DevOps Engineer Roadmap
The complete, battle-tested path to becoming a production-grade DevOps Engineer: Linux, Git, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD, Observability, and DevSecOps.
A roadmap is only worth following for its sequence. Any list can tell you that Kubernetes exists; the useful part is knowing what has to come before it and why.
Curriculum & Milestones (10 Stages)
Stage 1: Foundations: OS & Scripting
Every DevOps engineer starts on the command line. Get comfortable with Linux and one scripting language.
Every DevOps engineer starts on the command line. Get comfortable with Linux and one scripting language.
Learn the Linux filesystem, permissions, processes, package managers, systemd services and networking commands. The vast majority of servers and containers run Linux, so terminal fluency is non-negotiable.
Master shell scripting to glue tools together: variables, loops, conditionals, pipes, exit codes and cron. Bash is the default automation language on Linux servers and CI runners.
Python powers automation scripts, tooling, and cloud SDKs (boto3, google-cloud). Learn the basics plus working with files, APIs and JSON/YAML.
Go is the language behind Docker, Kubernetes and Terraform. Optional early on, but valuable if you want to build or extend cloud-native tooling.
Stage 2: Version Control & Collaboration
Git is the backbone of every modern engineering workflow and the entry point to CI/CD.
Stage 3: Networking & Security Basics
You cannot deploy or debug systems you do not understand at the network layer.
Stage 4: Containers
Containers standardise how applications are packaged and shipped. This is the heart of modern DevOps.
Stage 5: Container Orchestration
Once you have containers, you need to run them reliably at scale.
Stage 6: Infrastructure as Code
Provision and configure infrastructure declaratively so it is versioned, reviewable and repeatable.
Stage 7: CI/CD Pipelines
Automate build, test and deploy so software ships continuously and safely.
Stage 8: Cloud Providers
Almost all modern infrastructure runs in the cloud. Go deep on one provider first.
Stage 9: Monitoring & Observability
You can only operate reliably what you can measure. Instrument everything.
Stage 10: DevSecOps & Secrets
Bake security into the pipeline rather than bolting it on at the end.