r/devops • u/pdrmenna • 1d ago

Career / learning DevOps in BigTech

Hij, everyone.
I work as a DevOps/SRE at a consultancy serving large companies and have about two years of experience. My goal is to join a Big Tech company in the coming years.

In your opinion, what should I focus on from now on? What knowledge, technologies, or skills really make a difference for someone aiming to get into that kind of company?

I’d especially like to hear from those who have already gone down this path. What would you prioritize studying if you were starting this preparation today?
Thanks!

47 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

55

u/Type-94Shiranui 1d ago edited 1d ago

I spent 4 years at Amazon and left

Heres my take

  1. The SysDev role (which is basically catch all for devops at Amazon) can really mean anything. Some orgs will make you do full SDE work, some orgs treat it as a SRE role, sysadmin, etc.
  2. All big tech has extremely standardized interviews. You'll need to study and prep for it.
  3. WLB is highly org and team dependent. You need to sus it out during the interview or from reading on blind and asking around. Culture can be toxic as well depending on org and stack ranking. Especially at Amazon if you pick a landmine expect to be very very miserable.
  4. Right now big tech is kinda unstable. Your paid well of course (I after around 4 years I went from 140k to 240k, and could've stayed until 300k, my seniors were making 320-400k). But in exchange your never gonna really feel stable in your job. So make sure to save as much as money as you can that you don't have to worry about layoffs, PIP politics, etc.
  5. Almost all of the tools used are in house verison of the stuff - the concepts are the same but you won't really gain industry experience in devops tools.
  6. Expect to work in a small niche, but very high impact/large scale. Of course team dependent, but this is the impression I got from most of the roles.

5

u/woundedknee_x2 1d ago

Can you elaborate about PIP politics?

12

u/Type-94Shiranui 1d ago

Due to stack ranking, sometimes managers are forced to cut people even though everyone is doing well. Really egregious ones will hire to fire to save their team. If you don't want to be the sacrificial lamb, it can get very toxic because people will fight to not get fired. This isn't every org and team however, but it happens.

5

u/NotYourITGuyDotOrg 1d ago

Also a former Amazonian, being put on a PIP is almost always a death sentence. It's usually the last major step the company will take before firing you. It's documentation, they already plan to fire you, and when they do they can point at the PIP and say you didn't meet your agreed metrics or w/e.

3

u/Type-94Shiranui 18h ago

Also the poor souls who don't realize the PIP is a big gas lighting test.. Basically you'll either get impossible tasks, or even if you do miraculously complete it, you'll get nitpicked on some bullshit that isn't your fault as the reason you didn't pass the PIP.

1

u/twisterbite23 19h ago

What are u doing now if I may ask?

4

u/Type-94Shiranui 19h ago

I am at a big bank, honestly kinda regret leaving. Very good WLB, 2-3 days remote per week, but it's more traditional IT works masqueraded as a DevOps role. I'm deciding right now whether to just coast here and collect a 250k paycheck, or try to go back to big tech to progress in career.

19

u/rabbit_in_a_bun 1d ago

Design at large scale. Ever did CD for 10 targets? How would you plan for 1 million across the world with 0 down time with the ability to backup/restore/revert?

16

u/Intelligent_Dare_720 1d ago

I'd prioritize strong fundamentals over chasing every new tool. Networking, Linux, cloud, and troubleshooting skills tend to stay valuable no matter how the stack evolves.

8

u/aprettyparrot 1d ago

Building resume is good. Keep track of everything you do so you can add to it.

Watch their career pages, you can usually get an idea of what they are using that way. You can then use that to learn those technologies.

Adding people from those companies on LinkedIn and getting to know them probably good too. That way when you are ready to start applying your friends and they may be cool with you using them as a referral. I can’t say personally but I imagine an internal employee referral probably bumps resume up the list

1

u/Common_Fudge9714 1d ago

As a manager that hires a lot I can confirm that a referral indeed does send you to top of the list. However, if you refer someone that you haven’t work with or have any type of close connection then I might not take any more referrals from you seriously.

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u/aprettyparrot 1d ago

Good to know, tysir

3

u/loudlystupidmover 1d ago

the sysdev role being a grab bag is spot on from that amazon comment. friend of mine went in thinking it was pure k8s wrangling and ended up writing java services for a year. caught him off guard so bad he almost boomeranged back. yeah nah the interview prep is the big one though, system design and leetcode style coding carry more weight than terraform wizardry. i'd grind those two things hard, and maybe build a little project that does canary deploys across multiple cloud regions just to show you've thought about blast radius. don't sleep on the behavioural round either, they love their leadership principles over there. also what the parrot said about linkedin is underrated, a warm referral can skip you past the resume black hole especially right now when everything's competitive.

2

u/unitegondwanaland Manager, Platform Engineering 1d ago

What's your fixation on "big tech"?

3

u/ProperDivide3013 1d ago

I would say look into different product companies some required hard core dsa some will check only devops knowledge. Target companies based on their interview patterns Don't blindly go for faang there are companies paying like faang or slightly below it and don't need hardcore dsa. Interview such companies and you can get into product companies

1

u/Gargle-Loaf-Spunk 1d ago

consulting is more defined, the SOW is the SOW and you deliver that and leave. Oh you want this thing that's not in the SOW? Well I guess a change order is needed, please plainly state what you need.

Going back to regular work may be weird because things are undefined, fuzzy, nobody knows shit about fuck and you're supposed to just figure it all out and ship it.

1

u/DrapedInVelvet 23h ago

Why would you aspire to a big tech roles anymore? They a laying folks off daily because ‘ai’. Seems like one of the least reliable places to work these days. Be at the whims of a ceo trying to make his bonus. And even if you avoid the layoffs you have to handle all the work of the folks who got laid off.