DevOps Engineer Roadmap
Master CI/CD, containers, cloud infrastructure, monitoring, and infrastructure as code to bridge development and operations.
Prerequisites
- Basic computer skills
- A text editor installed
- Browser (Chrome recommended)
Recommended Tools
Your Progress
0 of 17 topics completed
Linux & Networking
1.Linux Fundamentals
Master Linux command line, file systems, and system administration.
What you'll learn
- File system hierarchy and navigation
- File permissions (chmod, chown, ACLs)
- Process management (ps, top, kill, systemd)
- Package managers (apt, yum, dnf)
- Text processing (grep, sed, awk, cut)
- Shell scripting (bash)
- Cron jobs and scheduling
- User and group management
- Disk management and mounting
Resources
Server Setup Script
Write a bash script that automates setting up a new Linux server: install packages, configure users, set up firewall, and harden SSH.
2.Networking & Protocols
Understand networking concepts essential for DevOps and cloud.
What you'll learn
- OSI model and TCP/IP stack
- DNS, DHCP, and HTTP/HTTPS
- IP addressing, subnets, and CIDR
- Load balancers and reverse proxies
- Firewalls and security groups
- SSL/TLS and certificates
- VPNs and network tunneling
- Network troubleshooting tools (ping, traceroute, netstat, tcpdump)
Resources
Network Monitoring Dashboard
Set up a monitoring script that checks server health, port availability, DNS resolution, and SSL certificate expiry. Send alerts on failure.
3.Git Advanced & Branching Strategies
Master advanced Git workflows used in production teams.
What you'll learn
- Git flow vs trunk-based development
- Rebasing, cherry-picking, and bisect
- Git hooks for automation
- Monorepo management
- Conventional commits
- Tagging and releases
- Git LFS for large files
Resources
Git Workflow for a Team
Set up a repo with branch protection, PR templates, automated linting on commit, conventional commits, and automated changelog generation.
Git Workflow for a Team
Set up a repo with branch protection, PR templates, automated linting on commit, conventional commits, and automated changelog generation.
Build this before moving to the next stage
Containers & Orchestration
4.Docker Mastery
Build, ship, and run applications in Docker containers.
What you'll learn
- Container concepts (namespaces, cgroups)
- Dockerfile best practices
- Multi-stage builds for production
- Docker Compose for multi-service apps
- Networking (bridge, host, overlay)
- Volumes and persistent storage
- Docker security scanning
- Private registries (ECR, GHCR)
- BuildKit and caching optimization
Resources
Dockerized Microservices
Containerize a multi-service application (API + database + cache + worker) with Docker Compose. Implement health checks and proper networking.
5.Kubernetes Fundamentals
Deploy and manage containerized applications with Kubernetes.
What you'll learn
- Kubernetes architecture (control plane, nodes)
- Pods, Deployments, Services
- ConfigMaps and Secrets
- Ingress controllers and routing
- Persistent Volumes and Storage Classes
- Namespaces and RBAC
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaling
- Helm charts for templating
- kubectl mastery
Resources
K8s Cluster Deployment
Deploy your microservices to a Kubernetes cluster (Minikube/Kind). Configure services, ingress, secrets, health checks, and auto-scaling.
6.Kubernetes Advanced
Advanced Kubernetes patterns for production workloads.
What you'll learn
- StatefulSets for databases
- DaemonSets and Jobs/CronJobs
- Network policies
- Service mesh concepts (Istio/Linkerd)
- Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs)
- GitOps with ArgoCD/Flux
- Cluster monitoring (Prometheus + Grafana)
- Disaster recovery and backup
Resources
GitOps Pipeline
Set up GitOps with ArgoCD: auto-deploy from Git, handle rollbacks, implement canary deployments, and monitor cluster health.
GitOps Pipeline
Set up GitOps with ArgoCD: auto-deploy from Git, handle rollbacks, implement canary deployments, and monitor cluster health.
Build this before moving to the next stage
CI/CD & Automation
7.CI/CD Pipelines
Design and implement continuous integration and deployment pipelines.
What you'll learn
- CI/CD concepts and benefits
- GitHub Actions (workflows, jobs, steps)
- Jenkins pipeline scripting
- GitLab CI/CD configuration
- Pipeline stages (build, test, deploy)
- Artifact management
- Environment promotion (dev → staging → prod)
- Secrets management in CI
- Parallel and matrix builds
Resources
Production CI/CD Pipeline
Build a complete pipeline: lint, test, build Docker image, push to registry, deploy to staging automatically, and promote to production on approval.
8.Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
Provision and manage cloud infrastructure with code.
What you'll learn
- IaC concepts and benefits
- Terraform HCL syntax
- Providers, resources, and data sources
- State management (remote backends)
- Modules for reusability
- Terraform workspaces
- Import existing infrastructure
- Terragrunt for DRY configs
- Policy as code (Sentinel/OPA)
Resources
Cloud Infrastructure with Terraform
Provision a complete cloud environment: VPC, subnets, security groups, EC2/EKS, RDS, S3, and load balancer — all defined in Terraform.
9.Configuration Management (Ansible)
Automate server configuration and application deployment.
What you'll learn
- Ansible architecture (control node, inventory)
- Playbooks and tasks
- Roles for reusability
- Ansible Galaxy
- Variables, templates (Jinja2), and handlers
- Ansible Vault for secrets
- Idempotency principles
Resources
Automated Server Provisioning
Write Ansible playbooks to provision and configure web servers: install packages, configure Nginx, deploy applications, and manage SSL certs.
Automated Server Provisioning
Write Ansible playbooks to provision and configure web servers: install packages, configure Nginx, deploy applications, and manage SSL certs.
Build this before moving to the next stage
Cloud Platforms
10.AWS Core Services
Learn the most-used AWS services for compute, storage, and networking.
What you'll learn
- EC2 (instances, AMIs, security groups)
- S3 (storage, static hosting, lifecycle policies)
- VPC (subnets, route tables, NAT, peering)
- IAM (users, roles, policies)
- RDS and DynamoDB
- Lambda (serverless compute)
- ECS/EKS for containers
- CloudFront CDN
- Route 53 DNS
Resources
AWS 3-Tier Architecture
Deploy a 3-tier app on AWS: VPC with public/private subnets, ALB, EC2 Auto Scaling Group, RDS, and S3 for static assets.
11.Azure Core Services
Learn Microsoft Azure services for compute, storage, and enterprise cloud.
What you'll learn
- Azure VMs and App Service
- Azure Storage (Blob, Files, Queues)
- Virtual Networks and NSGs
- Azure AD and RBAC
- Azure SQL and Cosmos DB
- Azure Functions (serverless)
- AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service)
- Azure DevOps integration
Resources
Azure 3-Tier Architecture
Deploy a 3-tier app on Azure: VNet, App Service, Azure SQL, and Blob Storage with proper RBAC and monitoring.
12.GCP Core Services
Learn Google Cloud Platform services for compute, data, and AI/ML workloads.
What you'll learn
- Compute Engine and Cloud Run
- Cloud Storage and Cloud SQL
- VPC and firewall rules
- IAM and service accounts
- BigQuery for analytics
- Cloud Functions (serverless)
- GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine)
- Pub/Sub messaging
Resources
GCP 3-Tier Architecture
Deploy a 3-tier app on GCP: VPC, Cloud Run or GKE, Cloud SQL, and Cloud Storage with proper IAM and monitoring.
13.Cloud Architecture Patterns
Design scalable, fault-tolerant cloud architectures.
What you'll learn
- High availability and fault tolerance
- Auto-scaling strategies
- Microservices on cloud
- Serverless architecture patterns
- Event-driven architecture (SQS, SNS, EventBridge)
- Multi-region deployments
- Cost optimization
- Well-Architected Framework
Resources
Serverless API
Build a serverless REST API with AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and S3. Implement auth, rate limiting, and monitoring.
14.Cloud Security & Compliance
Secure cloud infrastructure and implement compliance controls.
What you'll learn
- Shared responsibility model
- IAM best practices (least privilege)
- Network security (security groups, NACLs, WAF)
- Encryption at rest and in transit
- Secrets management (AWS Secrets Manager, Vault)
- Compliance frameworks (SOC2, HIPAA basics)
- Security auditing and CloudTrail
- Vulnerability scanning
Resources
Security Hardened Infrastructure
Audit and harden your cloud setup: implement least-privilege IAM, encrypt all data, set up CloudTrail, configure WAF, and run vulnerability scans.
Security Hardened Infrastructure
Audit and harden your cloud setup: implement least-privilege IAM, encrypt all data, set up CloudTrail, configure WAF, and run vulnerability scans.
Build this before moving to the next stage
Monitoring & SRE
15.Monitoring & Observability
Set up comprehensive monitoring with metrics, logs, and traces.
What you'll learn
- Three pillars: metrics, logs, traces
- Prometheus for metrics collection
- Grafana for dashboards and alerting
- ELK Stack / Loki for log aggregation
- Distributed tracing (Jaeger/Zipkin)
- Application Performance Monitoring (APM)
- SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets
- Alert design and on-call best practices
Resources
Full Observability Stack
Set up Prometheus + Grafana for metrics, Loki for logs, and Jaeger for traces. Create dashboards, configure alerts, and define SLOs.
16.Incident Management & SRE
Handle incidents effectively and build reliable systems.
What you'll learn
- Incident response process
- Runbooks and playbooks
- Postmortem culture (blameless)
- Chaos engineering (Chaos Monkey)
- Capacity planning
- Toil reduction automation
- On-call rotation best practices
- Communication during incidents
Resources
Incident Response System
Create runbooks for common failures, implement health checks, set up PagerDuty/OpsGenie alerting, and run a chaos engineering experiment.
17.Capstone: Production Platform
Build a complete production-grade platform combining everything learned.
What you'll learn
- Platform engineering concepts
- Developer experience (internal tools)
- End-to-end automation
- Multi-environment management
- Cost monitoring and optimization
- Documentation and knowledge sharing
- Team workflows and processes
Internal Developer Platform
Build a complete platform: Terraform for infra, K8s for orchestration, ArgoCD for GitOps, Prometheus/Grafana monitoring, and automated CI/CD pipelines.