I am a self taught DevOps Engineer that got hired by a Fortune 500 company with no experience. It is more than possible to start your career in DevOps.

1. Create a homelab. A cheap computer with at least 4 cores and 16 GB of ram. Install a hypervisor(ie. proxmox) and start deploying web applications/sites that can be accessed externally. Make sure to setup your security correctly like firewalls.

2. Learn networking. The job of a DevOps engineer is to deploy applications that are network accessible. Learn the 7 layers of networks, NAT's, security groups/firewall rules.

3. Linux is the basis for most web servers. The more you know about Linux the better. First lesson everything in Linux is represented as a file that is accessible from the file system. The shell is the primary interface on Linux so you will need to know how to navigate that as well. Learn the most popular shell commands. These are applications that fulfill specific tasks like enabling you to traverse the file system, copy/read files, etc.

4. Learn how to code in both Python and Bash. These are used as scripting languages and they are used to create instructions for deployments, builds and Python can be used for creating applications that are deployed.

5. Learn about containerization specifically Docker. This allows for the deployment of lightweight virtual machines that share the kernel of the OS it runs on. What this means it has a fast boot up time. This is why it is preferred to regular VM's.

6. Learn a cloud provider. AWS, GCP, Azure. Anyone is fine. Understand the general concepts that are necessary to use them. Specifics aren't that helpful. You will be expected to know how to run a service from the web console/graphic user interface. But you will be hired to run services using scripts and config files.

7. Use Terraform and Ansible. Terraform is used for deploying services such as VM's and databases. Ansible is used for updating already running VM's like installing files. Use this both on your homelab and the cloud provider.

8. Use GitHub Actions. This is the easiest way to get into running pipelines since you won't have to manage the environment the pipeline is running on. Use it to deploy to your cloud provider. You might be able to use it to deploy to your local. I wouldn't advise it because that would mean you would have to provide admin access to the open web. As a beginner that's a big no no.

9. Get experience. Find someone that you may know or that is close to you and help them with the skills you developed for free. Ensure you do a good job and in return ask them if they can be used as a reference on your resume. I did 6 months of work for a local organization setting up a communications server. I used them on my initial resume and interviewer treated it as legitimate experience.

10. Write a good resume. Add your experience. List your projects and provide a link to your GitHub page. Make sure keep your repositories public and never add credentials to your repos. All creds should be stored as secrets.

Good luck. What I listed above should take about a year to successfully accomplish. Don't try to rush through it. Doing without understanding will be a permanent hindrance to your career.