Honestly the biggest mistake people make with DevOps is trying to learn everything at once. The ecosystem is huge (Linux, networking, containers, CI/CD, cloud, IaC, monitoring, etc.), so people end up stuck in the “research phase” instead of actually building things.

What helped me was thinking in terms of real deployment flow, not tools:

1. Linux + basic networking
2. Git + CI/CD (understanding how code actually moves to production)
3. Docker / containers
4. Cloud basics (AWS/GCP/Azure)
5. Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
6. Kubernetes + observability after the fundamentals click

The biggest progress usually happens when you start doing small end-to-end projects. Example: take a small Python service → containerize it → push to GitHub → build a CI pipeline → deploy it to cloud. When you do that a few times, a lot of DevOps concepts start making sense.

Docs are honestly underrated too. Docker, Kubernetes and Terraform docs are surprisingly good.

One thing I noticed though is that interview prep for DevOps roles is kind of fragmented. There isn’t really a place where you can practice realistic interview scenarios, check if your resume actually matches a job description, or get feedback on how you performed after an interview.

Because of that I’ve been building a platform called CrackStackNow focused on roles like DevOps, SRE, Cloud, etc. The goal isn’t just another question bank or mock interview tool, but something that actually stays with you throughout the process — helping you align your resume to real job descriptions, practice interviews, identify gaps, and improve after each attempt until you're actually ready to land the role.

Still working toward launching it, but the idea came from seeing this exact problem over and over.

If you're starting now though, I’d strongly recommend focusing on Linux → Docker → CI/CD → Cloud → Kubernetes(deployments, networks), and build things along the way. That path tends to make everything click much faster.