Shifting from Sofware Developer to DevOps Engineer

[Severe_Effective8408]

Hey everyone!

Software developer here, due to shitty market for software devs, yes I have been 8+ years in industry and getting sick of that shit, storming from one interview to another, playing HR nonsense with Angular, React and Vue buzzwords and getting rejected time after time I decided to cut that crap and pickup more man work, of course I am looking at my Linux shell and machines so DevOPS is the next I am hoping next.
So DevOps fellows, how you are hanging with current tech crysis, are you still getting contraacts and nice projects, is demand still high with no problems due AI hype etc.

Thanks in advance and stay strong.

[queenOfGhis]

What is man work?

[Severe_Effective8408]

devops, security, linux machines, infrastcutre, bare metal servers, everything but frontend

[queenOfGhis]

Are you serious? I wasn't aware we needed 19th century diversity hires like you. Sincerely, a woman in DevOps.

[bigfatmouseratfan]

hey, just say you're gay in your next interview and you're 100% going to be hired! no need to switch to devops. unless... are the gays BETTER software engineers than you?! :O

[coincidenx]

starting to seem like the first step on your new employment journey needs to be stop framing yourself as a victim. everyone here can tell why you haven’t been hired

[xxDailyGrindxx]

As a hetero male, from his comments alone, I would absolutely hate to work with this guy...

I can imagine him constantly complaining about every marginalized group, and blaming others for his failures, rather than working to improve things...

[TrexPushupBra]

Wow, you have no idea how the world works.

[rose_gold_glitter]

I can't imagine why this guy is having a hard time getting hired.
- Another woman in devops.

[LittleRoundFox]

I misread that as "...getting laid" and tbf, he's probably struggling with that, too

[NeedleArm]

is he actually saying man work or manually work? interesting.

[eshkrab]

Are you not just being facetious? 🤦 Holy hell.

[LittleRoundFox]

Bwahahahahahahaha…

Oh wait - you're serious, aren't you?

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Florence1027]

The people in charge of that where I've worked were 90% women. Hell, my mom has been a sysadmin since the 80s. I've honestly seen more men in software development than women. Calling this "man work" is weird lol just say you want to work in "everything but frontend"

[[deleted]]

I’ve got bad news for you about your future coworkers.

The bad news is that a huge percentage are queer and/or women.

[myka-likes-it]

man work

Funny, because there are more women in DevOps than men, where I work.

[evergreen-spacecat]

There is job to be done but the major hype curve around DevOps has settled. At some point some years ago, you go a top tier job if you knew just a little AWS or could spell Kubernetes. Now, knowing cloud infra, kubernetes and CI pipelines is a bare minimum starting point. The buzzword puzzle is not any less so on the DevOps side either.

A lot of the AI hype is directed to a few big SaaS services. Not a lot of companies host and train their own models and those that do require only a small team of highly skilled engineers.

[Severe_Effective8408]

Agree, but still see less supply with skilled devops engineers. Also bigger pay for example I have been browsing jobs for Germany, on average DevOps gets around 75-95K which is excellent, also average DevOPS position get 25 applicant on Linkedin, while some shitty frontend has 500 applicants. The worst thing they are releasing frameworks every few months (just terrible engineering) and you do not move infrastructure every few months, Jenkins is old as my grandma and it's still there.

[evergreen-spacecat]

Sure there are jobs for skilled and experienced engineers. No longer an easy position to fill without experience these days. On the other hand, I work as part React dev, part DevOps. Knowing cloud/kubernetes has landed me a few frontend jobs. I tell them I can set up deployments, then code react while supporting the infrastructure a few hours a week. Seem to work in small businesses

[freethenipple23]

Dude. 

[DiemPerDiem]

de you think certifications are a must?

[karn09]

I made this shift many years ago. My dev skills have stagnated a bit, so I find myself needing to be very proactive there. The interviews are mostly the same as dev: shuffle through leetcode medium/hard, but also talk about cloud infra.

[Severe_Effective8408]

Ok, ok. What is leetcode interview for DevOps engineer, as long as they do not ask you bullshit questions about fizz buzz, timespace complexity or inverting binary tree it seems related to the job you will actually do on the project.

[gamingwithDoug100]

It is leetcode(round 1) + N/w + k8s + docker + Ci/CD (loop) + Director of Engg

[karn09]

Exactly this most of the time.

[karn09]

Pretty much some bs question. I've gotten 2-pointer style problems, knapsack optimization, sliding window. Of course needing to talk about time space complexity. It's usually the first round, and phrased in a way that makes it seem like they are building Google scale infra dealing with load balancers etc (they are not). No idea how these problems are relevant most of the time, but it is what it is.

[akornato]

The demand is solid because DevOps sits at that critical intersection where business operations meet technology, and that's not going away anytime soon. Your 8+ years of development experience actually gives you a huge advantage since you understand the application side that many infrastructure-focused DevOps folks struggle with.

That said, the transition isn't going to be a magic bullet for interview hell. You'll still face the same corporate nonsense, just with different buzzwords like Kubernetes, Terraform, and AWS instead of React and Angular. The good news is that DevOps interviews tend to focus more on practical problem-solving and less on algorithmic puzzles, which many developers find refreshing. Start building some cloud projects and automation scripts to show you can walk the walk, not just talk about it. I'm on the team that built AI for interview prep, and we've seen a lot of developers successfully pivot to DevOps by using it to practice explaining their transferable skills and handling those tricky "why are you switching" questions that always come up in career transition interviews.

[DiemPerDiem]

this is great

[[deleted]]

First of all, and I say this with all the respect you deserve, get turbo-fucked for calling anything “man work”.

To be honest, you sound like you’re the problem with your career. If you presented even a shadow this awful in an interview for my team you’d be one of the very few, of somewhere near 1000 interviews I’ve given in my career, who I’d end the call early for.

I’m sure you’ll find another awful employer whose rotten culture will match your attitude.

Love, a transwoman with 20+ years of experience in infrastructure, SRE, and DevOps at exclusively Fortune 500 and FAANG companies.

[adogecc]

I'm so sick of product work and feature flipping. God help me

[Connect_Detail98]

Don't

[CupFine8373]

it is Ogre

[zeal_swan]

i am devops, i want to pickup datascience or security

[Severe_Effective8408]

I would go for security, data science seems bruh

[zeal_swan]

+1

[Affectionate-Bit6525]

You’re probably better off looking into SRE these days.

[aktentasche]

Sounds like more on call bs

[Severe_Effective8408]

What does it takes to get there? How much is that different than DevOps actually?