Thoughts on DevOps

From what I can tell, DevOps engineers are drawn from the ranks of experienced software developers, or failing that, Computer Science graduates who need minimal training to work competently in a DevOps role.

Unfortunately for me, I meet neither of those requirements, which means either working my way into a software development career or going to university. I have spent enough years at university; as far as I am concerned, if I need a degree for the job, the job’s not worth it.

Ergo, the path to DevOps will be via software development, which raises the question of how to become a successful software developer?

I see broadly two avenues:

1. Working as a junior developer or serving an internship.
2. Getting an auxiliary role, e.g. in technical support or on the customer helpdesk, to get into the company, from which point I can work to be promoted into the development team.

For the latter I am already eminently qualified. For the former, my daily work can be divided into three areas:

1. Studying programming, i.e. learning to code at a professional level.  A good starting point is Code Academy and Udemy.  Once I have completed the courses through those websites, I think I’ll have a much better idea of where to go from there.
2. Online self-promotion.  This includes my blog, using LinkedIn, etc.
3. Schmoozing with professional developers and DevOps engineers.  In Melbourne, there are Meetup groups for DevOps, Python, Ruby, etc.  I have already joined those and will keep an eye out for any others.  At the moment I’m quite enjoying Ruby; although I started on Python, I think Ruby might become my favourite language.  I’ll see how I feel in a couple of months.That’s it for now.