2018 DevOps Engineer Roadmap – Learning Path and Recommended Resources

DevOps is currently very popular, and many friends, colleagues, and senior developers are striving to become DevOps engineers. This article shares a valuable resource—a roadmap that highlights the skills and tools needed to become a proficient DevOps engineer.

The roadmap tells you what to learn, but it does not tell you how to learn. To follow the roadmap, a list of useful online courses is provided.

2018 Developer DevOps Roadmap

This is the 2018 DevOps roadmap:

Image credit: Kamranahmedse (https://github.com/kamranahmedse/developer-roadmap)

Now we walk through the roadmap step by step to understand the core skills required to become a DevOps master in 2018.

01 – Learn Programming Languages

You should know at least one of the three major programming languages: Java, Python, or JavaScript. If you need to start, the article recommends the following courses:

If you want to learn Java, consider "The Complete Java MasterClass" (recently updated for Java 10).

Python

If you want to learn Python, "The Complete Python BootCamp" is recommended for Python 3.

JavaScript

If you want to learn JavaScript, do not miss MoshHamdani’s "JavaScript Basics for Beginners".

Free course lists for Java, Python, and JavaScript are also provided.

02 – Understand Operating System Concepts

Developers now need to understand OS concepts such as process management, threading and concurrency, sockets, I/O management, virtualization, memory storage, and file systems. The article suggests the "Linux Administration BootCamp" course for Linux fundamentals.

03 – Learn to Use the Terminal

Command‑line proficiency is crucial for DevOps engineers, especially on Linux. Learn shells (Bash, Ksh) and tools like find, grep, awk, sed, lsof, and networking commands such as nslookup. The "Linux Command Line Interface (CLI) Fundamentals" course is recommended.

04 – Networking and Security

Understanding basic networking and security concepts (DNS, OSI model, HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SSL/TLS) is essential. The "TCP/IP and Networking Fundamentals for IT Pros" course is suggested.

05 – Configuration and Setup

DevOps engineers should know how to set up web servers (e.g., IIS), caching servers, load balancers, reverse proxies, and firewalls.

06 – Learn Infrastructure Tools

Key infrastructure tools include containers (Docker, Kubernetes), configuration management (Ansible, Chef, Salt, Puppet), and infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation). Recommended courses: "Docker Mastery: The Complete Toolset" and "Learn DevOps: The Complete Kubernetes".

07 – Learn CI/CD Tools

Popular CI/CD tools include Jenkins, TeamCity, Drone, etc. Jenkins is strongly recommended; the "Master Jenkins CI For DevOps and Developers" course is highlighted.

08 – Monitoring and Observability

Monitoring is vital. Tools include Nagios, Icinga, Datadog, Zabbix, Monit, AppDynamics, New Relic, etc.

09 – Cloud Providers

Understanding major cloud providers and their basics is important for DevOps engineers.

Original title: "The 2018 DevOps RoadMap" – Author: javinpaul – Translator: lemon.

For the full list of learning resources, click "Read the original article".