Hi everyone, I currently work in technical support and want to move into DevOps. I'm looking for practical advice on where to begin, which skills matter most, and how to gain hands-on experience as a beginner. I'd especially appreciate guidance from people who have worked in DevOps or related infrastructure roles and understand the common mistakes newcomers make.
5 Answers
The fastest way to learn is to automate something genuinely repetitive from your support work, such as checking several machines, collecting logs, or running the same diagnostic command across multiple systems. A real script that solves an annoying problem is more valuable in an interview than simply listing courses or certifications.
Your support background is a useful starting point because you already understand incidents, troubleshooting, logs, and working under pressure. Focus first on Linux fundamentals, networking, Git, and scripting with Bash or Python. Then choose one cloud provider and build a small project that includes a container, deployment, logging, and a rollback process.
Practice labs can help you get hands-on experience, especially when you’re starting from scratch. Courses are useful for structure, but don’t only watch videos—build things yourself and learn to read official documentation. You don’t need to master every tool immediately; learn the fundamentals first and add technologies like containers, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code gradually.
Set up a small home lab or use a cloud free tier. A good beginner project could use Terraform to create infrastructure, a Git repository with a CI/CD pipeline, and a simple application deployed in a container. Break things, troubleshoot them, and document the setup and lessons learned in a README so you have a portfolio to discuss.
A practical learning order would be Linux, networking, Git, Bash or Python, one cloud platform such as AWS or Azure, containers, and then CI/CD and Terraform. DevOps and platform-focused roles are not usually truly entry-level, so gaining experience through support, Linux administration, cloud operations, or junior development can be a realistic path. Make sure you actually enjoy troubleshooting and automation rather than pursuing the field only because of the salary.
That makes sense. I’m still very new to automation, so I’ll start with Linux and scripting before trying to build a larger project.