Select your current position
Pick a role and level — we'll show the growth path, skills and gap analysis.
Development path
Junior
0-2 years
Responsibility: Setting up CI/CD pipelines. Writing Dockerfiles. Server monitoring. Managing secrets. Basic cloud work.
Key skills:
Middle
2-5 years
Responsibility: Designing CI/CD. Setting up Kubernetes clusters. IaC (Terraform). Monitoring and alerting. Optimizing build processes.
Key skills:
Senior
5-8 years
Responsibility: Infrastructure architecture. Multi-environment strategy. GitOps (ArgoCD). Disaster recovery. Security hardening. Cost optimization.
Key skills:
Lead / Staff
7-12 years
Responsibility: Infrastructure strategy. DevOps practice standards. IDP (Internal Developer Platform). Coordination with development. Vendor management.
Key skills:
Principal
10+ years
Responsibility: Enterprise DevOps strategy. Multi-cloud architecture. Platform engineering vision. Industry influence.
Key skills:
Gap analysis: skills to develop
To reach the next level you'll need to develop:
Conducts chaos experiments: uses Litmus Chaos or Chaos Mesh for Kubernetes, creates game days with the team. Implements basic experiments: pod kill, network delay, resource stress. Documents hypotheses, execution and conclusions.
Implements GitOps workflow: configures ArgoCD/Flux for automatic synchronization of Kubernetes manifests from Git, organizes Git repository structure (app-of-apps, monorepo vs multi-repo), manages secrets through Sealed Secrets or External Secrets Operator.
Career transitions
Possible career trajectories for the <strong>DevOps Engineer</strong> role
↔️ Lateral 4
Adjacent roles for a lateral move
╨Я╨╡╤А╨╡╤Е╨╛╨┤ ╨▓ Cloud Engineering ╤Б ╤Д╨╛╨║╤Г╤Б╨╛╨╝ ╨╜╨░ ╨╛╨▒╨╗╨░╤З╨╜╤Г╤О ╨╕╨╜╤Д╤А╨░╤Б╤В╤А╤Г╨║╤В╤Г╤А╤Г
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╨Я╨╡╤А╨╡╤Е╨╛╨┤ ╨▓ Platform Engineering ╤Б ╤Д╨╛╨║╤Г╤Б╨╛╨╝ ╨╜╨░ developer experience
╨Я╨╡╤А╨╡╤Е╨╛╨┤ ╨▓ SRE ╤Б ╤Д╨╛╨║╤Г╤Б╨╛╨╝ ╨╜╨░ reliability