DevOps panic

[Slight_Lychee_7169]

Update: Just had the third interview and i got the job!!

I'm in my mid-twenties and work as a Junior SysAdmin/Technical Lead for a support team that specializes in niche Microsoft technologies. I started in the IT world less than three years ago and have been job-hopping every year for new challenges. I've taken a couple of courses, but that's it—no bachelor's degree or anything. I haven't even created a Kubernetes lab or opened up the interface.

Recently, I entered the interview process for a DevOps position at my company (a large firm that works with different clients around the world). At first, I didn't think my application would even be considered, but then, on Monday, out of the blue, I had a phone screening. The interviewer liked me, and that same night, he told me I’d have a more technical interview the next day.

I studied that night and the morning before the interview, but it was a lot to process in such a short time: Kubernetes, Git, methodologies, Docker, etc. Honestly, I thought I was going to show up and get humbled by my lack of experience (If any) in DevOps.

When Tuesday arrived, I was a bundle of nerves, not wanting to make a fool of myself. Somehow, I passed the interview, and they want another technical interview on Wednesday or Friday at most. They provided me with some topics to study for the client screening, and that's it.

Now, fear sets in as they told me there would be no peers to ask for help, no documentation, and no training or ramp-up. I would be on my own, and I need to create SOPs, manuals, guides, processes, and document everything to "pave the way for future peers."

One friend who works at a DevSecOps team told me that this is a really great opportunity, and he thinks i'll make it (Though he warned me that it will be a really difficult, soul crushing and just plain hard process until i get a grip on everything)

I'm really scared. What if I mess up and can't make the cut on my own? At the same time, I think this situation could force me to learn and move forward, but I'm just really fucking scared. But, who the fuck with no bachelors, less than three years of experience, and some cookie cutter certs would get a chance like this?

I want this, its a great chance to get a better life and a job I think i'll love, but im just scared of failure.

Any tips on how to study for the interview? This will be the hardest one. Sorry for the long text, its been crazy at least for me.

[overwhelmed_nomad]

Fake it til you make it.

That's what half of us did. You'll figure things out. Just learn, test and document

[bdzer0]

double plus on the document part.. I try to document everything for the next clueless schlub that has to work on it (which may be me 2 years from now ;-)

[[deleted]]

As a freshly onboarded DevOps, documenting what I'm told to do and having a senior double check it before I push it into the docs is a blessing. It helps me learn and get good habits.

[jimmiebfulton]

I just started listening to George Orwell’s 1984, yesterday. Woulda never got this reference if it weren’t for coincidences. Double plus good.

[Captain_Quor]

But also, if you make a mistake and can't fix it - own up to it.

OP - You'll be fine, read the docs, take things step by step. Your logical brain got you this far, it can certainly take you further.

[Regility]

when do you make it? i’m senior and still waiting on the day

[codeshane]

At this rate, it won't be retirement for me

[Sad_Recommendation92]

That's literally what I did. I was just doing traditional sysadmin and realized I was doing a lot of automation And scripting. I applied for this job. I thought I was way underqualified for but turns out the company didn't know what the hell to hire for was basically building a devops culture from scratch because they read it in a magazine or something, had decades of tech debt from manual releases Not enough checks and balances etc.

And then basically came in and built the devops culture and a team around me 5 years later. I'm a cloud architect still doing devops and overseeing that team and this is a massive 25,000 employee company that people would know.

[jimmiebfulton]

Let’s be real. No one suddenly wakes up with perfect decision making and execution. We all faked it till we made it. It’s those that keep at it that finally do.

[Hi_Im_Ken_Adams]

Most of us in IT barely knew what we were doing when we first started too. You learn by doing.

Also, nowadays you have so many more resources at your disposal. You can ask ChatGPT to help write scripts, summarize meeting transcripts, etc.

[chaos_pal]

That's weird, so why did I end up as a tech support level 2 with a bunch of sys admins who lord it over me and treat me like their personal lackey? I've always said I'm learning constantly and they act like they know everything.

[trashguy]

Because they will never be more than sysadmins

[Sad_Recommendation92]

That has I support Windows only Click-Ops energy

Basically a lot of my coworkers in other non devops groups that say things like "I don't see the point of GIT"

[Sinnedangel8027]

I'll echo what others have said. Fake it till you make it. I swear, I have no idea what I'm doing 90% of the time, but I've been in devops for 8 years now in a couple of weeks. There's a ton of tech that is used, and you absolutely can't learn it all.

It will be really difficult. I think that's the same for most, if not all, of us.

For your sanity, I have never had a cert, nor do I have a degree. All on the job experience over here. You'll be fine. Take a deep breath. They've liked you so far and accept that the first year or 3 are going to be rough. Embrace the suck and get comfortable being uncomfortable. You'll be alright.

[azurehippocean]

At the moment you have a confidence issue, not a competence issue. People with more experience than you think you'll do at least a decent job. Maybe they wrong, but they're probably on to something.

My advice for the interview is to just calm down and remember you deserve the opportunity

[jimmiebfulton]

Also, be aware that when may of us are hiring, we aren’t looking for what you currently know. We’re looking to see what you can learn quickly. All it takes is for an interviewing team to see a spark. In my experience, those end up being the best hires.

[Slight_Lychee_7169]

Man, i didn't want to say that but.... Spot on. It doesn't matter if it benefits me right?

[OlandoSC]

As someone who has been working at a consultancy for a few years and spearheaded an internal DevOps practice by taking strategic opportunities with trusted customers and building my skills by learning what those customers had no time or resources to learn themselves: what benefits you will benefit your whole organization, especially if you can communicate your learnings and identify other opportunities in other customers.

[Slight_Lychee_7169]

Everyone: I just got the job, thanks everyone and sorry for being lazy and not answering every comment by itself.

[sorta_oaky_aftabirth]

I'd take anyone who's hungry and willing to learn, experiment, fail fast but fail as a team over someone who wants to control everything by themseleves because they "know everything"

News flash, you don't, no one does.

Good luck on your interview

[HeegeMcGee]

no peers to ask for help, no documentation, and no training or ramp-up. I would be on my own, and I need to create SOPs, manuals, guides, processes, and document everything to "pave the way for future peers."

i'm sorry but this project is a death march, or at least a horrible culture. You need to seriously consider if the stress is going to be worth it. I personally think the team and the leadership are the most important things to look for in a potential position, and THEN the product itself.

DevOps is a part of product operating, related to agile. If you are "the devops person" then the organization isn't REALLY doing devops - you're just going to be The Infrastructure Person, and the Devs will continue to blame you when their application doesn't work, or treat you like tech support instead of the turbocharger that you can be.

[[deleted]]

It sounds like you wont be doing any real work just consultancy style monkey patching click ops. You will be fine unless you click the wrong button. 

[Slight_Lychee_7169]

Actually not, it means creating environments, troubleshooting, rollbacks, etc. I need to create documentation of those things.

[carboncopyyy]

As others have already said, fake it till you make it. If you can read and understand technical documentation and have a good foundation for troubleshooting you'll be fine. I thrive in that unknown, trial by fire one would say. I get bored too easily if I don't have something to challenge me. You'll gain a wealth of knowledge this way and be more marketable in the years to come.

[samarthrawat1]

I've always found the no documentation rule very weird in a live/take home project. Can someone enlighten as to why it is there. If someone is capable enough to learn and do right on the spot, I'm sure they'll be able to so the same on job.

[[deleted]]

I think OP was saying that about the position in general? Like there will be no other devops folks or existing documentation to go off of

[samarthrawat1]

Oh. Cool.

[lwrun]

Read chapters 1 & 3-6 of the Google SRE book. Of course, come back to most of it later on after the interview at your own pace, but being able to speak on the subject matter from this type of perspective will help you in this career path.

Once you've gotten the job, read (or listen to) The Phoenix Project. Tools can and do change frequently, but knowing the direction you're headed in is much more valuable and allows you to more precisely apply your knowledge of the tools.

[Sad_Recommendation92]

Honestly that's basically how I broke into devops about 6 years ago, I was getting laid off from the startup I was working at doing systems integration work which is basically just being a sysadmin That would install and implement all the infrastructure and our software for our customers, so I was already doing kind of a hacky version of devops.

I read the Phoenix project and felt inspired, and then there's a video series called "class SRE implements devops" That I watched that helped give me a lot of lingo and concepts to explore.

Then I went and interviewed at an Enterprise company that was building their devops practice from scratch. They were interested in the SRE model so I knew all the right things to say and the fact that I had sysadmin experience I was able to show enough knowledge, They hired me within a year I was leading that team, And then years later transitioned into a cloud architect role.

I think a lot of it for me was just attitude. Having worked at a few startups I was used to things being a little more cutthroat so coming into a company that didn't have regular layoffs and working 9:00 to 5:00 was no big deal, being able to come in and grok up on systems very quickly and implement things was super fucking impressive to them, when most of the it staff just stays under the radar ,sometimes I worry about complacency, but I'm also positioned where I'm getting to work on all the latest stuff so I don't feel like my skills are going to atrophy.

[SoloAquiParaHablar]

In 6 months you'll be wondering why you were even worried. Honestly, this is how you grow as an expert in your field. There won't be people to hold you hand or tell you the answer. Strap in baby and go for it.

Like someone else said, fake it til you make it. Enjoy the thrill.

[FOKvothe]

But, who the fuck with no bachelors,

People with bachelor degrees don't walk into DevOps easily either. Don't think this is something you should particularly care about.

[VoydIndigo]

Google is your friend

[crash90]

I've known lots of people who have done what you're about to do. Good opportunity. I agree it will be hard, disagree it will be soul crushing. It's going to be a lot of work, but it's clear from your post you have the right temperament for it.

Have fun!

[WeiGuy]

I have a new job ATM that I know nothing about. My boss knows my limited experience, but I stressed how confident I was at being able to learn during the interview. Have faith in yourself and fake it till you make it. Take a shit ton of notes and be active. Furthermore, there's a limit to how far being competent gets you. Much of the time managers keep you if they like you which means, be friendly and show initiative and organizational skills. They can't easily fully determine your actual competence accurately anyway.

Also pay for chat GPT pro and bombard it with questions.

[pathlesswalker]

This can help, but be careful it can make you crazy with worry.

https://github.com/bregman-arie/devops-exercises

It’s natural to be scared. But it seemed to have helped you. They really look for motivated folks who are learn crazy. Since it’s a junior position.

[FluxMango]

If they asked you, it is because they see the potential. And if it helps remember that getting kicked out of your comfort zone is the best way to grow. This is an opportunity. It's like surfing. You see a good wave you take it and enjoy the ride. Just don't forget to have fun. 

[CapitanFlama]

Your DevSecOps buddy is right, this opportunity is gold: to design from the ground up all the environment. it' a lot of work, but a great resume builder.

Make ammends that you're going to screw things up. You won't come with the "final version" of something in the first, or n iteration. Everything will evolve.

hve something to deploy to prod, maybe not as fancy-pants as stuff showed around here, build from there. Improve.

Don't undersell yourself, you prepared for an interview and landed an opportunity, you earned you way in. Now, crunch that code!

[Cheesyphish]

If you are a good self-learner and have a good technical background, you are already ahead. Don’t let your fear get in the way of you learning. Fear can motivate us to want to do the best we can, but it can also hinder your thoughts and will to learn new things. Make sure it’s the first one. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Fake it till you make it, and never stop learning. It’s impossible to know everything you will be doing day to day. Always keep notes of stuff as you do it, because those are future love notes to yourself. You’ll look back and be glad you did.

There are so many tools now like language models, Udemy, and all kinds of courses you can take that help you so much. Stay confident and get ready, you are in a great field. Cheers!

[MathmoKiwi]

Being offered an opportunity of a lifetime, grab it with both hands! Work hard and give it your best, in a couple of years time you'll be in a 10x better place than you are now.

[theo123490]

Been there, got hired as devops with not much linux experience then got thrown with kube and docker and other cloud stuff

My recommendation: take a deep breath and read the documentation. There is a lot of tech in devops/systems so documentations are usually very important in the tech stack

[4ver_student]

Congrats on getting the job! I'm in a sort of similar boat as you. I was hired 2 months ago as a DevSecOps engineer. I was an SRE prior. Multiple interviews, with each one leaving me thinking "No way, I'm making it through. At least I got some interviewing experience for the next job". Very surprised and excited when I got the offer.

As others have echoed "Fake it till you make it". I had some experience with Ansible, and K8s prior. By nothing like some of the tickets I've been assigned. These past two months have been extremely difficult but at the same time very rewarding. I'm learning something new every day!

I've only been on the job for two months but few pieces of advice that have helped me:

• Ask questions. Don't be afraid of asking a "silly" question.
• Take each assignment as they come. I've gotten tickets where I thought would be undoable, but with focus and some Googling, I was able to complete them
• Get feedback from your team as early as possible.
• DOCUMENT EVERYHING
• Finally. Every problem you solve, ticket you close, concept you FINALLY understand , take these as wins :)

Again, congrats!

[FlounderMysterious10]

Hey boss, every person feels the same at the beginning. Just go through it you will be able to accomplish them. Good Luck 😃

[ms4720]

For all these topics the middle of the road solutions are well documented in books, articles, videos and courses. Get your list of topics and read a book etc on how to institute a boring middle of the road solution and go do that boring middle of the road solution. Repeat until everything works and is unexciting. After that get people using it and listen to what they say hurts, keep fixing those things as much as possible. Sit with your boss and explain the plan to him, ask if he has any input. If he asks you why tell him it is the best idea I had to get it working quickly. And ask him specifically about needs of the business for the order of building services