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Hey Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice for breaking into DevOps or how to get someone’s attention to train me usefully in it in a company.

What certs get someone’s attention? Projects? Experience on resumes?

I have a lot of general IT and support experience then enjoy programming in my free time but have never done anything professional outside of school for programming though I have thrown together a few websites for friends (not the same thing I realize). I have a degree in networking and a degree in support.

I am looking for certs that I am interested in taking now and because I wasn’t sure what I wanted to specialize in, my list of certs is pretty spread out to cover a few different specializations.

I would like to go into DevOps but there are a lack of any real ‘guides’ online for any certs/experience that could get a companies attention.

Any help is appreciated!

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I don’t think there are ‘DevOps’ certs out there other than the AWS ones.

The problem is DevOps is such a wide term, DevOps to you might be something different than what it means to me and what it means to someone else.
To me DevOps is a programmer who does systems admin / Engineering tasks as well. We are talking about full stack and yet mainly backend programmers.
Things like websites , which you mean like HTML, CSS etc? Are not really ‘programming’ IMO
To get into DevOps, I’d replace the name DevOps with programmer or developer, and that’s what you’d aim for.

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Yea, I realize that is not really programming. But those are the only project I’ve completed outside of school with anything like it. Everything else was done in school or through programs trying to learn to program. But I’ve never done it enough on a professional level to really memorize anything… I’m more of a googler I guess at this point? And do a few light things at work to make my life slightly easier… or mess with people. One time I threw together a small code to run and lock someone’s computer every time they got a certain email subject line for giggles but that wasn’t complicated or more than a line lol. If I can google how to do it, I can get it done. I just don’t have concrete knowledge enough to do it myself without being pointed in the right direction.

So at this point should I focus hard on the programming end since I have a lot of the systems down? Should I try to get any certs that prove the system end knowledge?

Do you know any of the ‘keywords’ that pop up when HR is rushing through resumes for those positions?I know the term DevOps is kinda open for interpretation based on the company it seems.

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Ok, what have you done (again, websites don’t count)

What ‘language’ did you use ? That sounds again more like ‘sys admin’ / scripting than programming.

Yes, well,again depends. Most good programmers I know, know relatively little about systems stuff as they don’t do it \ need to know about it really.

Well they are usually looking for cloud experience (Azure , AWS) has experience with TypeScript, Postgres,Java, Python, Perl, (a lot of Linux/Unix tools as a lot of ‘cloud’ is UX) and the ‘standard’ Ops tools such as Docker, Puppet, Chef, etc., then the version control stuff such as Git,TFS, apache, openstack and your databases oracle, postgres, mongo mysql, and DB lifecycle management etc.

I am not kidding, I just went through a few post and they nearly all listed the same stuff,
I know why I pass when I see those job postings… :¬)

Edit: spelling…

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I tried quoting you and it went all funky and I’m sick today and not up for making it readable. I’m hitting that awesome part of my sick day where I’m trying to figure out why I come into work even though I just want to go nap in my car and whine.

ANYWAY… I’ve done literally nothing noteable. Mostly school stuff. Only real beginning to end project I remember doing right now is making a program to calculate grades for extra credit back in college. I know I’ve done other stuff but I cant remember.

I have light experience playing with java, VB, and ruby. VB i had several classes in and I hated it. I cant remember why and I haven’t done anything with it since. Java I have played with a bit mostly because I have a friend who does it for a living and will walk me through doing stuff or talking through his codes. Ruby I played with for a little because I made a modification on the ticketing system because something was annoying me at my last job. I think I set it up to assign to people automatically based on certain titles for tickets… We had quite a few tickets that popped for automated systems and on the 25th “backup failed” ticket of the day one time I was done assigning it.

That list is helpful. I can go through and try to get some of them and play with them at home

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DevOps is a process, not a job title. If you want to see what it looks like and how it touches a business, go read the book “The Phoenix Project”. Its a short read but would give you a good idea of what DevOps entails.

You probably should pick one thing, specialize in it and then branch out. Judging based on your previous few posts, you’re struggling to find something to specialize in and trying to be everything for everybody. Maybe it’s desperation or maybe it’s just lack of experience or both. I’ve been there early on in my career. I chose to keep my knowledge close to a few particular areas, mostly Windows Server and PowerShell, I do still poke around Linux quite a bit , and DevOps tools like Docker. I don’t bother trying to learn Java, Go, ruby, PHP, etc etc or trying to memorize every Cisco CLI command out there.

Instead of focusing solely on your lack of experience, highlight what you have done and then talk about what you want to to do. I think you’ll have much better luck with a strategy like that.

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I do try to be everything and I’d like to have a decent specialty that touches several different areas. I’ve met so many people who are so specialized… they don’t even know how to delete a network off a computer… Or how to speak to individuals outside of IT… or who can’t follow a few commands enough to get around a cms screen or set up a radio. Being one of those people who can’t understand basics… or being stuck doing the SAME thing… day after day after day after day… Like if I had to go to work everyday and stare at programs to translate where network issues are everyday… I’d be miserable. Every job I have had, my important point has always been I want to keep learning. I want to keep touching tech I don’t know anything about and keep branching out and learning things. Specializing scares me because of that. It has to be broad enough where I have opportunities to keep learning and DevOps seems to touch on quite a few areas depending on what a company counts it as.

Focusing on my lack of experience is a problem of mine. All through college I was the individual with the highest grades but the teachers were always surprised because I never spoke. Same thing happens with jobs/ interviews too. They’ll ask if I have experience, I’ll say yea, kinda. Then they ask specific questions about how to do something, I answer them, and they say I have more experience than they thought based on what I said. Bad habit. Not sure how to break it. I always worry I’ll get an answer wrong and look stupid because i was sooo sure I have experience lol

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Most DevOps roles are Linux based, so having a solid foundation in Linux is a must. It’s not really a programming job with a little sys admin duties. Sure, you maybe scripting but you are not coding anything for the product/service. That’s what the devs are for, who you would work with.

Keywords - Typical skills and knowledge required include but not limited to:
General computing skills (of course!) eg. networking, load balancing, security etc)
Bash scripting
Puppet, Chef, Ansible etc
Apache and Nginx
AWS - especially EC2, ELB, RDS, S3, SQS, SNS, CLI, VPCs,
Git
Redis
MySQL - maybe not DBA level but proficient.
ELK
Terraform, AWS Cloudformation etc
Packer
Jenkins/Hudson
Kubernetes, Mesos etc.
Graphite, Nagios, Grafana

This is what generally you will find in job ads relating to DevOps roles. You wouldn’t need to know everything single one eg. if the company you would work for uses Puppet then it might be doubtful they would also use Chef across the board. Learn one and know it well. Also knowing Ruby, Python or Perl would be a nice bonus, as you say you learned it before.

Now a lot of this stuff you will/can learn on the job. There are always trendy and new tools that come out, so you can’t keep up with everything. But to reiterate, knowing Linux is essential, so I would focus and start from there and then perhaps AWS. That would put you in good stead for a DevOps role.

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Puppet has a couple of certs. Additionally, Linux Academy has some good resources on DevOps (and tools), AWS, and of course, Linux.

It costs a bit of money, but I am getting more out of it than what I am paying them.

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I made the move from IT to development/DevOps almost a year ago.

What got me in was experience, I had actually been developing and automating for years before I made the shift.

I would say learn C# and PowerShell, and look around for development groups to network in.

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Hi, reading through these posts, it sounds like you are really more of an IT Generalist. DevOps is really a philosophy, where development and operations merge. The DevOps professional, from a really high level, removes obstacles for other teams through automation and engineering. It can certainly be a bit of a generalist, but often the skills required are Linux and general cross-platform languages such as Python.

As an IT Generalist, you would perform a variety of tasks, including support, systems maintenance, and automation. You would deploy machines, fix problems, work with servers and administration, handle networking, etc. It’s really a Jill of All Trades position, where you don’t dive too deep, but get to touch a lot of stuff. “IT Generalist,” like DevOps, isn’t necessarily a title, but rather a philosophy or description of a position. In that type of job, you’d likely be working for SMB (Small-Medium Business) in which they have less resources for a large-scale IT team, but need somebody to handle a lot of things other than just basic support. The fun thing about those positions is that you also can find a lot of flexibility to take on projects that are both functionally worthwhile and practically entertaining.

Study-able skills included for such positions might be:
Hardware knowledge (A+ Certification)

Networking knowledge (Network+ Certification)

Powershell (Book: Learn Powershell In a Month of Lunches)

Cross-platform, functional scripting languages such as Python

Server administration (MCP certifications are a good track for this)

If you do not have a college degree in Comp Sci (or an AAS in a specialized computing field) you will have to work from the ground up, which means doing your time in support. It will be a long road, depending on how much of a self-starter you are. You can work in IT without advanced education (I’ve got an AAS and manage an IT Team for an org with over 600 staff) as long as you are willing to learn and apply. An education will kickstart you, but IT requires constant learning.

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You should also practice your interviewing skills. There are plenty of resources for that available, and schools will often have groups where business students conduct mock interviews. Being able to interview well is of course critical, but communication should also become a strength of yours. Long gone are the days of sticking an IT Monkey back in a room to crush work – you must now be able to work functionally with others, convey and understand business objectives, etc.

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Real life , and work, are SO different than college…

Your profile says you’ve been 11 years in IT but you keep commenting back on it like you just graduated college not too long ago?

DevOps is not for everyone, I personally think it is tough, if you are not from the development / programming site, and as mentioned, most tools are UX based ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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Yea. I definitely realize work is a lot different than college. I have Linux experience. Through college it was my laptop and I know enough about linux to use it to fix windows issues. I graduated a while ago. I probably talk a lot younger with a lot less experience than I actually have. It’s just my personality. I grew up in an IT family and have been building computers since I was 6. I never really got into that whole… talking up what I know thing? It always looked like a pissing contest and everyone gets so mad about it. Plus, none of my previous jobs cover the kinda experience I’d need for DevOps and I realize that. So it’s kinda pointless to talk about them a whole hell of a lot lol.

I got tons of great suggestions here and have pulled a few of the programs on my computer to play with. None of the servers here are linux though so I’ll have to set something up at home to get back into that. After someone stepped on my Linux laptop (-.-) I never replaced it.

I mostly asked about certs because I need to sign up for a 5 day class for my current job. Part of me accepting the position was getting free classes on the clock for some of the certs I wanted and I want to get what benefits me the most in the long run. Leaning towards MCP

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Perhaps you should try some experience as a generalist somewhere. Then pickup on the areas you like the most. If you really want to get into developing learn a programming language. You’re going to need to develop project and release code for it. It doesn’t have to be a giant project, or even a new project. Just something to show some skill level. Certifications aren’t looked at much in the developer world. Then any certification you get, without any experience or projects behind you, will be about useless.

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You can get a MCP by passing a single exam.

https://www.microsoft.com/traincert/mcp/mcp/requirements.asp

The 70-410 exam for example, if you pass this , you get an MCP and then if you take 70-411 and or 74-409 / 70-412 You’d get an MCSA SErver 2012 R2

The 2016 certs are still in beta and it does not say if they give you MCP ‘status’

Credit toward certification: MCP, MCSA, MCSE

Credit toward certification: MCSA
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After looking into this myself, these are the conclusions I have drawn:

First of all, I would say you don’t ‘get started’ in DevOps, it would be just where your career might end up if you are able to acquire certain experience along your way.

Those who have said DevOps is a process are correct, it seems to be often used as kind of a job title. Someone could be in a job that some people might label as ‘DevOps’, without even knowing it.

What people typically call DevOps I would say are usually Linux Sysadmins, who work with cloud technologies, who work at software companies. So if you want to become “DevOps” a good starting point would be working as a sysadmin in a Linux environment. Then land an IT job at a software company.

DevOps, is something real, but it has become more of a buzz word. Good IT techs don’t need to use a GUI, and they know how to automate tasks. Techs in “DevOps” make more money firstly because they are good techs.

Now some advice. Use your current job to get experience. Experience matter way more than certs. You have to work with what you have, so you’ll have to learn something applicable to your environment. But that will be worth so much more than messing around with Chef a couple times and then never actually using it in production.

If you’re a Windows environment, learn Powershell. Figure out how to automate everything you do currently in your job. Learn how to make your scripts more readable, use markdown. It’s easy to hack together a script, instead learn the best way you should do it.

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Best way to get into DevOps … get your company to redefine your job title. Sounds like you really are already doing it as many of us are, but just not “officially”. If they are open to it, ask to be reclassified as “DevOps ” in the company with no pay increase (unless they are willing). They might even let you write your own job description and you can put in some additional stuff you want to do.

With the broad term of “DevOps,” I’ve been doing that since I started in IT. Build systems, Deploy systems, Integrate systems, Automate Systems, Assist teams/users in using systems, Develop scripts and applications for systems, etc, etc … It really feels more like a label at this point.

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The Phoenix Project is a great read that should be handed to every IT person out there as required reading.

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