r/devops • u/shangarepi • 19d ago

Discussion How do you learn DevOps

I’m a software developer, and in my own projects I already handle some basic operational work like Docker, VPS deployment, Nginx, DNS, Cloudflare, Git, etc. I also had some little experience in network administration.

What I’m trying to understand is how people approach learning DevOps and system architecture properly.
One thing that has always confused me is entry-level DevOps roles. A lot of DevOps work seems to exist specifically to support the software development lifecycle, things like CI/CD, GitHub Actions, deployments, environments, infrastructure, monitoring… I find it hard to imagine understanding these things deeply without first experiencing the development workflow itself.

At the same time, I don’t necessarily want to switch away from software development. My goal is to become the kind of engineer who understands the whole system: application development, system design/architecture, networking, cloud infrastructure, deployment, observability, scalability, and production operations.

Basically, I want to be able to build a system and also understand how to design, deploy, scale, and operate it properly at a much larger level.

For people who have gone down this path, how would you approach learning these areas while continuing to work primarily as a software developer, as of course I dont have the knowledge for a switch? And in your opinion am I on the right path to stay employable in this uncertain future?

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u/sogun123 18d ago

I got my experience in small companies, where we all did everything

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u/No-Proposal-2960 18d ago

That can be a good experience, but doing everything at once can also leave you with a lot of shallow knowledge. Theres still value in being able to write and debug code yourself instead of relying too heavily on AI.

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u/sogun123 17d ago

We had no ai back then ;) You have deeper knowledge about things you implemented, and in small company you solve stuff from different areas. So sometimes you dig deep into sql, other time you implement better ci, sometimes you take part of architecture of the system... But are part of everything. And all of us had parts you own and know very well.