Use this checklist to assess your readiness for mid-level DevOps positions (2-5 years experience).
- Advanced shell scripting (bash)
- System performance tuning
- Process management and optimization
- Advanced file system operations
- System monitoring and troubleshooting
- Kernel parameters tuning
- Write complex bash scripts
- Python scripting for automation
- Configuration management basics (Ansible)
- System automation workflows
- Auto Scaling Groups
- Load Balancers (ALB, NLB)
- RDS (Multi-AZ, Read Replicas)
- ElastiCache (Redis/Memcached)
- CloudFront CDN
- Route 53 DNS
- S3 advanced features (lifecycle, versioning)
- VPC advanced (peering, Transit Gateway)
- VPN and Direct Connect
- Security Groups and NACLs
- Network troubleshooting
- Reserved Instances
- Spot Instances
- Right-sizing instances
- Cost monitoring and optimization
- Pods, Services, Deployments
- ConfigMaps and Secrets
- Ingress and networking
- PersistentVolumes
- Namespaces and RBAC
- StatefulSets and DaemonSets
- Jobs and CronJobs
- Resource quotas and limits
- Network policies
- Service mesh basics (Istio/Linkerd)
- Deploy applications to Kubernetes
- Troubleshoot pod issues
- Manage cluster resources
- Upgrade clusters
- Backup and restore
- Modules and module composition
- Remote state management
- Workspaces and environments
- State locking
- Import existing resources
- Terraform best practices
- Write CloudFormation templates
- Nested stacks
- Stack sets
- Change sets
- Write playbooks
- Roles and modules
- Inventory management
- Configuration management
- Multi-stage pipelines
- Parallel job execution
- Conditional execution
- Pipeline optimization
- Artifact management
- Blue-green deployments
- Canary deployments
- Rolling deployments
- Feature flags
- Rollback strategies
- Secrets management in pipelines
- Infrastructure testing in CI/CD
- Database migrations in pipelines
- Multi-environment deployments
- Pipeline as code best practices
- Prometheus and Grafana
- CloudWatch advanced
- ELK stack (Elasticsearch, Logstash, Kibana)
- APM tools (New Relic, Datadog)
- Custom metrics
- Alerting rules
- Dashboard creation
- Log aggregation and analysis
- Understand distributed tracing
- Use tracing tools (Jaeger, Zipkin)
- Debug microservices issues
- Security scanning (SAST, DAST)
- Container security
- Secrets management (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager)
- Network security
- Compliance basics (SOC 2, PCI DSS)
- Implement security best practices
- Security audits
- Vulnerability management
- Incident response basics
- RPO and RTO
- Backup strategies
- Disaster recovery planning
- Multi-region architectures
- Failover strategies
- Design HA architectures
- Implement backups
- Test disaster recovery
- Document recovery procedures
- Identify bottlenecks
- Optimize database queries
- Caching strategies
- CDN optimization
- Load testing
- Right-size resources
- Optimize costs
- Auto-scaling optimization
- Network optimization
- Design scalable architectures
- Microservices architecture
- Event-driven architecture
- API design
- Database design
- Well-Architected Framework (AWS)
- Design patterns
- Trade-offs analysis
- Documentation
- Complex bash scripts
- Python automation
- API integration (REST, GraphQL)
- Error handling and logging
- Complete infrastructure automation
- Multi-environment automation
- Self-healing systems
- Automated testing
- Complex system debugging
- Performance issues
- Network issues
- Database issues
- Distributed system issues
- Systematic debugging
- Root cause analysis
- Documentation of solutions
- Knowledge sharing
- Code reviews
- Knowledge sharing
- Mentoring junior engineers
- Cross-functional collaboration
- Identify process improvements
- Implement best practices
- Documentation
- Tool evaluation and selection
- Multi-tier application on cloud
- Microservices on Kubernetes
- Complete CI/CD pipeline
- Multi-region setup
- Monitoring and alerting stack
- Disaster recovery setup
- Production-ready application
- Complete DevOps pipeline
- Security hardening
- Cost optimization project
- Performance optimization
- Can explain complex concepts
- Can discuss trade-offs
- Can design architectures
- Can troubleshoot complex issues
- Can optimize systems
- Can design scalable systems
- Can discuss architecture decisions
- Can evaluate trade-offs
- Can estimate capacity
- Can mentor others
- Can lead projects
- Can improve processes
- Can communicate effectively
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional (or working towards)
- CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator)
- HashiCorp Terraform Associate
✅ You're ready for mid-level DevOps interviews!
- Kubernetes: Essential for most roles
- Cloud Advanced: Deep expertise in one cloud
- CI/CD: Advanced pipeline design
- Architecture: System design skills
- Leadership: Team collaboration and mentoring
- Deepen Expertise: Specialize in areas of interest
- Get Certified: Validate your knowledge
- Lead Projects: Take ownership
- Mentor: Help junior engineers
- Contribute: Open source, blog posts, talks
- Network: Attend meetups, conferences
- Specialize: Deep expertise > broad knowledge
- Own Projects: Take end-to-end ownership
- Mentor: Teaching reinforces learning
- Stay Current: DevOps changes fast
- Automate Everything: Look for automation opportunities
- Document: Share knowledge with team
- Network: Connect with DevOps community
Good luck! 🚀