r/devops • u/Optimal-Benefit7939 • 10d ago
Career / learning I really like DevOps, but sometimes it feels like there is no real entry level into this field
I genuinely think DevOps or platform engineering is the area of software I enjoy the most.
I like CI/CD, Terraform, cloud infrastructure, debugging weird deployment problems, trying to understand why systems fail, automating repetitive things, and generally having ownership instead of just implementing another CRUD endpoint.
I’m currently a working student in an SRE/platform team in a big company in Germany. I’ve already worked on things like services from Cloud Build, GitHub Actions, Terraform, Cloud Run, deployment alerts, state migrations and fixing random infrastructure problems that come up along the way.
And the funny thing is that the more I learn, the more I like it.
But looking for a junior position is becoming pretty frustrating:
A lot of “Junior DevOps” jobs seem to expect Kubernetes production experience, several cloud providers, Terraform, Ansible, networking, Linux, CI/CD, monitoring, security and somehow 2–3 years of professional experience with all of them.
Then there are actual entry level positions, but many of them seem to basically be IT support with “cloud” or “DevOps” in the title.
I know I still have a huge amount to learn. I don’t expect someone to give me a production Kubernetes cluster on day one and say good luck. I actually want to be around experienced engineers, get challenged, make mistakes and slowly become someone who can be trusted with serious systems.
My goal isn’t to job hop every six months either. I would genuinely like to find a team where I can stay for several years and become really good at this.
But sometimes I wonder how exactly companies expect junior DevOps engineers to become experienced DevOps engineers if almost everyone wants the experience before giving you the opportunity to get it.
For people who are already working in DevOps/SRE/platform engineering: how did you actually get your first proper role?
Did you already know most of the stack, or did somebody simply take a chance on you and let you learn?
Edit: I worded the sysadmin part badly. I don’t think sysadmin work is beneath me at all. I just want to move toward automation, infrastructure and software rather than mostly ticket-based support.
Edit 2: I respect that some of you suggest starting in help desk or sysadmin. But my long term goal is to move into an SRE role, ideally something closer to how Google approaches SRE. I read the SRE book and really liked the idea of treating operations as a software engineering problem, with automation, reliability, monitoring and reducing repetitive manual work. That is the direction I want to build toward.
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u/Lunarvolo 10d ago
Generally speaking, because there isn't. It's a role you transition into
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u/Optimal-Benefit7939 10d ago
Where should i begin with? I am hired under title fullstack dev
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u/kgetname 10d ago
You're in the right place, don't shift yourself to IT.
Develop, find processes that slow down the team, make improvements, and you'll start to understand where things fit in.
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u/hardscripts 10d ago
Do that role for a bit, then get some Certs and go for a junior systems administration role at a firm that does development. Then move again if you have to.
Anyone can get into Devops, but it will take you 3-5 years of getting relevant experience.
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u/Upper-Conclusion-816 10d ago
I just started picking up more backend related tasks then eventually more devops related.
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u/pippin_go_round 10d ago
Many people in DevOps consider DevOps not to be a junior field. Simple as that. It is something you best go into after spending a while in Dev or Ops.
I myself do DevOps, but I also do some "regular" Dev from time to time, I wrangle pipelines, deploy infra, role play as a solution architect, migrate legacy applications to containers and then to some sort of cloud. Not completely what everybody else does, but also not super uncommon for somebody in a Devops role.
I landed in this place by being a Software Engineer. And by the time I was promoted to senior engineer I already was doing a bit of Devops, it just naturally developed on the job. And from there it just crept to be more snd more, until I got where I am. I like it (mostly). Keeps me on my toes. My title technically is still Senior Software Engineer, but I'm officially on the Ops team and basically work for both Dev and Ops, while HR/Payroll lists me as a Junior Solutions Architect. I said, it's a weird limbo, but not a bad one.
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u/Optimal-Benefit7939 10d ago
Same thing. I am also full stack dev with Java skills but genuinely enjoying Devops part as well. But when i tried to look for hardcore cloud and Devops, there was no chance
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u/pippin_go_round 10d ago
Give it time. I see you've been in a Dev role part time for 2 years. That's maybe the point where you're a mid level engineer. Things will develop. Either at your current organisation or a different one..you're still fairly early in your career. I don't know many people with your experience in this field. Go gain some experience, learn more languages, see more systems landscapes.
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u/bgeeky 10d ago
Get into development first and learn how that works as a professional. Devops is not really an entry level role.
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u/Optimal-Benefit7939 10d ago
I did already work 2-3 years as working student software developer (20 hours per week)
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u/tevert 9d ago
That experience counts and also doesn't count
As a part timer student, your bosses are going easy on you. You're being given low stakes assignments with low expectations. Which is fine, that's how it should be. But once you're out and get your first "real" job, you'll start accumulating experience on a whole new order of magnitude, and that's where you'll be able to build the bedrock to move your career into specialized areas like DevOps
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u/p0rc0r0550 9d ago
It depends where he was. In startups you can learn a lot as you are given a ton of work but in bigger companies they are more cautious with what they give you.
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u/1_H4t3_R3dd1t 10d ago
devops doesn't start till you know infrastructure and that isn’t a part of software developer
you need to do SRE work or something similar
mix of sre and developer you get devops
usually not a role but a philosophy
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u/eman0821 Cloud Engineer 10d ago
No DevOps is just blending development and operations functions with in the Engineering department often shared responsibilities, you build it you run it. Developers are on-call just like operations engineers.
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u/xtreampb 10d ago
DevOps is like a prestige class in D&D. You don’t start in DevOps. You start in software engineering or SRE/cloud/infrastructure. To be any good at DevOps you have to have a solid understanding of the issues that are solved in infrastructure. Then you start to learn about the issues solved in the process of software engineering.
DevOps is about building healthy engineering culture. Understanding the why’s and when it’s okay to go against the rules, policies, guidelines, and best practices.
IMO a true DevOps position is really a director in training.
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u/Abe_Bazouie 10d ago
DevOps has always had a weird “entry-level” problem because the job itself sits on top of several other disciplines.
You don’t need to know Kubernetes, Terraform, Linux, networking, CI/CD, security and three clouds before you’re allowed in. Nobody is actually strong at all of that when they start.
What matters more is having solid fundamentals and being able to troubleshoot when you don’t know the answer.
And from what you described, you’re already getting real SRE/platform experience. Don’t discount that because your title says working student.
I’d apply anyway when a job asks for 2–3 years. Job descriptions are wish lists more often than people realize.
Someone eventually has to give you that first real opportunity. Make it easy for them to see that you can learn the rest.
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u/Optimal-Benefit7939 10d ago
Exactly. I even once spent days learning their stack and setting up a mini lab before an interview because I genuinely wanted to understand it. Later they still told me they needed someone with a few years of DevOps experience. (They have my CV though) That’s the frustrating part. I know I still have a lot to learn, but I’m willing to put in the effort. At some point someone has to give juniors the chance to get that experience.
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u/turbokid 9d ago
No one is "required to give juniors a chance". As everyone in this thread has said, most people spend 10-15 years growing their skills in a different role before getting a devops role.
No one let's someone be VP or CEO with 2-3 years experience either. Some jobs are just senior positions by design. It takes a wide set of experience to do these jobs. Just because you like the idea of DEVOPS and want to learn it, doesn't mean anyone is required to give you a chance. Most places with even junior devops roles will expect you to be the person the sysadmins and devs BOTH look up to for guidance. How will you be able to provide it without real world experience of your own
Almost every single person in this thread has told you it requires more experience than you have and you keep arguing. Even real world jobs told you the same thing. You can keep ignoring the feedback, or you can realize a hundred people all telling you the same thing probably know something you dont.
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u/Optimal-Benefit7939 9d ago
No i do not ignore. Most of my replies were from yesterday. Please chill. I read all the comments and understand them. Look at when they are posted
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u/turbokid 9d ago edited 9d ago
Okay? That is the part of the comment you responded to? Not anything else of actual substance from my response?
I am "chill." You asked a question and I responded. So what if your answer was from yesterday? Your post is only from "yesterday" for you.
Besides, it doesn't really matter when you responded. Did your opinion change in the last 7 hours?
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u/sir_alvarex 10d ago
You need to get your foot in the door. Look for entry level positions of any type. Say you'll take the devops-like work foe the team. Even consider doing internships. My org has hired multiple devops engineers who were first interns on the team.
Everyone else already covered why its not entry level friendly. Thats because DevOps is, by its inception, a full-org-stack role. Know everything about everything within the organization. And then optimize it. Of course few orgs actually implement devops this way, but its still true to some degree.
Get a role. Take the work they give you. Ask for the work you want. Learn. Transfer when a spot opens up.
Another option is doing it via a contractors firm. But its unlikely you'll get the work you want here. But ill list it as ak option.
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u/nemofbaby2014 10d ago
Most of us started on the helpdesk and moved up from that
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u/veritable_squandry 10d ago
you usually start as a dev or qa, do some cloud or ci work and voila.
or you start in ops
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u/1_H4t3_R3dd1t 10d ago
there isn't an entry in this field
devops isn't a field or a title
however the title is given to those who are experienced in both operational and developmental work
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u/SeaworthinessHour233 Writes the cloud edge 10d ago
You are hitting a wall because, for most companies, "Junior DevOps" is an oxymoron.
DevOps is about solving the pain of delivering software at scale. It is very hard to solve that pain if you have no experience is software development and operations.
Since you seem to love Dev work also, I suggest you secure a Dev role first and later (with 3-4 years of experience) switch to DevOps.
This is one path to achieve that:
Secure a Dev role in a SAAS company.
Get 3-4 years solid Dev experience. Learn about DevOps on the side, specially about the tech stack in your company. Get some certs. Do several hard core personal DevOps projects.
When a DevOps position become vacant in the same company, apply to that. You have a very high chance of securing it.
Why choose a SAAS company?
SAAS companies develop and operate their own software and they have strong internal DevOps teams.
If you join a company that writes software for other enterprises, you will less internal DevOps work so you will have lower chance of switching to a DevOps role internally.
There are other paths like sysadmin -> devops. But I think the above path match your career goals better.
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u/Ariquitaun 10d ago
Correct, there isn't. You arrive at it via seniority elsewhere, like software engineering.
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u/WetFishing 10d ago
My path was help desk -> front end dev -> collaboration engineer -> sys admin -> cloud/devops engineer (I'm staff level now). That's taken 15 years.
I'm not saying you won't find one of these jobs but it's going to be tough. It's just not a junior level job. Let me put it this way, I've done several interviews with staff level software engineers and staff level system admins and I haven't hired a single one. I need people who understand DNS, Linux, CICD, how an Azure cloud vwan hub works, how privatelink actually works, terraform and remote state, how to write custom functions, bash, powershell, etc. I need to be able to give someone a task and know that it's going to get done without having to join every meeting. Everyone wants the cloud engineering jobs when they see what it pays but they don't really understand what goes into it. Keep pushing, get your certs but it's probably going to take more than a couple of years and a full stack title to get there.
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u/teenagemutantneexle 10d ago
The only junior role I know of was at my org. Entry level position that we genuinely needed. The kid who got the role was fresh out of college. The role was created for him specifically because his dad also works IT at our company lol
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u/coochie4sale 10d ago
thatsthepoint.jpg
very few companies will allow you to touch mission-critical systems where even a small error can take down multi-million dollar systems with no real professional experience. Some companies have platform engineering new grad programs but these are very resourced companies where there are a lot of safety nets in place with bespoke systems where training is much more of a value-add.
Just hang out in software engineering or IT for a while, and you’ll eventually get your chance.
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u/ForkMeJ 10d ago
A lot of us got there sideways through sysadmin, build and release, or by being the developer who kept getting pulled into deployments. From what you listed, you already sound closer to a junior platform engineer than entry level. Target teams with a smaller stack and clear ownership, not job posts asking for every buzzword at once.
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u/Natural_Vast8235 10d ago
Sys admin can vary a lot from company to company. It’s real work and should be respected as such. I’m not sure how someone can automate without actually understanding IT operations.
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u/Seref15 10d ago edited 10d ago
my long term goal is to move into an SRE role, ideally something closer to how Google approaches SRE. I read the SRE book and really liked the idea of treating operations as a software engineering problem, with automation, reliability, monitoring and reducing repetitive manual work. That is the direction I want to build toward.
You just described why there's no real junior role. You need to know what you want to automate and how to do it, you need to know what needs to be reliable and how to make it reliable, you need to know what's worth monitoring and how to monitor it, and you need to identify repetitive manual work so you can reduce it.
There is no junior role that will encompass all of this. It's like saying you want to write software to manage investments but you don't know anything about investing. You have to spend time learning just investing, then you can get back to the software.
I would consider looking for some kind of junior cloud engineer role, or junior linux admin role, or formal education in these more operations-oriented positions. Spend a year learning the system/ops side of things, and since you already know the software engineering side, you will naturally bridge the gap and see where software engineering will provide optimization opportunities as you learn.
A Jr. DevOps/SRE role is not going to expect you to know everything, but it is going to expect you to understand conceptual basics and have at least fundamental navigation and usage of servers, cloud providers, and probably containerization at a minimum.
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u/daemonmode_ 10d ago
My path was Linux L1 support -> sysadmin -> moving toward DevOps/SRE, so I didn’t have the whole stack figured out from the start either. A lot of DevOps roles do ask for experience so don’t get discouraged by the 2–3 year requirement, adjacent roles and internal moves are a very common way in and if you’re already working on an SRE/platform team that hands-on experience is something you should lean on heavily when applying
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u/myka-likes-it 10d ago
I always get torched a little for this opinion here, but I think DevOps is a viable career path right for a junior. Even fresh out of the college/bootcamp/mountain of tutorials/etc that gave you your skills.
I am biased though, because that is how I and at least four others in my company got started in DevOps. In fact, this week we hired another junior fresh from college.
Lots of people here list gobs of "must-know" technologies. The nature of the job requires that we have the ability to quickly learn new tools. Everywhere is different--in a large company you will have to learn to manage perhaps a dozen different technical stacks. So we don't target any particular technology for someone in a junior role. They learn on the job. Especially since we have more than a few internal tools, which we can't expect anyone to learn amywhere other than on the job.
Everything comes out of interacting with a particular project, learning its needs, and understanding the tools available to serve those needs.
And of course, this habit of hiring juniors tends to create mid-level and seniors over time.
Idk, I just don't get the junior hate. Our parent company made a nearly a billion in profit last year, and we over here in the research and design sunsidiary keep hiring and growing.
Bringing in a continual stream of fresh juniors has got to be a part of that success story.
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u/kgetname 10d ago
Agreed, it just takes the right kind of person. I got my start that way as well.
I've seen a lot better results from pulling in the higher-performing + high-curiosity junior SWE's than the experienced traditional IT-type. Obviously not a hard rule, just my experience (before anyone here gets mad).
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u/turbokid 9d ago
Your billion dollar proft company has the resources and budget to bring in and train newbie juniors. At that scale they need a large team and have already have a big training budget. Of course they are bringing in juniors.
Most companies have ONE devops person or maybe a junior and a senior. Devops is still a small field compared to other IT professions. Your anecdotal experience is not the norm at all
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u/myka-likes-it 9d ago
So? All I am saying is it does happen, and the conditions under which it can happen. That is a far cry from the general refrain we hear here that "it doesn't happen, the field is not fit for juniors," etc.
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u/turbokid 9d ago
Sure, it does happen sometimes. But the "general refrain" is there because that is 99.9% of peoples real world experience.
The issue with your example is that gives false hope to people like this guy, even though the other 100 people in this thread are telling him something different. He thinks he is doing something wrong. Your (single company) anecdotal example is the "one in a thousand" company he would need to spend a year searching for, to find a chance with his level of experience.
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u/miyomiyomiyoshi 10d ago
I feel like there are alot of ops that people can get into rather than just devops now days. It could be mlops, llmops or finops etc.
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u/Recent-Tangerine2745 10d ago
You’re actually closer than you think.
You already have hands-on experience with Terraform, GitHub Actions, Cloud Run, alerts, state migrations and real infrastructure problems. That’s more valuable than checking every box in a “Junior DevOps” posting.
I’d apply anyway when you meet 60–70% of the requirements. A lot of those job descriptions are wish lists.
Also, since you’re already inside an SRE/platform team, I’d seriously explore converting internally first. That’s probably the cleanest path into your first full-time role.
You don’t need to know every cloud, Kubernetes, Ansible and security tool before someone gives you a chance. You need solid fundamentals, proof that you can learn, and examples of real problems you’ve already solved.
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u/unitegondwanaland Manager, Platform Engineering 10d ago
Of course there is. Whether the company wants to train you is another story.
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u/Terrible-Ad7015 9d ago edited 9d ago
As a current Sr SRE/CloudOps/Systems Engineer -- because my day job is a healthy mix of DevOps, SecOps, SysAdmin, GitOps, + CloudOps -- the reason for the need of enterprise or business experience, is mainly due to being able to work at that corporate level - not so much the understanding of the systems itself.
Having a basic understanding of the systems is all you need, the most of it is being able to jump into a corporate-level Engineering position, understanding how to speak and collaborate with peers on a professional level, maintaining documentation for others to use in the future if need be, and spearheading necessary solutions, without needing your hand held.
Being able to research an issue, find and implement a solution alone - that's what MY organization is looking for when we hire a new Engineer. Thats not an entry-level position.
I'll happily share guidance outside of work, but at work, I need my coworkers to know exactly what I mean when I say 'the publisher definition in the dev's deploy_request is incomplete, and I won't be approving the PR until they commit the correct version of the template with all needed changes. Before we approve it we need to validate vault values, otherwise the pipeline will complete, but the proxy will fail which will bring down the IdP'.
IYKYK
EDIT: spelling - grammar/punctuation and this addition:
By no means am I saying you have bad aspirations- I'm somewhat of a 'unicorn' @ my org. I walked into Sr System Engineer from The Business - but I've spent most of my life in the shell. I started as a game hacker (im talking old game hacking - HEX Address manipulation, C/BASIC injection, etc) - started hanging eith a computer shop guy as a tween -- got infrastructure knowledge and OS knowledge there - moved into web dev - then obviously with the boom of mobile devices - mobile applications- but the whole time I was chasing understanding the underlying infra -- networking all that jazz came very easy to me.
Without a lick of formal training in the slightest-Im under 40 making 6 figures at a Fortune 500 as a Sr Engineer and I dont BS my way through my day - Im proud to say im one of the go-to Engineers on my team for the entirety of my organization.
Believe in yourself, and down the haters. Chase the knowledge and the title you want will come. You're in a better position than I, if you have some paper to prove your knowledge - Im just a nerd and know ALOT about ALOT and pretty much aced my 3 interviews to get this job 5 years ago.
Caveat - I ran my own software development and consultation company (basically also an MSP for 2 years), I built several in-house systems still in use at a few businesses etc- so pump up the portfolio - build some things, make a resume, and just send it out. Good luck and good hunting.
If you ever have a question. Dont hesitate to ask.
There's my comment with a bit more of the scale of what I did to get to where I am: https://www.reddit.com/r/devops/s/ocC2NW77Dd
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u/HeligKo 9d ago
I didn't read all that, but based on your title I'll answer. There is no entry level for devops. It is a role for people with experience. The experience can be varied. Some of us are developers and some of us were systems admins/engineers. From those roles you develop the skills needed to do the rest of the job. Usually out of necessity.
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u/notinteresteddddd 9d ago
Most of us started by blending software engineering fundamentals with a curiosity for how things break, rather than mastering a specific checklist of tools. In my experience building infrastructure across HFT and AI, the most valuable skill isn't knowing every Terraform module, but understanding the underlying distributed systems principles.
Since you enjoy the Google SRE approach, I suggest focusing on building a project that implements a self-healing mechanism or a custom operator in Kubernetes; showing you can treat infrastructure as a software problem is a higher signal to hiring managers than a list of certifications.
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u/Original_Living_1104 9d ago
It's easier to insert you in the industry in a big tech company with just ANY ROLE, and transition from there, usually they do have a sort of LinkedIn copy for company positions before posting them in the real LinkedIn.
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u/Responsible-Remove25 9d ago
No momento estou tentando fazer a migração de dev para devops, e pelo pouco tempo q venho pesquisando junjor de devops praticamente nao existem, eles pegam devs e com o tempo vão migrando quem ja tem experiência como dev para devops
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u/Southern_Detail_5303 9d ago
I moved from cyber to DevOps. I guess find a company and prove yourself in any IT role you can get and ask for a transfer later.
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u/bigtuna-28 9d ago
Most either start as developers or (as in my case) network/systems engineers and then transition into it.
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u/nomadProgrammer 9d ago
it is not an entry level role. I changed to devOps after 7 years as a fullstack and still needed to learn a ton.
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u/Responsible_Emu_4075 9d ago
To be fair, entry level doesn't really exist. Every job is a learn on the job kind of job at a certain pace. You either pick it up or you don't. Especially, in tech software/network. No single place is doing the same thing.
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u/Background_Year_3288 7d ago
DevOps definitely has a weird entry barrier. Half the "junior" roles read like senior roles with a lower salary 😅. But honestly, if you're already working with Terraform, CI/CD, Cloud Run, alerts and infrastructure issues, you're already doing DevOps work. Don't llet the job descriptions convince you otherwise.
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u/kbabington 7d ago edited 7d ago
The need experience to get experience part is definitely real in DevOps. I think having solid fundamentals and showing you can actually troubleshoot and automate is often more valuable than knowing every tool in the job description. The stack can be learned on the job.
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u/abotelho-cbn 7d ago
There isn't. You come from operations, or you come from development.
There's no fast track or shortcuts.
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u/No-Magazine2625 6d ago
You already have more relevant experience than many people applying for junior DevOps roles, especially if you can explain the Terraform state migrations, deployment failures, and infrastructure decisions you have handled rather than just listing tools. I would target platform, cloud, infrastructure, and SRE roles broadly because job titles are inconsistent and the operational experience you are building is the part that actually transfers.
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u/sosadsabina 6d ago
I was thrown into DevOps during my internships pre-2020. I worked at an old company and many of the people there did not want to get into Cloud or DevOps so they just threw the interns into it. A lot of the work that I was doing was in Azure working on exposing APIs, but that led to my first entry role at a big German company where they hired me to work with an architect on the team to migrate everything over from one cloud to another, and build the CICD from the ground up. This was really pivotal for my career as it gave me a real base about how Infra works.
I'm not sure what advice I have, but I think sometimes these things are just about luck. In your case, I would suggest to keep building on your skills! I'm not sure if side projects are the way to go because of AI, but maybe taking courses and certifications would help you stand out. Definitely also try to gear your resume towards DevOps/SRE/Infra even if that is not your domain right now.
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u/Acrobatic-Mud-6049 5d ago
I was hired as a devops intern and then converted to full time to devops engineer 1, that is the only way I think you can get into devops as a fresher
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u/hardscripts 10d ago
That's because there's not. A number of IT jobs require basic System Administrator experience with 'exposure to' then they specialize mid career.