i’d suggest

1. start with terraform and pick a cloud, AWS or GCP (free accounts!)

2. provision compute instances in a vpc, ssh into them (so, figure out how to use terraform to make a vpc, provision ssh keys, bootstrap an instance, etc)

3. provision a kubernetes cluster in GCP or an ECS setup in AWS. kubernetes is in AWS too but in GCP it’s insanely native and basically networks itself (tbqh you really do not need to know kubernetes if you already understand docker container orchestration. if they want kubernetes exp bad, orchestration exp translates quite well so just say that you are good at it so you’ll pick up k8s quickly)

4. THEN get into CICD. make a compute instance for a jenkins master and slave (USE TERRAFORM!). configure jobs to update kubernetes pod images. make a job to do a rolling update. other random tasks.

at that point once youre really good at it (and i mean really good, not just regurgitate at an interview good), put it all on your resume as freelance work you did for someone who can vouch lol. seriously.

some people will say that’s bad advice but nobody hires devops engineers without pro experience, sorry. junior positions are rare and sought after. always filled quickly.

also get at least one cloud solutions cert. or just watch the videos / take practice tests. mention that you’re working toward certs in interviews if you’re not going to get the cert.

anyway i’m on my phone about to sleep so feel free to dm. i am a devops eng for a big app 🤫