DevOps, Platform & SRE
Automate how software is built, shipped and kept running — fast and reliably.
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What is DevOps, Platform & SRE?
DevOps engineers, platform engineers and Site Reliability Engineers (SREs) make it easy and safe for developers to ship code. They build CI/CD pipelines, manage containers and Kubernetes, automate infrastructure, set up monitoring and on-call, and respond when production breaks. Platform engineering — building an internal 'golden path' so developers can self-serve environments — is the fastest-growing branch of the field.
Why it's trending now
- Gartner predicted that by 2026, 80% of software engineering organisations would have platform teams providing reusable tools and services — up from 45% in 2022 — making platform engineering a mainstream career path.
- AI coding assistants mean teams ship more code, faster — which increases the need for strong pipelines, automated testing and reliable deployments.
- Kubernetes and cloud-native tooling (CNCF ecosystem) are now standard in mid-size and large companies, and they need engineers who can run them well.
- In Bangladesh, Paylab lists DevOps engineers and SREs among the best-paid IT roles, and offshore firms increasingly sell DevOps-as-a-service to foreign clients.
Job roles
Common job titles you'll see in listings, and what each one actually does.
DevOps Engineer
Builds CI/CD pipelines, automates infrastructure and bridges development and operations teams.
Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
Uses software engineering to keep services reliable: SLOs, monitoring, incident response and capacity planning.
Platform Engineer
Builds an internal developer platform — templates, self-service environments and paved roads for teams.
Release / Build Engineer
Owns build systems, versioning, artifact management and release processes.
Kubernetes Administrator
Operates Kubernetes clusters: upgrades, networking, security, scaling and cost.
Observability Engineer
Designs logging, metrics and tracing systems so teams can understand production behaviour.
Skills from beginner to advanced
Tick skills as you learn them — your progress is saved in this browser.
1Beginner
Start here2Intermediate
Job-ready core3Advanced
Stand outMost-requested languages & tools
What employers mention most often in current job listings for this field.
Languages
Tools & platforms
Docker + Kubernetes + Terraform + one CI tool + one cloud is the core of most listings. Go is increasingly requested for platform tooling.
30/60/90-day roadmap
About 1–2 hours a day. Tick goals as you complete them.
Days 1–30
Linux, Git and containers
Milestone: A repository with a Dockerised app and a working CI pipeline.
Days 31–60
Kubernetes and IaC
Milestone: An app deployed to Kubernetes via CI, with dashboards and alerts.
Days 61–90
Reliability and GitOps
Milestone: A production-style platform repo with GitOps, SLOs and a blameless postmortem write-up.
Free learning resources
All free to start. Some courses offer paid certificates — auditing is free.
- DevOps Roadmaproadmap.sh · Guide · roadmap.sh
- Kubernetes official tutorialsKubernetes · Docs · kubernetes.io
- Docker Get Started guideDocker · Docs · docs.docker.com
- Google SRE books (free online)Google · Book · sre.googleFree
- GitHub Actions documentationGitHub · Docs · docs.github.com
- Terraform tutorialsHashiCorp · Docs · developer.hashicorp.comFree
- Introduction to Kubernetes (LFS158)Linux Foundation · Course · training.linuxfoundation.orgFree
- DevOps Exercisesbregman-arie (GitHub) · Practice · github.comFree
- KodeKloud free labsKodeKloud · Practice · kodekloud.comFree labs
- Prometheus — Getting startedPrometheus · Docs · prometheus.io
Portfolio project ideas
Build these in order. Put each one on GitHub with a clear README and a short demo.
Dockerised app with CI
easyContainerise a simple web app and add a GitHub Actions workflow that lints, tests and builds the image on every push.
Automated server setup with Ansible
easyWrite an Ansible playbook that configures a fresh Linux VM with users, firewall, Nginx and your app.
Kubernetes deployment with monitoring
mediumDeploy a multi-service app to Kubernetes with Helm, plus Prometheus/Grafana dashboards and alert rules.
GitOps pipeline with Argo CD
mediumSeparate app and config repos; merges to main auto-deploy to staging, and production deploys require approval.
Internal developer platform
hardBuild a Backstage portal where a developer can create a new service from a template that provisions repo, CI, Kubernetes namespace and monitoring automatically.
10 interview questions
Try answering out loud first, then open the short model answer.
1What is CI/CD?
Continuous Integration automatically builds and tests every code change; Continuous Delivery/Deployment automatically releases tested changes to environments, reducing manual, risky releases.
2Containers vs virtual machines?
VMs virtualise hardware and run a full OS each; containers share the host kernel and package only the app and its dependencies, so they're lighter and start faster.
3What is a Kubernetes pod and a deployment?
A pod is the smallest deployable unit (one or more containers sharing network/storage). A deployment manages replica pods, rolling updates and rollbacks.
4What is an SLO and an error budget?
An SLO is a reliability target (e.g. 99.9% successful requests). The error budget is the allowed failure (0.1%); when it's spent, teams slow feature releases to improve reliability.
5Blue-green vs canary deployment?
Blue-green switches all traffic from old to new environment at once (easy rollback). Canary sends a small share of traffic to the new version first and increases it gradually.
6What is GitOps?
Using Git as the single source of truth for desired infrastructure and app state; an agent (e.g. Argo CD) continuously syncs the cluster to match Git.
7How would you debug a pod stuck in CrashLoopBackOff?
Check kubectl describe and logs (including --previous), verify config/secrets, resource limits, health probes and the container's start command.
8What are the three pillars of observability?
Logs (events), metrics (numeric time series) and traces (request paths across services) — together they explain what is happening and why.
9What is a blameless postmortem?
An incident review focused on system and process causes, not individuals, producing concrete action items to prevent recurrence.
10How do you manage secrets in pipelines?
Never commit them; use a secret manager (Vault, cloud secret stores) or encrypted CI secrets, short-lived credentials (OIDC), least privilege and rotation.
Resume bullet templates
Replace the [brackets] with your real numbers. Quantified results stand out to recruiters.
Built CI/CD pipelines with [tool] for [N] services, cutting deployment time from [X] hours to [Y] minutes and increasing release frequency [X]x.
Migrated [N] services to Kubernetes with Helm and Argo CD, improving resource utilisation by [X]% and enabling zero-downtime deploys.
Defined SLOs and alerting for [N] critical services, reducing mean time to recovery from [X] to [Y] minutes.
Automated infrastructure provisioning with Terraform, eliminating [N] hours of manual work per month.
Introduced container image scanning and secret management, closing [N] high-severity supply-chain findings.
Formula: action verb + what you built + tools + measurable result. Only claim numbers you can explain in an interview.
Salary & demand
Ranges vary by company, city, experience and negotiation. Always check the linked sources for the latest figures.
Bangladesh
Tk 20,777 – Tk 78,821
gross per month
Paylab DevOps Engineer range (10th–90th percentile, gross monthly). SREs are listed at BDT 20,704–81,883 — among the highest-paid IT roles on Paylab Bangladesh.
Demand
High. Offshore software companies, fintech and telecom teams hire DevOps engineers; Kubernetes and AWS experience is especially valued.
Remote (from Bangladesh)
$30,000 – $85,000
per year
Estimate. Arc reports $43,605 average for Bangladesh-based remote DevOps engineers — the highest of the role averages it lists for Bangladesh.
Demand
High. DevOps is one of the best-paid remote paths for Bangladeshi engineers, though on-call work may require time-zone flexibility.
Global benchmark
$134,040
US median, Software Developers, QA Analysts & Testers (BLS, 2025) — DevOps/SRE are usually classed here
Network and computer systems administrators, a more ops-focused category, have a lower $99,130 median. Projected growth: +10% (2025–35, much faster than average).
Demand
High. Platform engineering and SRE remain core hiring areas as AI increases the volume of code being shipped.
How to read these numbers: Bangladesh ranges are Paylab's 10th–90th percentile gross monthly salaries (top product companies often pay more). Remote ranges are CareerPulse estimates informed by Arc's Bangladesh remote-developer data. Global figures are US medians from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (May 2025 data, 2025–35 projections) unless stated otherwise.
Start today checklist
Small, concrete actions you can finish today. Momentum beats perfect plans.