Описание
Background: about 14 years in the industry (CS Degree), started in manual QA, roughly 6 years in automation (Node/Playwright, GitLab CI). I'm now migrating pipelines from 2 other devops tooling (Jenkins and TeamCity) to GitLab CI/CD, deploying with Helm to kOps-managed clusters on AWS, mostly .NET apps. I'm trying to turn that into a real platform/DevOps role. Most of what i've done recently in the past year has been AWS + Terraform but im pretty used to Gitlab and it's CI/CD via the Automation stuff.
This post sorta edges between job stuff and actual "learning" so I wasn't sure where it belongs.
My problem is retention more than motivation:
* Most of our Dockerfiles and manifests already exist, and I lean on AI for drafts, so I review and edit much more than I write. The concepts stick, but exact syntax fades.
* I use Terraform, but not daily. I took a practice quiz aimed at state, import, and drift and got 3 out of 6.
* Linux is my weakest layer. We're mostly a Windows shop, so I rarely live in a terminal on Linux boxes.
* I've fallen into tutorial hell before, so I'm trying to learn by building things.
What I'm doing about it: a small homelab (Proxmox, a few LXC services, k3s next), a KodeKloud subscription, and my employer covers certs.
Current cert plan:
1. KCNA
2. Terraform Associate (004)
3. An AWS Associate (Solutions Architect or CloudOps)
4. CKA, once I have real Kubernetes hands-on
I'm skipping the Docker cert because it looks Swarm-heavy and I don't use Swarm.
Questions for people further along:
1. Does that order make sense, or would you change it?
2. How do you keep skills current in areas your job doesn't exercise day to day? Cheat sheets, a homelab, something else?
3. If you made the QA/automation-to-DevOps jump, what did hiring managers actually weigh: certs, homelab, or real migration work?
4. How do you keep AI-drafted YAML and Dockerfiles from turning into a crutch?
5. Curious if this happens to anyone else? specifically with like Terraf
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