Transition From Dev To DevOps

A personal reflection on why and how I made the move from a developer to DevOps.

The History

Through my entire university experience and most of my professional career, I lived and breathed creating software or applications. I avoided network courses through my time at university, but transitioned into a network heavy environment, and where continuous deployments were a necessity for success. I wanted to take control of my life to pursue what I enjoy through experiences and sharing knowledge.

The Why

I'll be as blunt as I can be, I enjoy it. I didn't decide to move to DevOps because I was forced to. While I was a software engineer, I was surrounded by opportunities to thrive, but I kept finding myself drawn to the the flows and processes which made our work as developers possible, i.e. DevOps. Being able to improve not just the code we wrote, but how we delivered was an addicting experience.

The How

I didn't chase a company, or a job title. What I sought out was the experience in any form or manner. Through my opportunities, I worked on creating a more efficient way to deploy code while learning new technology, i.e. Ansible, to help the team execute faster and cleaner. I was first introduced to Amazon Web Services(AWS) while catching up with a Capstone group member. I immediately took off, from webinars and documentations to creating my own small projects inside AWS. I was hooked. I used my most recent position to grow my network knowledge and experience. I found I was only limiting myself by not picking up new technology and exposing myself to all types of stacks. I took every opportunity to learn from the team and those even outside my circle. Don't mistake an opportunity to learn a new technology as insignificant, but an opportunity to show how quickly you are able to learn and execute.