These skills do not affect the main grade but show the breadth of your profile.
AI Coding Assistants
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Uses AI for DevOps: generating pipeline configs, Terraform modules, troubleshooting. Verifies AI-generated infrastructure code before applying.
Applies LLMs for DevOps: automated incident analysis, Dockerfile optimization, CI/CD troubleshooting. Critically evaluates AI recommendations.
Integrates AI into DevOps operations: automated config review, intelligent deployment decisions, predictive scaling. Defines AI boundaries.
Defines AI strategy for DevOps: AIOps integration, AI-assisted operations, automation enhancement. Trains team on AI tools.
Uses Cursor IDE for writing infrastructure code: Terraform/Ansible autocompletion, Dockerfile generation from descriptions. Applies AI suggestions for learning new DevOps tools and configuration formats.
Effectively applies Cursor for DevOps tasks: CI/CD pipeline generation, Helm chart refactoring, automation script writing. Uses project context for accurate suggestions, verifies AI-generated code for security.
Defines AI tool usage strategy for DevOps team: Cursor/Copilot standards, security policies for AI-generated code. Designs workflow for AI integration into review processes, evaluates ROI and team productivity.
Uses GitHub Copilot for writing bash scripts, YAML configurations and simple automations. Accepts suggestions for Dockerfile, docker-compose and CI/CD templates. Verifies generated code before use.
Effectively uses Copilot for DevOps: generating Terraform modules, Ansible playbooks, Kubernetes manifests. Applies Copilot Chat for debugging issues, log analysis and documentation creation. Critically evaluates and verifies all generated output.
Optimizes Copilot usage for infrastructure code: fine-tuning context for accurate IaC suggestions, creating custom instructions for DevOps patterns. Automates code review with Copilot, integrates into quality assurance pipelines.
Defines AI assistant usage policies for infrastructure code: security guidelines, approved scenarios, review processes. Evaluates Copilot's impact on DevOps team productivity, implements Copilot for Business with organizational settings.
Alerting & On-Call
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Understands the difference between SLI, SLO and SLA: indicators, objectives and agreements. Knows main SLIs: availability, latency, throughput, error rate. Monitors SLO dashboards and escalates on error budget violations.
Defines and implements SLI/SLO for services: selecting meaningful indicators, setting realistic targets, configuring error budget tracking. Creates SLO dashboards in Grafana with burn rate alerts, configures multi-window alerting.
Designs SLO framework for the organization: SLI definition standards for different service types, automated error budget calculation. Implements SLO-based alerting through Sloth/Pyrra, integrates with incident management and capacity planning.
Defines SRE culture through SLO: standards for each service tier, error budget policies (feature freeze on exhaustion). Designs organizational SLO dashboard, review and target revision processes, product management integration.
Algorithms & Data Structures
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Understands basic algorithmic concepts for DevOps: simple dependency ordering, basic pipeline scheduling logic, configuration sorting and filtering. Follows team guidance on algorithm selection for automation scripts.
Independently applies algorithmic thinking in DevOps: evaluates pipeline scheduling efficiency, understands dependency resolution algorithms in package managers, selects caching strategies for build acceleration. Analyzes complexity of deployment and provisioning automation operations.
Applies algorithmic thinking to DevOps: deployment scheduling algorithms for zero-downtime releases, pipeline dependency resolution algorithms, artifact caching algorithms for build acceleration. Designs efficient resource allocation algorithms for CI/CD infrastructure scaling.
Designs high-load data processing pipelines considering algorithmic complexity. Optimizes infrastructure automation scripts for O(n), applies efficient structures for log parsing and event routing. Reviews team scripts for performance and scalability.
Understands basic data structures for DevOps: YAML/JSON configuration objects, pipeline stage arrays, environment variable maps. Follows team conventions for structuring CI/CD configurations and deployment parameter files.
Independently selects appropriate data structures for DevOps: YAML/JSON configuration hierarchies, pipeline dependency graphs, artifact metadata schemas. Understands trade-offs between flat vs nested configuration structures for CI/CD pipeline maintainability.
Selects optimal data structures for DevOps tooling: directed acyclic graphs for CI/CD pipeline dependencies, tree structures for configuration hierarchy management, key-value stores for deployment state. Optimizes artifact storage and caching structures for build acceleration. Designs efficient data models for infrastructure inventory and change tracking.
Applies advanced data structures for DevOps tooling optimization: trees for configurations, service dependency graphs, hash tables for artifact caching. Designs efficient storage schemes for pipeline metadata and infrastructure state.
API Management
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Documents DevOps APIs and tools: pipeline usage, deployment procedures, CLI guides. Writes README for infrastructure repos.
Creates DevOps documentation: runbooks, architecture diagrams, pipeline templates. Automates documentation generation.
Designs documentation strategy: living documentation, automated diagrams, self-service guides. Implements docs-as-code.
Defines documentation standards: mandatory runbooks, pipeline docs, review process. Implements documentation culture.
API Protocols
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Understands WebSocket for DevOps: deploying real-time services, health monitoring, connection tracking. Configures load balancer for WebSocket.
Provides DevOps for WebSocket: sticky sessions, connection draining, scaling configuration. Monitors WebSocket-specific metrics.
Designs WebSocket infrastructure: load balancing strategy, connection distribution, failover. Defines operational requirements.
Defines WebSocket infrastructure standards: scaling policies, monitoring requirements, capacity planning.
Application Security
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Understands basic OWASP Top 10 security principles in DevOps context. Scans Docker images for vulnerabilities using Trivy, checks dependencies through Dependabot. Follows security checklists when configuring CI/CD pipelines.
Integrates SAST/DAST tools into CI/CD pipelines: SonarQube, Snyk, OWASP ZAP. Configures automated image and dependency scanning, implements security quality gates. Manages secrets through environment variables and vault.
Designs DevSecOps pipelines: automated scanning at all CI/CD stages, policy-as-code through OPA/Gatekeeper, infrastructure compliance checks. Implements shift-left security, configures SBOM generation and vulnerability management.
Defines organizational DevSecOps strategy: CI/CD security standards, production image admission policies, automated compliance. Implements security-as-code approach, designs centralized vulnerability and security incident management system.
Applies secure coding for DevOps: secrets in CI/CD, secure pipeline configs, no credentials in logs. Uses secrets manager.
Implements security in DevOps: signed commits, container image scanning, secure pipeline templates. Implements supply chain security.
Designs secure DevOps: SLSA compliance, attestation chains, secure software delivery. Implements security gates in pipelines.
Defines DevSecOps standards: mandatory security scanning, signed artifacts, vulnerability policies. Implements security-by-default.
Authentication & Authorization
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Understands JWT/OAuth for DevOps: configures auth in CI/CD pipelines, service account tokens. Manages credentials for deployment.
Provides auth in DevOps: OIDC for CI/CD (GitHub Actions OIDC), token-based deployment auth, certificate management. Automates rotation.
Designs auth infrastructure: centralized IAM for pipelines, workload identity, zero-trust deployment auth. Implements certificate automation.
Defines DevOps auth standards: OIDC requirements, token policies, certificate lifecycle. Coordinates identity management.
Caching
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Uses Redis at a basic level in Terraform/Ansible. Performs simple tasks using established templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices.
Independently implements tasks with Redis in Terraform/Ansible. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests with Terratest/InSpec.
Deploys and manages Redis clusters for DevOps needs: CI/CD result caching, self-service portal session storage, pub/sub for real-time notifications. Configures Redis Sentinel for high availability, monitors through Prometheus exporter.
Designs caching strategy for DevOps platform: Redis clusters for pipeline state storage, distributed locks for deployments, automation task queues. Optimizes performance and configures automated failover.
CI/CD
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Understands GitHub Actions workflow structure: events, jobs, steps, uses. Runs ready-made pipelines, reads execution logs and fixes simple errors. Knows basic actions (checkout, setup-node) and YAML configuration syntax.
Develops CI/CD pipelines on GitHub Actions: matrix builds, reusable workflows, composite actions. Configures dependency caching, parallel test execution, deployment to different environments. Manages secrets and environments with approval rules.
Designs scalable CI/CD platform on GitHub Actions: self-hosted runners on Kubernetes (ARC), custom actions for the organization, OIDC integration with clouds. Optimizes execution time through caching, parallelism and condition-based execution.
Defines GitHub Actions CI/CD standards for the organization: reusable workflow library, runner security standards, governance and compliance. Designs self-hosted runner architecture with autoscaling, pipeline efficiency metrics.
Understands .gitlab-ci.yml structure: stages, jobs, scripts, artifacts. Runs pipelines, reads logs and understands job statuses. Knows basic concepts: variables, cache, execution rules (rules/only/except).
Develops CI/CD pipelines in GitLab: multi-stage pipelines, parent-child and downstream pipelines, include templates. Configures GitLab Runners (Docker, Kubernetes executors), manages variables, environments and review apps.
Designs CI/CD platform on GitLab: shared pipeline templates for the organization, dynamic child pipelines, DAG optimization. Configures GitLab Runner autoscaling on Kubernetes, integrates with Vault for secrets, implements compliance pipelines.
Defines GitLab CI/CD standards for the organization: include template library, compliance framework, runner infrastructure standards. Designs multi-project pipeline architecture, DORA metrics for delivery effectiveness evaluation.
Understands the fundamentals of Jenkins. Applies basic practices in daily work. Follows recommendations from the team and documentation.
Independently creates and maintains Jenkins. Configures CI/CD pipelines. Automates routine operations.
Designs CI/CD architecture with Jenkins. Optimizes pipeline speed and reliability. Implements progressive delivery.
Defines DevOps strategy with Jenkins. Establishes CI/CD standards. Implements platform engineering approaches.
Clean Code & Refactoring
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Understands basic code quality principles for CI/CD pipelines and shell scripts. Follows team conventions for YAML structure, script formatting, and variable naming. Writes simple, clean automation scripts with basic error handling. Accepts code review feedback on pipeline code.
Independently applies code quality practices in DevOps automation. Writes clean CI/CD pipeline configurations and deployment scripts with proper error handling. Understands trade-offs between pipeline complexity and reliability. Reviews automation code for idempotency, secret handling, and failure recovery patterns.
Designs code quality standards for DevOps tooling: CI/CD pipeline structure, shell script best practices, configuration management code style. Refactors complex deployment scripts into modular, testable automation. Establishes review practices for pipeline reliability, secret management, and infrastructure reproducibility.
Implements code quality culture in DevOps team: mandatory linters for Terraform/Ansible, static analysis for Dockerfiles, Helm chart checks. Configures quality gates in CI/CD pipelines, conducts systematic infrastructure code reviews.
Cloud Providers
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Understands core AWS services: EC2, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC. Works with AWS Console and CLI for basic operations, deploys simple resources by instruction. Knows concepts of regions, availability zones and basic IAM policy principles.
Manages AWS infrastructure through Terraform/CloudFormation: VPC with subnets, EKS clusters, RDS instances, S3 buckets with lifecycle policies. Configures IAM roles and policies, CloudWatch alerts, EC2 and EKS autoscaling.
Designs production architecture on AWS: multi-AZ deployments, EKS with Fargate and Karpenter, complex VPC topologies with Transit Gateway. Optimizes costs through Reserved Instances, Savings Plans and Spot strategies. Configures AWS Organizations and SCPs.
Defines AWS cloud strategy for the organization: Landing Zone architecture, multi-account strategy with Control Tower, FinOps practices. Designs network architecture for hundreds of services, security standards through GuardDuty, SecurityHub and Config Rules.
Code Review
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Participates in infrastructure code reviews: checks Terraform files, Dockerfiles, CI/CD configurations using checklists. Leaves constructive comments, learns from senior engineer feedback. Understands the importance of peer review for IaC.
Conducts quality code reviews: checking Terraform modules for best practices, Helm charts for security, CI/CD pipelines for efficiency. Uses automated review (tflint, hadolint, yamllint) in PR pipelines. Provides detailed feedback.
Designs infrastructure code review process: automated checks (Checkov, tfsec, Conftest), mandatory reviewers through CODEOWNERS. Implements plan review for Terraform (Atlantis/Spacelift), defines approval criteria for different change types.
Defines code review culture in DevOps organization: quality gate standards, automated compliance checks, review SLA. Designs workflow from PR to production: automated testing, security scanning, plan review, approval chain.
Collaboration Tools
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Understands documentation as code principle: documentation in Git alongside code. Writes README for infrastructure repositories, creates simple runbooks in Markdown. Knows Markdown basics, uses templates for documentation.
Implements documentation as code: auto-generation from Terraform (terraform-docs), Helm (helm-docs), OpenAPI. Configures MkDocs/Docusaurus for internal documentation, CI/CD for auto-publishing. Creates architecture decision records (ADR).
Designs documentation system for DevOps: unified portal (Backstage) with auto-generated documentation, runbooks with monitoring integration. Implements docs-as-code pipeline: automated validation, link checking, freshness alerts.
Defines organizational documentation standards: mandatory documentation for each service, ADR and runbook templates, review processes. Designs Internal Developer Portal with service catalog, automated documentation and search.
Concurrency & Parallelism
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Understands the fundamentals of Async Programming at a basic level. Applies simple concepts in work tasks using Python/Bash/Go. Follows recommendations from senior developers when solving problems.
Independently applies async programming in DevOps tooling: concurrent infrastructure provisioning, async deployment orchestration, non-blocking monitoring queries. Understands trade-offs between parallel and sequential execution in automation scripts.
Designs async architectures for DevOps automation: concurrent infrastructure operations at scale, async deployment orchestration with rollback support, non-blocking monitoring data aggregation. Mentors team on async patterns for operational tooling.
Designs asynchronous orchestration systems: parallel CI/CD stage execution, concurrent multi-environment deployment, non-blocking metrics collection. Applies event-driven approach for real-time infrastructure event response.
Understands concurrency for DevOps: parallel pipeline stages, concurrent deployments. Manages parallelism in CI/CD runners.
Implements parallel DevOps operations: concurrent multi-environment deployments, parallel testing stages, distributed builds. Manages resource contention.
Designs concurrent deployment systems: parallel multi-region rollouts, concurrent infrastructure updates, orchestrated pipelines.
Defines concurrency standards: parallel deployment policies, resource locking, race condition prevention in pipelines.
Container Security
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Runs Docker image scanning through Trivy by instruction, understands vulnerability severity levels (Critical, High, Medium, Low). Reads scan reports and escalates critical findings to senior engineers.
Integrates container scanning into CI/CD: Trivy, Grype or Snyk Container. Configures quality gates for blocking images with Critical vulnerabilities, generates SBOM through Syft. Manages allowlists for acceptable vulnerabilities.
Designs comprehensive container security system: scanning at all stages (build, registry, runtime), Kubernetes admission controller integration. Implements runtime security through Falco, configures automated base image patching.
Defines organizational container security strategy: image admission standards, automated vulnerability management, MTTR metrics for vulnerabilities. Designs centralized scanning platform with SIEM and incident management integration.
Containerization
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Runs containers from ready-made images, understands Dockerfile instructions (FROM, COPY, RUN, EXPOSE). Builds simple application images, works with docker-compose for local development. Knows Docker networking model basics and volume mounts.
Creates optimized multi-stage Docker images with minimal size and attack surface. Configures CI/CD for automated building and pushing to Container Registry, uses BuildKit caching. Manages docker-compose for complex development environments.
Designs containerization strategy: organizational standard base images, rootless containers, distroless final images. Optimizes layers for maximum caching, configures Trivy/Snyk scanning in pipelines. Implements Docker Content Trust and image signing.
Defines corporate containerization standards: golden images, image security policies, automated lifecycle management. Designs internal Container Registry with auto-cleanup, vulnerability scanning and admission policies for Kubernetes.
Database Optimization
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Understands database indexing for DevOps: monitoring index health, automated alerting on performance issues. Performs index maintenance.
Manages indexing in DevOps: automated index maintenance, monitoring tools, migration integration. Configures performance dashboards.
Designs database operations: automated index analysis, maintenance schedules, performance monitoring pipeline. Defines operational SLA.
Defines database operations standards: index monitoring requirements, maintenance procedures, escalation policies. Coordinates with DBA.
Understands query optimization for DevOps: monitoring slow queries, baseline performance metrics. Configures automated alerts.
Manages query performance: automated slow query detection, dashboard creation, performance trending. Integrates into monitoring stack.
Designs query monitoring: automated analysis, performance regression detection, capacity planning. Defines performance SLO.
Defines query performance standards: monitoring requirements, alerting policies, escalation procedures. Implements automated optimization.
Deployment Strategies
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Understands blue-green deployment concept: two identical environments, traffic switching. Knows advantages (zero-downtime, fast rollback) and limitations (resources, DB migrations). Observes the deployment process under senior engineer guidance.
Implements blue-green deployments in Kubernetes: through Service selector switch, Argo Rollouts or Istio traffic management. Configures automated post-switch health verification, rollback scripts. Manages database migrations for both-version compatibility.
Designs blue-green strategy for production: automated switching with pre/post-deployment hooks, monitoring integration for automatic rollback. Solves database migration, session management and cache invalidation challenges during switching.
Defines blue-green deployment standards for the organization: when to apply blue-green vs canary vs rolling, validation checklists. Designs universal deployment pipeline with strategy selection, automated verification and SLO-based promotion.
Understands canary deployment concept: gradual rollout of new version to a portion of traffic. Knows differences from blue-green, understands the role of metrics in promotion decisions. Observes the canary deployment process.
Implements canary deployments through Argo Rollouts or Istio: configuring promotion steps (10%→30%→70%→100%), integration tests between steps. Defines analysis metrics (error rate, latency, saturation), configures automated rollback.
Designs canary deployment platform: Argo Rollouts with analysis templates, Prometheus metrics for automatic promotion/rollback. Implements Flagger for service mesh-based canary, configures custom metrics and webhook analyzers.
Defines progressive delivery strategy for the organization: canary analysis standards, mandatory metrics and SLO thresholds for promotion. Designs unified delivery pipeline with automated canary for all service types, incident management integration.
Distributed Tracing
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Understands OpenTelemetry concepts: traces, metrics, logs as three pillars of observability. Knows components: SDK, Collector, exporters. Reads traces in Jaeger/Tempo, understands spans and their relationships in distributed systems.
Deploys and configures OpenTelemetry: OTel Collector in Kubernetes (DaemonSet/Sidecar), SDK integration for applications. Configures auto-instrumentation, processing pipeline (processors, exporters), sending to Jaeger/Tempo/Datadog.
Designs observability platform on OpenTelemetry: unified collection pipeline for traces/metrics/logs, tail-based sampling, context propagation. Implements OTel Operator for Kubernetes, configures adaptive sampling and cross-signal correlation.
Defines organizational observability strategy on OpenTelemetry: instrumentation standards, semantic conventions, vendor-agnostic pipeline. Designs centralized OTel infrastructure with multi-tenant Collector fleet, governance and cost management.
DNS & Networking
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Understands CDN principles: caching, edge servers, PoP points, TTL. Configures basic CloudFront/Cloudflare distributions by instruction. Knows the difference between origin and edge, understands CDN's role in performance.
Configures and manages CDN: CloudFront with custom origins, cache behaviors, Lambda@Edge. Optimizes cache hit ratio through proper headers, configures invalidation in CI/CD. Configures Cloudflare Workers for edge computing.
Designs CDN architecture for production: multi-CDN strategy, intelligent routing, edge computing for API. Optimizes global content delivery, configures WAF and DDoS protection at the edge, automates configuration through Terraform.
Defines organizational edge infrastructure strategy: CDN provider selection, configuration standards, CDN FinOps. Designs edge computing architecture for latency reduction, monitoring integration and alerting for global availability.
Understands load balancing principles: round-robin, least connections, health checks. Knows the difference between L4 and L7 balancers, understands the role of ALB/NLB in AWS. Configures basic Kubernetes Service of LoadBalancer type.
Configures load balancers: AWS ALB/NLB with target groups, Nginx Ingress in Kubernetes, HAProxy. Configures SSL termination, sticky sessions, health checks. Manages Ingress resources with annotations for different controllers.
Designs load balancing architecture for production: multi-level LB (Global → Regional → Pod), GSLB for geo-distribution, circuit breaking. Configures advanced routing through Istio/Envoy, optimizes for latency and throughput.
Defines organizational load balancing strategy: standards for all service types, configuration automation, service mesh integration. Designs global traffic architecture considering disaster recovery and multi-region failover.
Understands VPN principles: tunneling, encryption, protocols (IPSec, WireGuard, OpenVPN). Connects to corporate VPN, understands the difference between site-to-site and client VPN. Knows basic network security concepts.
Configures VPN solutions: AWS Site-to-Site VPN, WireGuard for dev environments, OpenVPN Access Server. Manages certificates and keys, configures split-tunneling and routing. Integrates VPN with cloud VPCs and Kubernetes clusters.
Designs VPN infrastructure for production: redundant site-to-site VPN with BGP, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute as primary with VPN failover. Implements zero-trust alternatives (Tailscale, Boundary), configures monitoring and automatic tunnel failover.
Defines remote access strategy: transition from traditional VPN to zero-trust (BeyondCorp), connection standards for all teams. Designs secure access architecture for multi-cloud environment with centralized management and auditing.
E2E Testing
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Tests CI/CD end-to-end: verifies full pipeline flow, deployment verification, rollback testing. Participates in deployment validation.
Designs e2e tests for DevOps: deployment pipeline testing, environment promotion validation, infrastructure verification.
Defines e2e testing strategy: cross-environment validation, disaster recovery testing, production readiness verification.
Implements e2e testing standards: mandatory deployment verification, DR testing cadence, quality gates. Defines testing infrastructure.
Git & Workflows
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Uses Git for daily work: clone, add, commit, push, pull, branch, merge. Understands branch concepts and merge conflicts, works with .gitignore. Stores infrastructure code (IaC, CI/CD configurations) in Git repositories.
Applies advanced Git operations for DevOps: cherry-pick for hotfixes, rebase for clean history, bisect for finding problematic commits. Configures Git hooks for IaC validation, manages monorepo structures. Works with Git submodules and LFS.
Designs Git strategy for infrastructure code: branching model for GitOps (trunk-based vs gitflow), monorepo/polyrepo structure. Configures advanced hooks (pre-commit for terraform fmt/validate), automates releases through semantic versioning.
Defines code management standards: branching strategy for all teams, commit conventions, merge policies. Designs repository structure for GitOps (app repo vs config repo), code ownership processes and CODEOWNERS, standards for 100+ repositories.
GitOps
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Understands basic ArgoCD concepts including Application resources, sync status indicators, and the GitOps deployment model. Follows team runbooks for monitoring application sync state and troubleshooting failed syncs in the ArgoCD dashboard. Uses existing Application manifests to deploy microservices through the GitOps pipeline.
Independently configures ArgoCD Applications with sync policies, health checks, and resource hooks for CI/CD pipeline integration. Writes ApplicationSets with Git and cluster generators for multi-environment deployments. Implements notification integrations, sync windows, and automated rollback configurations for production delivery workflows.
Designs ArgoCD platform architecture for organization-wide GitOps adoption with multi-cluster management. Implements advanced patterns including App of Apps, progressive delivery with Argo Rollouts, and custom health checks for complex workloads. Optimizes ArgoCD at scale with sharding, resource caching, and high-availability controller configurations.
Defines ArgoCD platform strategy and GitOps delivery standards across the engineering organization. Establishes governance frameworks for multi-tenant ArgoCD deployments including project structures, RBAC hierarchies, and change management workflows. Conducts architecture reviews and mentors teams on GitOps best practices and ArgoCD operational excellence.
GraphQL
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Understands GraphQL for DevOps: monitoring GraphQL services, deployment configuration. Configures health checks and alerting.
Provides DevOps for GraphQL: deployment pipelines, performance monitoring, scaling configuration. Configures GraphQL-specific metrics.
Designs DevOps for GraphQL infrastructure: federation deployment, schema CI/CD, performance tuning. Defines operational requirements.
Defines DevOps standards for GraphQL: deployment guidelines, monitoring requirements, performance budgets. Coordinates with development.
Incident Management
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Understands on-call principles: duty schedules, escalation, incident management. Participates in on-call under senior engineer guidance, responds to alerts following runbooks. Knows tools: PagerDuty, Opsgenie, VictorOps.
Configures on-call processes: schedules in PagerDuty/Opsgenie, escalation policies, alert routing rules. Creates runbooks for typical incidents, automates initial diagnostics. Conducts post-mortems and tracks action items.
Designs incident management process: automated incident classification, PagerDuty integration with Slack/Jira/StatusPage. Implements incident commander role, automates communication through ChatOps. Configures SLO-based alerting to reduce alert fatigue.
Defines organizational incident management strategy: severity level standards, escalation matrices, communication protocols. Designs blameless post-mortem process, MTTR/MTTA metrics, SRE on-call program with sustainable rotation.
Infrastructure as Code
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Understands basic Ansible concepts including playbooks, modules, inventory, and the push-based configuration model. Follows team playbooks for server configuration, application deployment, and routine maintenance tasks. Uses ansible-playbook and ansible commands to execute existing automation and reviews task output to verify successful execution across managed hosts.
Independently writes Ansible playbooks and roles for deployment automation, configuration management, and infrastructure provisioning in CI/CD pipelines. Implements dynamic inventories, Jinja2 templates for environment-specific configurations, and handlers for service management. Structures automation code with reusable roles, variable hierarchies, and tags for selective task execution across development, staging, and production environments.
Designs Ansible automation architecture for organization-wide DevOps workflows including rolling deployments, zero-downtime upgrades, and disaster recovery procedures. Implements advanced patterns with custom modules, callback plugins, and Ansible Tower/AWX for scheduled automation and self-service operations. Optimizes execution at scale through strategy plugins, mitogen acceleration, and efficient fact gathering patterns for large inventories.
Defines Ansible automation standards and DevOps workflow patterns across the engineering organization. Establishes playbook development guidelines, testing practices with Molecule and ansible-lint, and Tower/AWX governance for team self-service automation. Conducts architecture reviews of automation codebases and mentors teams on idempotent design, secret management, and scalable role development.
Understands Terraform fundamentals: HCL syntax, resource lifecycle, and state management. Writes simple resource definitions for common cloud services. Uses terraform plan to preview changes before applying. Works with existing modules and follows team conventions.
Develops Terraform configurations for cloud infrastructure: modules, variables, outputs, remote state in S3/GCS. Creates reusable modules, configures workspaces for multi-environment setups. Manages state through backend and state locking.
Designs scalable Terraform infrastructure: modular architecture for 50+ services, Terragrunt for DRY configurations, custom providers. Implements policy-as-code through Sentinel/OPA, automates drift detection and remediation in CI/CD pipelines.
Defines organizational IaC standards on Terraform: module registry, code review processes, blast radius management. Designs Terraform Cloud/Enterprise architecture for multi-team work, naming standards, tagging and cost allocation.
Infrastructure Security
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Understands the importance of secrets management, doesn't store passwords in code. Uses HashiCorp Vault for reading secrets by instruction, works with basic vault CLI commands. Knows the difference between environment secrets and vault storage.
Configures and administers HashiCorp Vault: KV and PKI secret engines, access policies, authentication through Kubernetes and AppRole. Integrates Vault into CI/CD pipelines for automatic secret injection, configures rotation.
Designs secrets management architecture: Vault cluster in HA mode, automated certificate and password rotation, dynamic secrets for databases and clouds. Implements Vault Agent Injector in Kubernetes, configures audit logging.
Defines organizational secrets management strategy: Vault integration standards with all systems, rotation and access policies, automated new service onboarding. Designs multi-cluster Vault architecture with DR.
Integration Testing
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Tests DevOps tool integration: pipeline → deployment → monitoring connections. Verifies CI/CD pipeline stages in test environments.
Designs integration tests: deployment verification, infrastructure connectivity, service health validation. Automates smoke tests post-deploy.
Defines integration testing strategy: end-to-end pipeline testing, environment promotion validation, chaos testing. Implements automated rollback.
Implements integration testing standards: mandatory deployment verification, cross-environment validation, pipeline testing requirements.
Kubernetes & Orchestration
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Installs applications through Helm from ready-made charts, understands values.yaml structure. Performs helm install/upgrade/rollback by instruction, views releases through helm list. Knows basic chart structure (templates, Chart.yaml).
Creates custom Helm charts for service deployment: Kubernetes resource templating, helpers and named templates, dependency management. Configures values for different environments (dev/staging/prod), publishes charts to ChartMuseum.
Designs library Helm charts for unified deployments: shared templates for all microservices, built-in best practices (security contexts, resource limits, probes). Implements Helmfile for managing multiple releases, tests charts through helm test and ct.
Defines organizational Helm strategy: standard library charts, versioning and publishing processes, automated dependency updates. Designs internal Helm registry with CI/CD for charts, templates for most common deployment patterns.
Understands advanced Kubernetes concepts: CustomResourceDefinitions, operators, admission webhooks. Studies cluster architecture (etcd, API server, scheduler, controller manager). Works with kubectl for problem diagnostics under senior engineer guidance.
Configures advanced Kubernetes features: HPA/VPA for autoscaling, PodDisruptionBudget, affinity/anti-affinity rules. Manages RBAC policies, configures NetworkPolicy for namespace isolation. Deploys and manages operators (cert-manager, external-dns).
Designs production cluster architecture: multi-tenancy through namespaces and RBAC, service mesh (Istio/Linkerd), custom controllers. Configures cluster autoscaler, optimizes resources through VPA and Goldilocks. Implements GitOps for cluster management.
Defines organizational Kubernetes platform architecture: cluster standards, multi-cluster management (Rancher/Tanzu), federation. Designs platform engineering layer: Kubernetes abstractions for developers, CIS benchmark security standards.
Understands core Kubernetes resources: Pod, Deployment, Service, ConfigMap, Secret. Deploys applications through kubectl apply, views logs and pod status. Knows the difference between ClusterIP, NodePort and LoadBalancer services.
Manages full deployment lifecycle in Kubernetes: creating Deployment/StatefulSet, configuring Ingress, managing ConfigMap and Secret. Debugs issues through describe/logs/exec, configures readiness/liveness probes and resource requests/limits.
Designs production-ready Kubernetes deployments: update strategies (rolling, blue-green), PDB and disruption budgets configuration, monitoring through kube-state-metrics. Manages application lifecycle from development to production through GitOps approach.
Defines Kubernetes deployment standards: golden path for developers, manifest templates, mandatory checks (OPA/Kyverno). Designs release promotion processes between environments, automates canary and blue-green deployments.
Logging
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Understands ELK stack components: Elasticsearch for storage, Logstash for processing, Kibana for visualization. Searches logs in Kibana by keywords, creates simple filters. Understands indexes, templates and basic KQL syntax.
Deploys and configures ELK stack: Elasticsearch cluster in Kubernetes (ECK operator), Logstash/Fluentd/Filebeat for log collection. Creates index templates, ILM policies for rotation, Kibana dashboards. Configures structured logging for applications.
Designs scalable logging platform: Elasticsearch cluster for terabytes of logs, hot-warm-cold architecture, cross-cluster search. Optimizes mapping and query performance, implements Elastic APM for distributed tracing. Configures anomaly detection.
Defines centralized logging strategy: structured logging standards for all teams, platform SLA, cost optimization. Designs multi-tenant logging platform, data retention policies, integration with alerting and incident management.
Understands the difference between text and structured logs (JSON). Knows standard fields: timestamp, level, message, trace_id. Reads structured logs in Kibana/Grafana, uses field filters to search for issues.
Implements structured logging standards: JSON format for all services, mandatory fields (correlation_id, service_name, environment). Configures log aggregation through Fluentd/Fluent Bit, log parsing and enrichment. Creates dashboards for analysis.
Designs organizational logging standards: unified logging schema, semantic conventions (OpenTelemetry), automatic context enrichment. Implements distributed tracing correlation, configures sampling for high-load services.
Defines organizational observability standards through logs: mandatory fields, log levels policy, PII filtering. Designs log analytics platform with ML-powered anomaly detection, automated incident correlation analysis.
Memory Management
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Understands memory management for DevOps: container memory limits, OOM killer, swap management. Configures resource requests/limits.
Manages memory in infrastructure: container memory tuning, JVM heap sizing, memory monitoring. Configures alerts and dashboards.
Designs memory management strategy: right-sizing automation, memory leak detection, capacity planning. Defines resource policies.
Defines memory management standards: resource limit policies, monitoring requirements, incident response for OOM.
Message Queues & Event Streaming
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Uses Apache Kafka at a basic level in Terraform/Ansible. Performs simple tasks using established templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices.
Independently implements tasks with Apache Kafka in Terraform/Ansible. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests with Terratest/InSpec.
Deploys and maintains Kafka clusters in Kubernetes: configures Strimzi operator, manages topics and partitions, monitors through JMX metrics in Prometheus. Ensures reliable stream processing of infrastructure and CI/CD events.
Designs event platform architecture on Kafka for DevOps: log aggregation, streaming alert processing, event sourcing of infrastructure changes. Optimizes cluster performance, configures geo-replication and disaster recovery.
Metrics & Monitoring
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Understands Prometheus metric types: counter, gauge, histogram, summary. Knows the difference between infrastructure and business metrics. Reads existing custom metrics, understands naming conventions (namespace_subsystem_name_unit).
Develops custom metrics for DevOps: CI/CD pipeline metrics (build duration, success rate), deployment frequency, change failure rate. Creates exporters in Python/Go, instruments applications through client libraries. Configures recording rules.
Designs custom metrics system: DORA metrics for delivery performance evaluation, SLI metrics for each service, business KPIs in Prometheus. Implements OpenTelemetry Metrics, develops custom collectors for non-standard sources.
Defines organizational metrics standards: mandatory SLIs for each service tier, DORA metrics dashboard, FinOps metrics. Designs metrics platform with standard metrics catalog, self-service instrumentation and automated alerting.
Understands basic Prometheus & Grafana for DevOps: setting up Prometheus exporters, creating basic Grafana dashboards for infrastructure metrics, understanding PromQL basics for metric queries. Follows team conventions for monitoring CI/CD pipelines and deployment infrastructure.
Deploys and configures Prometheus stack: kube-prometheus-stack in Kubernetes, ServiceMonitor/PodMonitor, alerting rules. Creates Grafana dashboards for infrastructure and applications, configures alertmanager with routing to Slack/PagerDuty.
Designs scalable monitoring system: Thanos/Mimir for long-term storage and multi-cluster, recording rules for optimization. Creates SLO dashboards with burn rate alerts, implements custom exporters. Configures federation and remote write.
Defines organizational monitoring strategy: metric standards (RED, USE), mandatory dashboards for each service, SLO framework. Designs centralized Prometheus platform with multi-tenancy, cost-effective retention and self-service for teams.
Networking
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Understands OSI/TCP-IP model, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TCP/UDP operation. Uses basic diagnostic tools: ping, traceroute, nslookup, curl. Knows IP addressing, subnet and port concepts in container and cloud context.
Manages cloud network infrastructure: VPC, subnets, security groups, NACLs, route tables. Configures DNS through Route53/Cloud DNS, debugs Kubernetes networking issues (CoreDNS, kube-proxy, CNI). Understands mTLS and service mesh principles.
Designs network architecture for production: Transit Gateway for multi-VPC, VPN and Direct Connect, DNS strategies for failover. Configures Calico/Cilium in Kubernetes for advanced networking, implements network policies and eBPF traffic monitoring.
Defines organizational networking strategy: hub-and-spoke or mesh topologies, segmentation standards and zero-trust networking. Designs multi-cloud connectivity architecture, DNS governance, network operations automation through NetOps.
OOP & Design Patterns
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Applies patterns in DevOps: Singleton for configuration, Factory for resource creation. Understands infrastructure patterns: blue-green, canary.
Uses DevOps patterns: GitOps, Infrastructure as Code, immutable infrastructure. Implements pipeline patterns: fan-out/fan-in, matrix builds.
Designs DevOps architecture: pipeline-as-code, self-service platforms, deployment patterns. Combines patterns for reliable delivery.
Defines architectural patterns for DevOps: reference pipeline architectures, deployment pattern catalog. Conducts design reviews.
Understands the fundamentals of OOP & SOLID Principles at a basic level. Applies simple concepts in work tasks using Python/Bash/Go. Follows recommendations from senior developers when solving problems.
Independently applies OOP/SOLID in automation and tooling code: proper class hierarchies for deployment strategies, interface-based plugin systems for CI/CD tools, single responsibility in infrastructure automation modules. Understands trade-offs between OOP patterns and scripting approaches for DevOps tooling.
Applies OOP/SOLID in DevOps tooling: abstract interfaces for cloud provider abstraction, strategy pattern for deployment strategies (blue-green, canary), template method for standardized pipeline stages. Designs extensible automation frameworks following dependency inversion for testable infrastructure code.
Designs modular automation libraries applying SOLID principles. Creates extensible plugins for CI/CD systems, uses Strategy and Factory patterns for configuring infrastructure components. Ensures code reusability between teams.
Prompt Engineering
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Crafts basic prompts for DevOps tasks: script generation, error explanation, configuration creation. Understands principles of clear AI query formulation with infrastructure context and desired response format.
Applies advanced prompt engineering techniques for DevOps: chain-of-thought for incident diagnostics, few-shot examples for IaC generation. Creates prompt templates for typical tasks: troubleshooting, code review, documentation.
Develops prompt library for DevOps team: templates for incident response, infrastructure design, security analysis. Integrates prompt-based automations into workflow: auto-generating runbooks, metrics analysis, optimization suggestions.
Defines prompt engineering standards for DevOps organization: prompt library, best practices for different AI tools. Designs AI-augmented processes: automated alert triage, post-mortem generation, intelligent incident analysis.
Relational Databases
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Performs basic SQL queries for analyzing infrastructure logs and metrics. Understands table structure, can do SELECT with JOIN to extract data from monitoring systems. Works with pg_dump/pg_restore for creating backups by instruction.
Manages PostgreSQL in DevOps context: automates backups through cron and scripts, configures replication, deploys PostgreSQL in Docker and Kubernetes. Monitors performance through pg_stat, configures alerts on key database metrics.
Designs fault-tolerant PostgreSQL clusters: Patroni for automated failover, PgBouncer for connection pooling, WAL archiving to S3. Automates migrations in CI/CD, configures monitoring through PostgreSQL exporter in Prometheus.
Defines platform-level PostgreSQL management strategy: deployment standards through Helm charts, backup and restore policies, automated scaling. Designs Database-as-a-Service for internal teams with self-service provisioning.
Release Management
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Understands feature flag concept: enabling/disabling functionality without deployment. Uses flags in code by instruction, knows basic types (boolean, percentage). Works with LaunchDarkly/Unleash dashboard to view flags.
Implements feature flags in CI/CD: LaunchDarkly/Unleash/Flagsmith integration, flag management through API. Configures percentage rollout, A/B testing, targeting rules. Automates flag lifecycle: creation on deploy, cleanup of stale flags.
Designs feature management strategy: architecture for progressive delivery with flags, ArgoCD/Argo Rollouts integration. Implements canary releases through percentage flags, configures observability for evaluating feature impact on metrics.
Defines organizational feature management standards: flag governance, mandatory metadata, review processes. Designs progressive delivery platform integrating feature flags, monitoring and automated SLO-based rollback.
REST API
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Understands basic REST API concepts for DevOps tooling: infrastructure API calls, CI/CD webhook endpoints, monitoring API basics. Follows team conventions for integrating APIs in deployment scripts and automation pipelines.
Develops automations based on REST API: integration scripts with GitHub API, Kubernetes API, cloud providers. Creates webhook handlers for CI/CD events, implements health check endpoints for service monitoring.
Designs API for internal DevOps tools: deployment management endpoints, self-service infrastructure API, integrations between monitoring systems. Implements authentication through API keys and OAuth, versioning and rate limiting.
Defines API-first approach standards for DevOps platform: unified API gateway for infrastructure operations, microservice contracts, SDK auto-generation. Designs integration architecture between CI/CD, monitoring and infrastructure.
Specialized Testing
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Understands chaos engineering principles: knows why intentional failures are introduced in production, Principles of Chaos Engineering. Familiar with basic tools (Chaos Monkey, Gremlin). Understands the difference between chaos testing and regular fault injection.
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.
Designs chaos engineering program: defines steady-state metrics, designs experiments with increasing complexity (single pod → availability zone → region), configures automated chaos runs in CI/CD. Integrates results with SLO/SLI monitoring to identify weaknesses.
Implements chaos engineering culture: trains teams on experiment design, creates safety net for production chaos (abort conditions, blast radius control). Designs chaos matrix covering all failure types: infrastructure, network, application, database.
System Design
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Understands DR concepts: RPO, RTO, backup/restore, hot/warm/cold standby. Performs scheduled backups, verifies backup integrity by instruction. Knows main risks and failure scenarios in cloud infrastructure.
Implements DR solutions: automated backups (Velero for Kubernetes, AWS Backup), cross-region data replication. Configures automated database failover, tests restore procedures. Documents DR plans and runbooks.
Designs DR architecture: multi-region active-passive and active-active configurations, automated failover with DNS. Implements chaos engineering (Chaos Monkey, Litmus) for DR validation. Defines RPO/RTO for each service, automates DR testing.
Defines organizational DR strategy: service classification by criticality, RPO/RTO standards for each tier. Designs automated DR testing platform, game day processes and tabletop exercises. Manages DR budget and prioritization.
Understands basic system design patterns: client-server, load balancing, caching, replication. Knows scaling fundamentals (vertical vs horizontal), understands the role of each infrastructure component in overall architecture.
Applies system design patterns to infrastructure: designs scalable deployments with load balancing, configures caching at different levels (CDN, Redis, application). Evaluates capacity and plans resources for growing workloads.
Designs infrastructure for high-load systems: multi-tier architecture with auto-scaling, event-driven microservices, CQRS for separating read/write workloads. Conducts capacity planning, defines SLO/SLI and designs for target reliability.
Defines organizational infrastructure architectural standards: reference architectures for typical patterns (web app, API, data pipeline). Conducts architecture reviews, defines scaling and fault tolerance guidelines for all teams.
Type Systems
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Applies type safety in DevOps code: typed Python/TypeScript for automation, JSON Schema for configs. Uses typed pipeline definitions.
Provides type safety: typed Terraform (CDK/Pulumi), strict Python for scripts, schema validation for configurations.
Designs type-safe infrastructure: CUE/Jsonnet for typed configs, generated clients, schema validation pipeline.
Defines type safety standards: typed IaC requirements, configuration validation policies. Implements automated type checking.
Unit Testing
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Writes unit tests for DevOps scripts: tests deployment scripts, config generators, CLI tools. Uses pytest/jest for automation code.
Tests DevOps automation: unit tests for Terraform modules, Ansible roles, pipeline scripts. Mocks cloud API and infrastructure components.
Designs DevOps testing strategy: IaC testing framework, policy testing (OPA), pipeline validation. Implements CI for infrastructure code.
Defines DevOps testing standards: mandatory tests for IaC, quality gates in pipeline. Implements testing culture for infrastructure code.
Web Frameworks
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Uses Python Web Frameworks at a basic level in Terraform/Ansible. Performs simple tasks using established templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices.
Independently implements tasks with Python Web Frameworks in Terraform/Ansible. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests with Terratest/InSpec.
Develops internal DevOps tools on Flask/FastAPI: infrastructure status dashboards, deployment management API, webhook handlers for CI/CD events. Integrates with Kubernetes API and cloud SDKs through async endpoints.
Designs internal DevOps platform architecture on Python: self-service portals for developers, environment management systems, API gateway for infrastructure operations. Defines development standards and ensures solution scalability.