A 6-month plan to go from near-beginner to a hireable DevOps engineer — and a build-in-public playbook that gets you seen by the people who do the hiring. Run both every day.
Skills get you through the interview. Being seen is how you get the interview at all — especially for remote roles, where a public body of work stands in for the in-person signal you'd give onsite. Engineering managers at smaller and remote-first companies often post openings on X and LinkedIn before they hit official job boards. If you're plugged in, you see them on day one.
Six monthly stages, each ending in a real project pushed to GitHub. Linux → cloud → containers → Kubernetes → CI/CD → infrastructure as code. This is what you can do.
# output: a portfolio + certificationsPost what you build, every day. Write it up, share the wins and the bugs, and engage with real DevOps engineers. This is how people find out you can do it.
# output: an audience + warm intros + offersDon't course-hop. One course per topic, finish it, build the project, move on. For every hour of video, spend an hour in a terminal — Kubernetes can't be learned by watching.
Everything runs on Linux and lives in Git. Non-negotiable.
Repo of Bash scripts that bootstrap a fresh Linux server: users, SSH, scheduled backups, log parsing. Clean README.
You automate with code, and infrastructure lives in the cloud.
Deploy a web app on EC2 + S3 with a custom domain, locked down by IAM & security groups. Bonus: a boto3 script that builds and tears it down.
In almost every modern DevOps job description.
Containerize your Month-2 app: multi-stage Dockerfile, DB + cache via Compose, image pushed to a registry.
The heart of DevOps hiring — the two things every JD asks for.
Push code → pipeline builds the image, runs tests, deploys to Kubernetes automatically. This single project demonstrates the entire DevOps loop.
What separates "can deploy" from "can run production."
Rebuild the CI/CD project so all AWS infra is Terraform, servers configured by Ansible, app monitored by Prometheus + Grafana.
Half technical polish, half aggressive applying. Don't wait to feel "ready."
Pin your 4–5 best projects. Post a "here's what I built in 6 months" thread. Start the conversations you've been warming up all along.
Certs get you past screening; projects get you hired. The minimum viable stack is SAA + Terraform Associate. Add CKA if budget and time allow — its hands-on format is exactly why employers trust it. The whole learning path can be done free; you only pay for the exams you choose.
Udemy tip: never pay list price ($90–100). Sales bring courses to ₹450–1,500 constantly — wait a day if one isn't discounted.
Treat your learning like continuous deployment: small, visible releases, daily. A public trail of work is your interview before the interview — and for remote roles, it's often the deciding signal. Frame it as a challenge: #100DaysOfDevOps (or join Michael Cade's community #90DaysOfDevOps). Post "Day N" every day and the streak builds both skill and audience.
Your primary feed. Short build logs, TILs, screenshots. Where DevOps people and hiring managers hang out.
Longer form, more recruiter eyes in India. Repurpose your best X posts into a fuller story.
Turn a project into an article. Depth that ranks on Google and shows you can communicate.
A green contribution graph is silent proof of consistency. Recruiters check it.
You said remote ideally, onsite is fine — keep both funnels open, but know they reward different things. Run both, weighted toward whichever offers come first.
Hire on demonstrated async ability and a self-driven portfolio. Your posts and writeups are the proof you communicate well without a desk next to someone. Over-index on written clarity. Boards: Wellfound, RemoteOK, Himalayas, WeWorkRemotely, LinkedIn "remote" filter — plus the informal X/LinkedIn posts you'll catch by being plugged in.
Indian service companies (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Accenture, LTIMindtree) hire freshers and trainees most readily — a realistic first foothold. Pay is lower to start, but it gets you in; the big jumps come in years 2–4. Apply broadly here while you build the remote case.
Both pipelines, every day. Consistency beats intensity-then-burnout. Five focused hours, something learned, something shipped publicly.