Need some advice on working in devops

Hey guys,
would appreciate any advice, kind of have a weird background.
I got my first job as a graduate cloud engineer 4 years ago, worked for 3 years and was unfortunately made redundant almost a year ago, all of this was in the UK.

idk if what I did in the mean time matters but I can elaborate if needed, mostly spent the time travelling, volunteering and attending a language school.

I'm a US citizen and have a place to stay with family in the US. Didn't really want to move to the US since I didn't grow up there and find it kind of intimidating due to the news. But I realised the visa sponsorship requirements were holding me back in the UK.

My experience I think maybe aligns better with what could be considered as DevOps, I worked with CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins, AzureDevOps, I used a lot of terraform, have some experience with K8s (using googles GKE). I mostly have experience working on GCP, but I have some exposure to AWS and Azure.
My roles at work usually were around monitoring k8s resources and and making sure our product was stable.
But to be honest I wasn't really happy with my work experience, I work for a consultancy and they had me placed with a large organisation for a year and half, but during that time except for helping set up initial product they didn't really have any work for me. After that I probably spent about a year and half on the bench developing internal tools for the consultancy (mostly using azure devops, python and terraform)

I'm sorry if there are any superfluous details, but I want advice on what my approach should be when applying to jobs in the US?
I feel like my skills are really lacking when compared to the amount of time I have worked, what courses/ projects should I undertake to make sure my skills are up to date.
How do companies usually assess somebodies abilities?
Is this the right place to post this?
What platform is a good place to search for jobs and what job title should I use when searching for jobs?

Thanks.

https://redd.it/1mf3rff
@r_devops

Junior DevOps interview

Hey everyone, I'm a fresh graduate with some cloud certs but no professional experience. I have a technical interview where I'll get an infrastructure/architectural case study to solve over one day , then discuss my approach.

The company said it's about "analyzing, designing, and proposing solutions" to understand my thought process and problem-solving approach. It's for a junior cloud/DevOps role.

I'm honestly nervous , are there any ressources that might help with that just to practice little bit or help me during that day please !

https://redd.it/1mf0gi1
@r_devops

Default SSH config on AWS Lightsail

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this stuff and just fired up my new AWS Lightsail and ran these two commands:

sudo apt update -y
sudo apt upgrade -y

Mid-way I got a prompt saying that a new version of the config file was available but the version installed currently has been locally modified. Should I install the maintainer's version or keep the local version currently installed?

When should I go for what, and what are the trade-offs? Thanks in advance!

https://redd.it/1mfi5a8
@r_devops

There's new DevOp/infra "Real Skills" website in town.

Just found about https://infrathrone.xyz
Looks like decent attempt.
Seems a bit costly.
Any tips how I can simulate all these warzone scenarios in my WSL2/raspi? (I don't want to pay for this website/course)

https://redd.it/1mfipt1
@r_devops

Looking for feedback on cloud engagement strategy for mid-size IoT company (AMPECO use case)

Hey folks,

I'm preparing for a business role interview at a cloud services provider (Europe Cloud – GCP & AWS partner), and part of the task is to pitch a go-to-market strategy for a real client.

I chose AMPECO, a Bulgaria-based EV charging platform with 100K+ charging points across 60 countries. They run on AWS (ECS, RDS, CloudWatch, Terraform, etc.), and their challenges revolve around:

Elastic scalability (high concurrent usage)
Long-term data archiving (massive telemetry + session logs)
FinOps issues (cloud cost visibility per tenant/client)

I’ve proposed:

Infra audit + potential GKE migration or ECS tuning
BigQuery + Coldline for multi-tiered storage/analytics
FinOps PoC via Datadog, GCP calculator, or AWS CE tools

Would love your feedback on:

1. The realism of the pain points and cloud proposals
2. Gaps I may have overlooked (especially on the data/FinOps side)
3. Whether you've seen similar companies approach scaling differently

Happy to hear any thoughts.

https://redd.it/1mfhqdc
@r_devops

Is the Scaler DevOps course worth it? and does the certification get recogonized in the industry?

I am a fresher working as a data analyst. But I have contributed to real world projects through my internships and college club, and have explored DevOps. I want to get a job in DevOps/SRE, but I am not able to get shortlisted to any interviews. Should i do the scaler devops course, so that i also streamline my skills and also get the placement guidance. Is there anyone who has already done the course?

https://redd.it/1mfjqpa
@r_devops

🎮 Docker Is Like a Game Cartridge System

Do you remember that click when you put game cartridge inside console?
No install, no setup, just press and play. Very simple.

This is what Docker feels like.

Your computer is the console.
Old apps? Like games in 90s on PC — insert CD, install drivers, change settings… and maybe it crashes with some weird error.

But Docker is different. Each container is like a game cartridge.
It already includes:

The app (like the game)
The tools it needs (dependencies)
Settings (configurations)
Even small OS inside (game engine)

And the best part: you can run it anywhere.
Laptop, office computer, cloud server — all same result if it has Docker.

You want to run many apps? No problem.
Insert many cartridges. Like WordPress, Node.js, MongoDB — they all run at same time, without fighting each other.

Want to stop one? Just remove it. Others keep working.
Want to share it with friend? Send the cartridge (the container) — they get same thing exactly.

https://redd.it/1mfmbee
@r_devops

Long Running Celery Tasks With Zero Downtime updates

I developed an app that lets users submit "validation tasks."

On the backend, I'm handling these with Celery + Redis + MySQL to track task states. Each job can take up to 1 hour to complete.

Right now, Celery is running inside a Docker container, hosted via Coolify.

I'm trying to figure out a clean way to upgrade or redeploy without any downtime — and more importantly, without affecting any running jobs.

Coolify has built-in environments, so I can technically do blue-green deployments and switch between them. But my main concern is really about the running tasks — I don’t want to interrupt or lose any of them during a switch.

I have some ideas in mind, but I’d love to hear your thoughts, especially if anyone has gone through a similar setup or solved this in a clean way.

https://redd.it/1mfq8ri
@r_devops

Cert expired (again). Built a tool to stop the madness, Curious what DevOps folks think

You know that moment when everything breaks on a Sunday morning because someone forgot to renew a TLS cert?

Yeah. Me too. Too many times.

So I built **a tool, (I don't want to post the link here, because I don't want to spam, I'm looking for feedback)** a certificate monitoring and management tool built for *real-world* DevOps setups.

It handles:

* Public domains, keystores, cert folders
* Internal mTLS certs, air-gapped systems, embedded devices
* Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault, and more coming soon
* Offline-friendly agent (keymon — [npm link](https://www.npmjs.com/package/keymon))
* Expiry alerts, tagging, environment grouping, ownership context

Basically: stop the tribal knowledge, spreadsheets, and “who owns this cert?” fire drills.

Curious how the DevOps crowd is managing internal certs these days, scripts? Prometheus exporters? Or just hoping Let’s Encrypt doesn’t let you down?

Would love feedback if you want to give it a spin, let me know and we can chat "offline", or just roast it if you hate certs as much as I do 😂

https://redd.it/1mfrayy
@r_devops

Micro services over monolithic

I know that micro services is not for everyone and specially if you just starting but can someone tell me in brief why a company can change to micro services architecture , like what happen so monolithic is not the right option anymore

https://redd.it/1mfryn8
@r_devops

Why Observability Isn’t Just for SREs (and How Devs Can Get Started)

Almost every other day, when I scroll past r/devops or r/sre, I see a post like this asking how a dev can get started with devops, observability, etc.

I've made a blog as an attempt for anyone lost to find their way into observability and a wake-up call for devs to they should think about observability more actively today than ever before!

A dev’s observability playbook.

Here's the link.

https://redd.it/1mfsvq8
@r_devops

Best path to learn DevOps fast with structure

Hi everyone 👋

I am working a full time 9 to 5 and I want to become a DevOps specialist as fast as possible. My goal is to build strong foundations quickly and then start working on my own projects, finding a DevOps job or starting taking small freelancing/consulting DevOps gigs.

I am trying to choose between three options:

1. TechWorld with Nana bootcamp: very visual and structured but a bit expensive and not always in depth according to feedback?
2. Cloud Engineer Academy with Suleymane: focused and looks serious but I do not know much about the results?
3. KodeKloud: very hands on but harder to stay focused or follow a single clear path as its a pick and choose and no real build up link between each section?

I personally feel that when you are busy with a full-time job, it is better to follow one structured course instead of jumping between free resources or YouTube. Otherwise it gets too messy and I lose time or motivation.

What would you recommend if you were in my shoes?
Ideally I want to build real world DevOps skills and be able to work as a consultant or freelancer in 8 months (if that even possible :D)

If you have experience with any of these or took a different fast track that worked, I would love to hear about it. Thanks a lot!

https://redd.it/1mfsr79
@r_devops

Devops role at an AI startup or full stack agent role at an Agentic Company ?

Hi Guys,

I am a new grad with experience in full stack development at a medium sized company, now i am looking for full time roles, i am conflicted between the two options, please help me out, I am super interested and passionate about getting into distributed systems, and the AI revolution is making me feel FOMO about learning and building AI Agents, what do you all think, what should i choose ?

https://redd.it/1mfs9qt
@r_devops

Deployment versioning problems?

I'm wondering if anyone else has issues keeping up with a variety of versions of different things deploying to different customers?


Does anyone else's company have 5+ helm charts (each versioned and released separately), distinct "appVersions" that are also versioned and released separately, along with other components (e.g. infrastructure) that have separate versions/release schedules? On top of all of that, each customer may be on a different set of versions of each of these things.


If so, how do you handle keeping track of all of them? Full disclosure, I'm considering building out a web app that helps keep track/visualize all of these versions/release schedules. Because the standard project management tools don't quite lay out the visualization exactly how I want it. I kind of want to see each component on a timeline of sorts that shows what version each component is at and which version a particular customer is on. Do you all know of any existing tools that excel at displaying/tracking this info?

https://redd.it/1mfy3o0
@r_devops

SchemaNest - Where schemas grow, thrive, and scale with your team.

Lightweight. Team-friendly. CI/CD-ready.

🚀 A blazing-fast registry for your JSON Schemas
✅ Versioning & search via web UI or CLI
✅ Fine-grained auth & API keys
✅ Built-in PostgreSQL & SQLite support
✅ Written in Go & Next.js for performance & simplicity
✅ Built-in set up instructions for Editor, IDEs and more

🛠️ Drop it into your pipeline. Focus on shipping, not schema sprawl.
🔗 github.com/timo-reymann/SchemaNest

❓Questions / feedback?
You are welcome to post a comment here for suggestions/feedback and for bug reports and feature requests feel free to create issues/PRs!

https://redd.it/1mg1fl8
@r_devops

¿Qué herramienta de Infra como Código les ha roto más el alma… y cuál les ha salvado?

Estoy armando una plataforma visual (tipo Figma pero para infra) y estoy estudiando qué dolores reales tenemos los que trabajamos con Terraform, Pulumi, Ansible o CloudFormation.

Mi experiencia personal:

Terraform: poderoso pero el manejo de estado remoto es una bomba si lo tocas mal

Pulumi: lindo en teoría, pero he visto el SDK dejar de funcionar de un día a otro

Ansible: me gusta, pero cuando los playbooks se anidan demasiado, se vuelve infernal

CloudFormation: sinceramente no entiendo por qué AWS lo sigue empujando tanto


No vengo a vender nada, ni a sacar encuestas de marketing. Solo quiero saber:

🔹 ¿Qué les ha funcionado a largo plazo en equipos reales? 🔹 ¿Qué herramienta reemplazarían mañana mismo si pudieran?

Se vale rantear, llorar, filosofar. Estoy leyendo todo.

https://redd.it/1mg8p3n
@r_devops

Any way to make AWS + Cloudflare setup less painful? I'm burning out

Trying to spin up infra for a project and forgot how much overhead there is.

Setting up IAM, VPCs, EC2 roles, DNS, SSL certs, Cloudflare config… it’s just a mess. Even getting basic stuff working securely feels like a part-time job.

I’m not trying to over-engineer this, I just want to deploy to AWS and not worry about blowing up my weekend fixing config errors.

Anyone here using something that actually makes this easier?

https://redd.it/1mgavk3
@r_devops

Tired of K8s

I think I am not the only one who is tired of this monstrosity. Long story short, at some point maintaining K8s and all the language it carries becomes as expensive as reworking the whole structure and switching to custom orchestrator tailored for the task. I wish I would do it right from the start!

It took 4 devs and 3 month of work to cut the costs to 40%, workload to 80% and is a lot easier to maintain! god, why people jump in to this pile of plugins and services without thinking twice about consequences

https://redd.it/1mgc01h
@r_devops

Volare: Kubernetes volume populator

Built a Volume populater that populates PVCs from multiple external sources.

check it out here: https://github.com/AdamShannag/volare

https://redd.it/1mge01u
@r_devops

Want to transition from full stack dev to devops

Basically the title. I have 3 yoe in full stack development. Now I want to transition to devops. I was preparing for AZ 200 but now I don't want to sit for that exam anymore. I'd rather prepare for AZ 400. I don't have hands on experience in things like terraform, ansible, Kubernetes, etc. I can't see any well defined path ahead of me. What should I do and how can I get noticed by recruiters?

https://redd.it/1mggsn8
@r_devops

Scaling down to 0 during non-business hours

Hey everyone,


I just wanted to ask if your team scales down to 0 during off hours?

How do you do it? Cron, KEDA, …

What scope are you responsible for? E.g. the whole test cluster, just some namespaces

What flavor of Kubernetes are you using? I would be particularly interested in ARO (Azure Red Hat OpenShift)

Is it common practice to remove nodes as well during off hours?

What were your pain points?

Did you notice any significant cost savings?


Thx!

https://redd.it/1mggmzk
@r_devops