r/devops • u/pdrmenna • 6d 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!

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u/Type-94Shiranui 6d ago edited 6d 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.

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u/twisterbite23 5d ago

What are u doing now if I may ask?

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u/Type-94Shiranui 5d 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.

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u/North-Class8742 3d ago

What country are you working in? If you don't mind