How to get started with DevOps? What skills should we start with?

The following article is part of a "Pierwsze kroki w IT" podcast in which I appeared as a guest.

○ I started as an admin. However, I don't think this is the only right way. I'll even tell you that most of my friends became DevOps after being programmers. Both groups of people have useful skills in working as DevOps, there will be a place for both. I don't think there is only one way.

○ If you want to be DevOps, it doesn't matter where you start. It is important that you start and do something in this direction, be consistent, learn more useful things at work. In my opinion, a DevOps engineer must constantly learn and stay up to date. It takes a lot of work. You have to like it. I, being a cloud enthusiast, would say that it is worth investing your time in getting to know the cloud. However, I may not be objective on this subject, but that's my opinion.

○ Everyone should choose their own path, there are many ways to the same goal. The worst thing in my opinion is to force yourself to do something you don't like. The best way to learn is by doing. It is good to find a mentor who is already DevOps and can guide us accordingly. When choosing a mentor, it is important to remember that this person not only has knowledge, but also is able to pass it on. It must be remembered here that the mentor will not do everything for us, he will rather show us the direction.
DevOps responsibilities often change depending on the company and career path you choose, so it's not that easy. However, there are things that everyone should know or know how they work. Here, the role of a mentor to show us them, motivate us to work properly and check our progress. A good mentor will adjust the level of learning to us, he will not overwhelm us with the enormity of knowledge, but also will not make us bored or learn unnecessary things.

○ Speaking of specifics, it will be useful to know the version control system, e.g. GIT, there are a lot of free tutorials on this topic on the internet.

○ You don't need to know how every CI/CD tool works, but it's nice to know how it works. Same with the cloud, once you get to know one cloud it's easy to understand another one, well at least that's what I had, that's how it works for me. Knowing one tool helped me quickly get started with another.

○ At a later stage, the ability to build infrastructure from code will probably be useful, here terraform is probably the most universal, but first you need to build a solid foundation.

○ Now that we've got to the infrastructure, it's nice to know how the building blocks are connected. Maybe I'm not very objective here because I was already creating simple computer networks before I went to college, but anyway it's nice when you know the basic elements.

○ Finally, I would like to mention soft skills that are equally important. Everyone should have the ability to work in a team. In the work of a DevOps, contact with other people and teams is essential. So it is worth improving skills that help in solving problems and communicating with others, giving feedback, etc. Another skill is English. Most of the documentation is written in it, the same applies to tutorials, guides and the aforementioned communication. I also communicate with the team in English on a daily basis. Conversations in Polish also take place, but only when all present speak this language. I have worked with people from many countries and the common language of communication has always been English. In most companies, at least basic knowledge of it is required.

If you are interested in this article, please visit my blog lepczynski.it

You can also visit my YouTube channel Wojciech Lepczynski