How Much Coding Knowledge Do I Really Need for DevOps?

A few years ago, it felt more critical to write code manually, but with AI tools, that pressure has eased up significantly. You should focus on understanding the basics, OOP principles, and common libraries. That way, even if you're using AI to generate code, you'll know what's going on under the hood.

AI-generated code is fine as long as you understand it. If you can't explain what it does, it shouldn't go live! I write a fair amount of code for production, and I always know exactly what each piece is doing, even if I got some AI help along the way.

Honestly, the coding you need depends a lot on your specific DevOps job. In tech-savvy organizations, you'll definitely be coding more. The other day, I helped a colleague debug a failing Kubernetes CronJob that was based on Python—turns out he was using the wrong tools! Understanding coding helps you catch mistakes like that, so I recommend learning as much as you can, although AI is a great tool to fill in gaps.

You really just need to be able to read and understand the code that AI generates. If something doesn’t look right, you should be able to spot it. In my experience, most code is adapted from existing solutions anyway, so don’t stress about writing everything from scratch—that's actually pretty rare! But, you do need a solid grasp of coding concepts to navigate interviews or real-world scenarios effectively.

At the end of the day, your ability to learn and adapt is crucial. You'll often encounter bizarre situations that a course might not cover, like fixing someone else's spaghetti code. Just be ready to pick things up as you go, and dive into coding challenges when you can!