Main image of article DevOps Training: 4 Things You Need to Know If You’re Just Starting Out

DevOps is a cluster of tools and practices in the service of a singular aim: Speeding up how fast a company can develop applications and services. DevOps practitioners must not only utilize technical skills to enact that change, but also rely on their soft skills to successfully align the rest of the organization with what needs to be done.

As you can imagine, DevOps is a complicated role (although it’s also high-paying), which means practitioners need lots of continuous training. But what does that training look like, especially when you’re just starting out?

What is DevOps training?

For those just starting out, DevOps training focuses on a few key things:

Whatever option you pursue for DevOps engineer training, it’ll no doubt cover all three of those. Advanced training will focus on deepening your knowledge of these DevOps tools and techniques, including the handling of extremely complex development and deployment scenarios. Some additional, related tools and skills to study include:

Yes, it’s quite a bit, especially in conjunction with learning DevOps philosophy and workflows. Experienced professionals bake learning into their schedules and workflow, and seek help from others who have the necessary knowledge; everyone’s learning journey is different. 

Is DevOps in demand?

According to Burning Glass, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country, DevOps jobs have a projected growth of 39.3 percent over the next 10 years. That’s a solid growth rate, and suggests that it will remain in demand for quite some time to come.

Are there free training options?

Fortunately, there are lots of sites that offer free tutorials in DevOps fundamentals. For example, Udemy has a free course in DevOps essentials, as well as an Introduction to DevOps. Coursera offers a free course on DevOps culture and mindset. EDx also has a list of learning options and modules.

Is there an exam for DevOps?

As you search for DevOps jobs, you might notice that quite a few companies ask for DevOps certifications. Given the complexities of the typical DevOps role, it’s understandable why these companies want something that shows candidates have the necessary training and skills.

If you decide to pursue certifications, start by looking at the ones offered by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft; these will show that you have expertise in DevOps methodology as it relates to these respective vendors’ tech stacks: 

These certifications require quite a bit of time and effort to obtain. For example, the AZ-400 covers not only DevOps processes and SRE (site reliability engineering) but also Microsoft-specific technologies such as Azure. 

If you don’t have the time or inclination to earn these certifications, you can still land a DevOps job—provided you demonstrate that you have the necessary skills. “Among the most important are collaboration skills, code control, and DevOps processes,” said Udemy instructor Nick Colyer, who currently teaches students via Udemy’s website. “Continuous integration and continuous delivery familiarity, as well as specific technology skills like Azure DevOps Pipelines, Repos and so on are great to have, not to mention an understanding of 1-2 core programming languages, for example Node JS, .NET or Python.”

When you’re applying for DevOps jobs, make sure to include these occupation-specific terms in your résumé.

Related DevOps Jobs Resources:

DevOps Certification

DevOps Engineer Interview Questions

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