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.

were on 50+ microservices on gcp, still doing our own deploy tooling. keep hearing gitops is the way and honestly cant tell if thats real or just the current hype cycle.

not looking for a sales pitch, more curious what broke for you after the demo phase. drift detection, secrets, rollback under load, whatever. did it actually reduce incidents or just move the pain somewhere else

what would you tell yourself before adopting it

Hey everyone,
Is anyone here currently working in AWS Data Center Operations (DCO) in the Frankfurt region (or Germany) or familiar with their technical screening process?

I recently completed a 60-minute technical phone screen with an engineer for an AWS DCO / IT Support role in Germany. During the technical portion, I answered all hardware, networking, and cabling troubleshooting questions without getting stuck. At the end, the interviewer explicitly told me: "The technical part was pretty good, that's what I can tell you."

For the behavioral part, I answered four questions using the STAR method. In the closing feedback, the interviewer noted that I sounded a bit nervous and strictly said the literal STAR words out loud ("The situation was...", "My task was...", "The action was...", "The result was..."), though he mentioned that if my recruiter instructed me to use that exact structure, it doesn't matter.

For anyone who has been through this specific Frankfurt/EMEA pipeline or interviews for AWS DCO: does sounding nervous or explicitly vocalizing STAR labels carry a negative impact if the technical answers and core story data points were solid? What are the realistic odds of moving forward to the onsite loop from here?

Would really appreciate any insights from anyone with AWS DCO experience in Frankfurt or Germany. Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I’ve just started learning DevOps from scratch and thought it might be fun to learn together with others here. If anyone is also starting out, we can share resources, discuss concepts, and keep each other updated on our progress.

I feel it’s always more motivating when a few people are learning the same thing together. Having a small group with the same goal makes the process more encouraging and enjoyable.

If you’re interested, feel free to comment...

Hey r/devops, welcome to our weekly self-promotion thread!

Feel free to use this thread to promote any projects, ideas, or any repos you're wanting to share. Please keep in mind that we ask you to stay friendly, civil, and adhere to the subreddit rules!

I've heard the "engineering doesn't care about cost" problem come up quite a bit, but I'm starting to wonder if that's actually the right diagnosis.

If an engineer can see latency, errors, CPU, memory and availability for their service, but has no idea whether that service costs $500 or $50,000 a month, can we really expect cost to factor into their decisions?

What have teams done to give engineers enough cost visibility to make better decisions without turning every engineer into a FinOps specialist?

I'm currently working in DevOps/SRE and I'm trying to better understand the gap between my current experience and what is expected from DevOps/SRE engineers in other countries.

My long-term goal is to work internationally, so I'm trying to be realistic about where I stand and what I need to improve before making that move.

I'd really like to connect with DevOps/SRE engineers who are currently working in countries outside their home country, especially people who have gone through a similar transition.

I'm interested in learning about things such as:

• What technical skills are most important for international DevOps/SRE roles?
• Which areas did you personally have to improve when moving to another country?
• How important are Kubernetes, AWS/Azure/GCP, Terraform, CI/CD, observability, security, and scripting in your current role?
• Are there any skills that people often overlook when preparing for these roles?
• What level of system design, troubleshooting, Linux, networking, and cloud knowledge is expected?
• How important are communication and teamwork skills compared with technical skills?
• What would you focus on if you were preparing for an international DevOps/SRE role from scratch today?

I'm not looking for job offers or referrals. I'm mainly trying to identify my knowledge gaps, learn from people with real experience, and build a better learning path.

If you're working abroad as a DevOps/SRE engineer and are open to sharing your experience, I'd really appreciate a chat. Even a short 15–20 minute conversation would be very helpful.

Happy to connect with others who are on a similar path too. We can exchange what we're learning and help each other improve.

Thanks!

I am a contributor to both terraform-provider-aws and Ansible Core repos, as well as Ansible Community AWS repo. I am on the lookout for additional projects to contribute to, ideally ones that have plenty of issues and where reviews are done quickly. It should also be quick and easy to compile from source. Looking for Golang or Python projects for code base programming language. Any ideas here?

I’ve been reflecting on my current stack and daily routine lately. While I appreciate the stability of my current role, the day-to-day maintenance and incremental improvements mean I'm not always exposed to new paradigms or forced out of my comfort zone.

The landscape moves incredibly fast right now, between the shift toward Platform Engineering, AI-assisted workflows, and new CNCF projects dropping every week, I want to make sure I don't stagnate.

I'd love to hear how you all are keeping your edge and pushing yourselves. Specifically:

• What’s your go-to method for upskilling? (Homelabs, contributing to open source, chasing certs, or just carving out dedicated learning time at work?)
• How do you manufacture new challenges when your day job gets a bit too comfortable or repetitive?
• What is the most interesting tool, pattern, or concept you are digging into right now?

Looking forward to hearing what everyone is working on!