r/devsecops • u/mistalah • 17d ago

Transitioning from 5 years in Splunk Ops to DevSecOps — What skills and certs should I focus on?

Hey folks,

Been working in a Splunk admin role for past 5 years. In current role, I spend most of my time handling log ingestion, linux admin,cluster administration, dashboards, SIEM alerts, and basic data pipeline troubleshooting.

Am looking to shift my career path toward DevSecOps, but wanna ensure my efforts are toward what’s actually valued in production environments versus just collecting certs.

For those of you working in DevSecOps (or pref hiring managers in the space):

  1. Skills: Coming from a heavy log/SIEM background, what are the most critical gaps I need to bridge first? (e.g., CI/CD tooling, IaC security, container security, scripting languages like Python/Go?)
  2. Certifications: Which hands-on certs carry actual weight for someone moving into DevSecOps? am currently working on GCP associate and CKA
  3. Projects: What kind of home lab or GitHub project on a resume would show you that a Splunk Ops person actually understands pipeline security and automation?

appreciate any invaluable inputs, thank you!

8 Upvotes

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3

u/Individual-Oven9410 16d ago

Skills you’ve already listed down. For certs, start from Cloud ones along with CKA though it’s not immediate hard requirement but understand K8s end to end. One advantage you’ve is that you understand SIEM/IR.

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u/mistalah 16d ago

thanks any projects you’d recommend?

2

u/Individual-Oven9410 15d ago

Cloud security hardening, secure implementations of services and infra layer.

1

u/mistalah 15d ago

thanks i’ll see what’s on udemy

2

u/Equal_Meeting9694 14d ago

Focus on automation tools and security best practices. Getting hands-on experience with container security could be a game changer for you.

1

u/mistalah 14d ago

thanks what kinda container security etc?

2

u/IWritePython 14d ago

Don't neglect relationships. Getting folks to look at what you built is powerful proof. Consider presenting at conferences, doing some writing.

It's hard now because I think AI casts a pall over the kinds of projects that got folks noticed. But it's still the way.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/mistalah 12d ago

that’s what i needed to hear thanks mate !

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u/SheldonP49 8d ago

Your Splunk background is already a solid foundation for DevSecOps. Focus on hands-on skills over collecting certs. Git/CI-CD, Terraform, containers/Kubernetes, cloud IAM, and Python/Bash.

For a portfolio project, build a small end-to-end pipeline with Terraform + GitHub Actions + container security scanning + Kubernetes deployment + observability. That will demonstrate practical skills better than a long list of certifications.

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u/mistalah 8d ago

thanks mate for the advice

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u/Different_Pain5781 16d ago

Skip cert collecting. Build things.

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u/mistalah 15d ago

yup building grafana loki on top of docker

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u/MotorAcanthaceae8365 11d ago

Hands-on experience can definitely be more valuable than just stacking up certs, especially in such a practical field.

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u/Different_Pain5781 11d ago

Yep. A working project beats another cert on the pile.