🛠️ The Pragmatic DevOps Roadmap: From Zero to Production in 12 Weeks

A focused learning path for mastering modern DevOps tools like Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, and GCP – without getting lost in tool overload.

🌍 Why This Roadmap?

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the endless stream of DevOps tools, you’re not alone. While the ecosystem keeps growing, the truth is: you don’t need to learn everything. You just need to learn the right things well.

This roadmap is designed around the 80/20 principle:

Learn the 20% of tools and workflows that give you 80% of real-world value – and jobs.

🎯 The Goal

Within 6 to 12 weeks, you’ll build practical experience with a core set of technologies used in real DevOps and Cloud Engineer roles:

  • ✅ Docker (for containerization)
  • ✅ Kubernetes (for orchestration)
  • ✅ Google Cloud Platform (for infrastructure)
  • ✅ Terraform (for infrastructure as code)
  • ✅ Ansible (for configuration automation)
  • ✅ Git & GitHub (for version control & CI/CD)
  • ✅ Bash (for scripting and glue)

By the end, you’ll have a portfolio-ready project, hands-on skills, and confidence in the DevOps job market.

✅ Phase 1: The Foundation (Weeks 1–2)

🔹 1. Git & GitHub – Version Control Essentials

Learn how to track changes, collaborate, and manage code.

  • Commands: git init, clone, commit, branch, merge, push
  • Set up and use GitHub repositories

🧪 Mini project: Create a GitHub repo for a simple shell tool. Practice branches, PRs, and issues.

🔹 2. Bash & Shell Scripting – Your DevOps Superpower

You can’t automate what you can’t script. Bash is your glue between all tools.

  • Basics: variables, conditionals, loops, functions
  • Tools: awk, sed, grep, pipes, redirects
  • Best practices for writing robust shell scripts

🧪 Mini project: Write a script that scans a directory, logs all file sizes, and compresses old files.

✅ Phase 2: Containers & Orchestration (Weeks 3–5)

🔹 3. Docker – Containerize All the Things

Docker is still the backbone of local development and CI workflows.

  • Write Dockerfiles, build and run containers
  • Understand volumes, ports, networks, and Docker Compose
  • Debug containers and build custom images

🧪 Project: Package a simple web app and a database using Docker Compose for local development.

🔹 4. Kubernetes – The Orchestrator in Action

Master the fundamentals of deploying and managing containerized apps at scale.

  • Tools: kubectl, Minikube/Kind for local clusters
  • Concepts: Pods, Deployments, Services, Ingress, ConfigMaps, Secrets
  • Understand namespaces, contexts, and rolling updates

🧪 Project: Deploy your Dockerized web app into a local Kubernetes cluster.

✅ Phase 3: Infrastructure & Cloud (Weeks 6–8)

🔹 5. Google Cloud Platform – Build Real Cloud Infrastructure

Google Cloud offers one of the best managed Kubernetes services: GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine).

  • Set up a GCP project and billing account
  • Use GKE to launch and scale Kubernetes clusters
  • Understand IAM, VPCs, and Cloud Console basics
  • Use the gcloud CLI

🧪 Project: Deploy your app to GKE with a custom domain and static IP.

🔹 6. Terraform – Infrastructure as Code

Terraform lets you automate your entire GCP infrastructure in a reproducible way.

  • Basics: Providers, Resources, Variables, Outputs, State
  • Define GKE clusters, VPCs, and firewall rules as code
  • Learn terraform plan, apply, destroy

🧪 Project: Provision a full GKE environment using Terraform, including autoscaling, networking, and IAM roles.

✅ Phase 4: Automation & CI/CD (Weeks 9–10)

🔹 7. Ansible – Configuration Management Made Easy

Ansible is great for server provisioning, SSH automation, and legacy system support.

  • Write Playbooks, manage Inventories
  • Use roles, templates, and variables
  • Automate post-deployment tasks

🧪 Project: Provision a virtual machine and configure NGINX and firewall rules with Ansible.

🔹 8. GitHub Actions – Simple CI/CD

Automate your workflow with GitHub-native CI/CD pipelines.

  • Write .yml workflows for builds, tests, and deployments
  • Use secrets and environment variables
  • Trigger builds on push, PRs, tags

🧪 Project: Build and push a Docker image from your GitHub repo, and auto-deploy it to GKE on merge.

🔚 Phase 5: Integration & Portfolio (Ongoing)

This is where you pull everything together into a public, professional DevOps project:

  • Structure your GitHub repo clearly
  • Include a README.md in English and optionally German
  • Use a real-world app (even a simple Flask or Node.js app)
  • Combine:
    • Dockerfile
    • Terraform setup for GKE
    • Kubernetes manifests or Helm charts
    • GitHub Actions for CI/CD
    • Ansible playbook for related server setup

💡 Pro tip: Blog about your process. Share your learnings. Recruiters love seeing initiative + clarity.

📌 Final Thoughts

The best DevOps engineers aren’t the ones who know the most tools.
They’re the ones who know how to build something real with just a few.

This roadmap is built for focus, not perfection. You don’t need to learn 30 DevOps tools – just the 5–7 that power 90% of production systems today.