, MDN · Kubernetes · AWS · OWASP · Google SRE & more

One of the highest-demand engineering roles globally. Senior DevOps / Platform Engineers at companies like Cloudflare, Stripe, and Datadog command £90K–£160K+. The DORA research shows elite DevOps teams deploy 973× more frequently than low performers, organisations pay significantly for engineers who can build that capability.

The complete path, 13 of 157 topics have lessons here; the other 144 are marked learn anywhere. We won't pretend we cover everything.

Ready to build? See capstone projects

Stage 1 / 17 · 8 topics · 0 lessons

Computing & OS Fundamentals

The bedrock every DevOps engineer is assumed to already know: how computers, operating systems, and processes actually work.

How Computers WorkCPU, memory, storage, and the fetch-decode-execute cycle at a high level. Wikipedia

Operating System ConceptsKernel vs userspace, system calls, and the role of the OS as resource manager. OSTEP (free book)

Processes & ThreadsProcess lifecycle, PIDs, threads, context switching, and scheduling. OSTEP (free book)

Memory ManagementVirtual memory, paging, swap, and the OOM killer. OSTEP (free book)

Filesystems & StorageInodes, mounts, block vs file vs object storage, ext4/xfs basics. Wikipedia

I/O & InterruptsrecBlocking vs non-blocking I/O, buffering, and disk vs network latency. OSTEP (free book)

Binary, Hex & Character EncodingoptionalNumber bases, ASCII/UTF-8, and why encoding bugs happen. MDN

Compiled vs InterpretedrecHow source becomes a running program; build artifacts and runtimes. Wikipedia

Stage 2 / 17 · 12 topics · 0 lessons

Linux & Command Line Mastery

Linux is the operating system of the cloud. Deep command-line fluency is non-negotiable for the role.

Shell Navigation & Filesystemcd, ls, find, the FHS layout, absolute vs relative paths. GNU Bash manual

File Manipulation & Text Toolscat, grep, sed, awk, cut, sort, uniq, tr, and pipelines. GNU sed manual

Permissions & Ownershipchmod, chown, setuid/setgid, sticky bit, umask, ACLs. Linux man pages

Users, Groups & sudo/etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, sudoers, PAM basics. Linux man pages

Process Managementps, top/htop, kill, signals, nice, jobs, nohup, background tasks. OSTEP (free book)

Package Managementapt, yum/dnf, rpm/dpkg, repositories, and dependency resolution. Ubuntu docs

systemd & Service ManagementUnits, systemctl, journald, timers, and boot targets. systemd docs

Disk & Volume ManagementrecPartitions, LVM, mounting, fstab, df/du, and resizing. OSTEP (free book)

Networking Toolsip, ss, netstat, ping, traceroute, dig, curl, tcpdump. Linux man pages

Logs & Troubleshooting/var/log, journalctl, dmesg, and systematic incident triage. Linux man pages

Performance Analysisrecvmstat, iostat, sar, strace, lsof, and the USE method. Brendan Gregg

Scheduling with cron & atcrontab syntax, systemd timers, and automating recurring jobs. OSTEP (free book)

Stage 3 / 17 · 12 topics · 0 lessons

Networking Fundamentals

Every outage eventually comes down to networking. Understand the stack from packets to load balancers.

OSI & TCP/IP ModelsThe layered model and where each protocol lives. Cloudflare Learning

IP Addressing & SubnettingIPv4/IPv6, CIDR, subnet masks, private vs public ranges. Cloudflare Learning

TCP vs UDPHandshakes, ports, connection state, and reliability trade-offs. Cloudflare Learning

DNSRecord types, resolution flow, TTLs, and common DNS failures. Cloudflare Learning Lab

HTTP/HTTPSMethods, status codes, headers, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3, keep-alive. Cloudflare Learning

TLS, SSL & CertificatesHandshake, PKI, X.509, cert chains, Let's Encrypt, mTLS. Cloudflare Learning

Load BalancingL4 vs L7, round-robin, least-connections, health checks, sticky sessions. Cloudflare Learning Lab

Reverse Proxies & Web ServersNginx, HAProxy, Envoy; proxying, caching, and TLS termination. Wikipedia

Firewalls, NAT & Routingreciptables/nftables, security groups, NAT, routing tables. Wikipedia

VPNs & TunnelingoptionalWireGuard, IPsec, SSH tunnels, and private connectivity. Cloudflare Learning

CDNs & EdgerecContent delivery, caching at the edge, and origin shielding. Cloudflare Learning

Network DebuggingrecDiagnosing latency, packet loss, MTU, and connectivity issues. Cloudflare Learning

Stage 4 / 17 · 8 topics · 1 lessons

Version Control with Git

Git is the source of truth for code and infrastructure. Master it beyond the basic three commands.

Git FundamentalsStart hereinit, clone, add, commit, the staging area, and the object model. Lab

Branching & MergingBranches, merges, fast-forward vs three-way, and conflict resolution. Pro Git book

Rebasing & History RewritingrecInteractive rebase, squashing, cherry-pick, and when not to rewrite. Pro Git book

Remotes & Collaborationpush, pull, fetch, forks, and pull/merge requests. Pro Git book

Branching StrategiesGitFlow, trunk-based development, and feature branching trade-offs. Atlassian Git tutorials

Git HooksrecPre-commit, pre-push automation and policy enforcement. Pro Git book

Monorepo vs PolyrepooptionalTrade-offs in scale, tooling, and CI implications. monorepo.tools

GitHub / GitLab / BitbucketHosted platforms, code review, protected branches, and CODEOWNERS. GitHub docs

Stage 5 / 17 · 8 topics · 0 lessons

Programming & Scripting

DevOps engineers write code: glue scripts, automation, tooling, and sometimes services. Fluency in at least one scripting and one systems language is expected.

Bash ScriptingVariables, conditionals, loops, functions, exit codes, set -euo pipefail. GNU Bash manual Lab

Python for AutomationScripting, stdlib, virtualenvs, requests, and boto3/SDKs. Automate the Boring Stuff

Go FundamentalsrecThe language of cloud-native tooling; building static binaries and CLIs. A Tour of Go

YAML, JSON & TOMLConfig and data formats; jq, yq, and schema validation. YAML spec

Regular ExpressionsrecPattern matching for logs, parsing, and validation. MDN

Working with APIsREST, authentication, pagination, rate limits, and webhooks. restfulapi.net

Robust Scripting PracticesrecError handling, idempotency, logging, and retries in automation. GNU Bash manual

Testing Your CoderecUnit tests, linting, and shellcheck for reliable automation. pytest docs

Stage 6 / 17 · 9 topics · 1 lessons

Containers & Docker

Containers are the universal packaging and runtime unit of modern infrastructure.

Container FundamentalsNamespaces, cgroups, and how containers differ from VMs. Docker docs

Docker CLI & Lifecyclerun, build, exec, logs, ps, and managing container lifecycle. Docker docs

Writing DockerfilesLayers, caching, ENTRYPOINT vs CMD, and build context. Docker docs

Image OptimizationrecMulti-stage builds, minimal/distroless bases, and layer reduction. Docker docs

Image RegistriesDocker Hub, ECR/GCR/ACR, tagging, and image promotion. Docker docs

Container Networking & VolumesBridge/host networks, port mapping, and persistent volumes. Docker docs

Docker ComposeMulti-container local environments and service definitions. Docker docs Lab

Container SecurityrecNon-root users, image scanning, signing, and minimizing attack surface.

OCI & Alternative Runtimesoptionalcontainerd, runc, Podman, and the OCI standard. OCI

Stage 7 / 17 · 14 topics · 1 lessons

Kubernetes & Orchestration

Kubernetes is the de facto platform for running containers at scale and the centerpiece of most DevOps roles.

Cluster ArchitectureControl plane, etcd, scheduler, kubelet, and the node model. Kubernetes docs

Pods & WorkloadsPods, Deployments, ReplicaSets, StatefulSets, DaemonSets, Jobs. Kubernetes docs

Services & NetworkingClusterIP, NodePort, LoadBalancer, kube-proxy, and CNI. Kubernetes docs

Ingress & Gateway APIIngress controllers, routing rules, TLS, and the Gateway API. Kubernetes docs

ConfigMaps & SecretsInjecting configuration and managing sensitive data. Kubernetes docs

Persistent StoragePVs, PVCs, StorageClasses, and CSI drivers. Kubernetes docs

Resources & SchedulingRequests/limits, QoS, affinity, taints/tolerations, priority. OSTEP (free book)

AutoscalingrecHPA, VPA, Cluster Autoscaler, and Karpenter. AWS docs

RBAC & SecurityServiceAccounts, Roles, bindings, and Pod Security Standards. Kubernetes docs

HelmCharts, templating, releases, and values for packaging apps. Helm docs

KustomizerecOverlay-based, template-free configuration management. Kustomize docs

Operators & CRDsrecCustom resources, controllers, and the operator pattern. Kubernetes docs

Service MeshoptionalIstio/Linkerd: mTLS, traffic shaping, and observability.

Troubleshooting Clusterskubectl debug, events, CrashLoopBackOff, and pending pods. Kubernetes docs

Stage 8 / 17 · 13 topics · 1 lessons

Cloud Platforms

The cloud is where modern infrastructure lives. Master one provider deeply (AWS is the market leader) and understand the cross-cloud model.

Cloud Service ModelsIaaS, PaaS, SaaS, regions, AZs, and the shared responsibility model. Cloudflare Learning

Compute ServicesEC2/VMs, instance types, AMIs, autoscaling groups, spot/reserved. AWS docs

Cloud NetworkingVPCs, subnets, route tables, security groups, NAT, peering. AWS docs

Storage ServicesObject (S3), block (EBS), file (EFS), and lifecycle policies. AWS docs

Identity & Access ManagementUsers, roles, policies, least privilege, and federation. AWS docs

Managed DatabasesRDS, DynamoDB, ElastiCache, and backup/replication. AWS docs

Serverless & FunctionsrecLambda, API Gateway, event-driven and FaaS patterns. AWS docs

Managed KubernetesEKS, GKE, AKS, and the managed control plane trade-offs. AWS docs

Queues & MessagingrecSQS, SNS, Pub/Sub, Kafka, and event buses. AWS docs

Cloud DNS & CDNrecRoute 53, CloudFront, and edge services. Lab

Cost Management & FinOpsrecBilling, tagging, budgets, right-sizing, and cost optimization. FinOps Foundation

Well-Architected FrameworkrecReliability, security, performance, cost, and operational pillars. AWS

Multi-Cloud & GCP/AzureoptionalProvider parity, lock-in trade-offs, and portability. Google Cloud docs

Stage 9 / 17 · 10 topics · 1 lessons

Infrastructure as Code

Provisioning infrastructure declaratively and reproducibly is a defining DevOps skill.

IaC PrinciplesDeclarative vs imperative, idempotency, and immutable infrastructure. Terraform docs

Terraform CoreProviders, resources, plan/apply, and the resource graph. Terraform docs

Terraform StateRemote state, locking, backends, and import/move operations. Terraform docs

Modules & ReuseWriting modules, registries, and DRY infrastructure. Terraform docs

Environments & WorkspacesrecManaging dev/staging/prod and avoiding state sprawl. Terraform docs

OpenTofu & PulumioptionalTerraform alternatives and code-based IaC trade-offs. OpenTofu docs

Configuration ManagementAnsible (and Chef/Puppet): playbooks, roles, idempotent config.

Image BuildingrecPacker and golden images for immutable infrastructure. Docker docs

Testing & Policyrectflint, checkov, terratest, OPA, and policy as code. Terraform docs

Cloud-Native IaCoptionalCloudFormation, CDK, and provider-native tooling. AWS docs

Stage 10 / 17 · 10 topics · 3 lessons

CI/CD & Automation Pipelines

Continuous integration and delivery turn code into running software safely and repeatedly, the heart of DevOps.

CI/CD ConceptsContinuous integration, delivery vs deployment, and the pipeline mindset. Atlassian

Build & Test StagesCompiling, unit/integration tests, artifacts, and fast feedback. GitHub docs

GitHub ActionsWorkflows, jobs, runners, matrix builds, and reusable actions. GitHub docs

GitLab CI / JenkinsrecPipelines as code, stages, runners, and shared libraries. GitLab docs

Artifact & Package ManagementrecArtifactory, Nexus, and versioned artifact promotion.

Deployment StrategiesBlue-green, canary, rolling, and feature-flag releases. Lab

GitOpsArgo CD and Flux: Git as the source of truth for deployment.

Pipeline SecurityrecSecrets in CI, OIDC, supply-chain integrity, and SLSA. GitHub docs

Release ManagementrecSemantic versioning, changelogs, rollbacks, and approvals. GitHub docs

Runners & Build InfrastructureoptionalSelf-hosted runners, caching, and ephemeral build agents. GitHub docs

Stage 11 / 17 · 9 topics · 1 lessons

Observability & Monitoring

You can't operate what you can't see. Metrics, logs, and traces are how you understand systems in production.

Three Pillars of ObservabilityMetrics, logs, and traces and how they complement each other. OpenTelemetry docs

Metrics with PrometheusTime series, PromQL, exporters, and pull-based scraping. Prometheus docs

Dashboards with GrafanaVisualization, panels, variables, and unified data sources. Grafana docs

Centralized LoggingELK/OpenSearch, Loki, structured logging, and retention. Grafana Loki docs

Distributed TracingrecOpenTelemetry, Jaeger/Tempo, spans, and request flow. OpenTelemetry docs

AlertingAlertmanager, PagerDuty, on-call, and reducing alert fatigue. Prometheus docs

SLIs, SLOs & Error BudgetsDefining reliability targets and budget-driven decisions.

APM & Commercial ToolsrecDatadog, New Relic, and full-stack application monitoring. OpenTelemetry docs

Synthetic & Real-User MonitoringoptionalUptime checks, synthetic probes, and frontend telemetry. Grafana docs

Stage 12 / 17 · 9 topics · 2 lessons

SRE & Reliability Engineering

DevOps and SRE converge on keeping systems reliable. Learn the principles that prevent and resolve outages.

SRE PrinciplesToil reduction, error budgets, and reliability as a feature. Google SRE Book

Incident ManagementSeverity levels, incident commander, comms, and on-call rotations. Google SRE Book

Blameless PostmortemsRoot cause analysis, action items, and learning culture. Google SRE Book

Capacity PlanningrecForecasting demand, load testing, and headroom. Google SRE Book

High Availability & RedundancyFailover, multi-AZ/region, and eliminating single points of failure. AWS Well-Architected

Disaster RecoveryRTO/RPO, backups, restore drills, and DR strategies. Lab

Chaos EngineeringoptionalFault injection and proactively testing resilience.

Scalability PatternsrecHorizontal vs vertical scaling, caching, sharding, queues. Azure Architecture Center

Resilience PatternsrecRetries, timeouts, circuit breakers, and graceful degradation. Azure Architecture Center

Stage 13 / 17 · 9 topics · 1 lessons

Security & DevSecOps

Security is shifted left into every stage of the pipeline. DevOps engineers are expected to bake it in, not bolt it on.

Security FundamentalsCIA triad, threat modeling, and defense in depth. OWASP

Secrets ManagementVault, cloud secret stores, rotation, and avoiding secrets in code. Vault docs Lab

Identity & Least PrivilegeRBAC, IAM hardening, and zero-trust access. AWS docs

Vulnerability ScanningSAST, DAST, dependency and container image scanning. Trivy docs

Supply Chain SecurityrecSBOMs, image signing (cosign), provenance, and SLSA.

Network SecurityrecSegmentation, WAFs, network policies, and DDoS mitigation. Cloudflare Learning

Compliance & GovernancerecSOC 2, PCI-DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, and audit trails. Google Cloud docs

Policy as CoderecOPA/Gatekeeper, Kyverno, and automated guardrails. OPA docs

Encryption & Key ManagementAt-rest/in-transit encryption, KMS, and certificate management. Cloudflare Learning

Stage 14 / 17 · 7 topics · 0 lessons

Databases & Data Operations

DevOps engineers run the data tier: provisioning, scaling, backing up, and tuning the databases applications depend on.

Relational Databases & SQLTables, joins, indexes, transactions, and ACID. PostgreSQL docs

NoSQL DatabasesrecDocument, key-value, wide-column, and when to use each. MongoDB

Replication & HAPrimary/replica, failover, and read scaling. PostgreSQL docs

Backups & RestoreSnapshots, PITR, and tested restore procedures. PostgreSQL docs

CachingrecRedis/Memcached, cache invalidation, and TTL strategy. Redis docs

Schema MigrationsrecZero-downtime migrations and managing schema in CI/CD. Flyway docs

Performance & TuningoptionalQuery analysis, connection pooling, and slow-query diagnosis. PostgreSQL docs

Stage 15 / 17 · 6 topics · 1 lessons

Platform Engineering & Developer Experience

The frontier of the role: building internal platforms and golden paths that make every developer faster and safer.

Internal Developer PlatformsrecSelf-service platforms, golden paths, and paved roads. internaldeveloperplatform.org

Service Catalogs & BackstageoptionalService catalogs, scaffolding, and developer portals. Backstage docs

DORA MetricsrecDeployment frequency, lead time, MTTR, and change failure rate.

Ephemeral EnvironmentsoptionalOn-demand preview environments per pull request. Microsoft docs

Templating & AbstractionrecReusable scaffolds and abstracting infrastructure complexity. Backstage docs

Platform as a ProductoptionalTreating internal platforms with product thinking and feedback loops. Martin Fowler

Stage 16 / 17 · 6 topics · 0 lessons

AI, Modern Tooling & Emerging Trends

The 2026 landscape: AI-assisted operations, eBPF, WebAssembly, and the next generation of infrastructure tooling.

AIOps & ML-Driven OpsoptionalAnomaly detection, predictive scaling, and incident automation. IBM Think

AI-Assisted DevOpsrecLLMs for runbooks, code review, IaC generation, and copilots. GitHub docs

MLOps & LLMOps BasicsoptionalDeploying and operating ML/LLM workloads and model pipelines. MLOps.org

eBPFoptionalKernel-level observability, networking, and security (Cilium). ebpf.io

WebAssembly at the EdgeoptionalWasm runtimes as a lightweight alternative to containers. WebAssembly.org

Green & Sustainable OpsoptionalCarbon-aware scheduling and efficiency-driven operations. AWS Well-Architected

Stage 17 / 17 · 7 topics · 0 lessons

Soft Skills, Process & Career

DevOps is a culture as much as a toolset. Collaboration, process, and communication separate good engineers from great ones.

DevOps Culture & CALMSCulture, automation, lean, measurement, sharing; breaking silos. Atlassian

Agile & LeanrecScrum, Kanban, and continuous improvement. Scrum.org

Documentation & RunbooksRunbooks, ADRs, diagrams, and knowledge sharing. Write the Docs

Communication & CollaborationCross-team work, incident comms, and stakeholder management. Google SRE Book

On-Call & Sustainable OpsrecHealthy on-call, blameless culture, and avoiding burnout. Google SRE Book

Certifications & PortfoliorecAWS/CKA/Terraform certs and building a demonstrable portfolio. CNCF

Interview PreparationrecSystem design, troubleshooting scenarios, and behavioral rounds. System Design Primer

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Clear every stage, earn the certificate, and walk into interviews prepared. The complete path, nothing hidden, no gaps.

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