When you join a new project, whether you’re a junior engineer or a senior, the first thing you should focus on is not Kubernetes, not Docker, not Terraform.
Start with the application.
Understand the system before the tools.
How many services exist?
What are the core components?
Which component communicates with which?
Where does a request begin, and where does it finally end?
And most importantly, draw it.
As DevOps engineers, our job isn’t to memorize every tool in the ecosystem. Our real responsibility is to understand the application deeply and ensure it keeps running reliably.
Once you truly understand the system, connections become clear.
You see how pub/sub works through messaging, how queues process workloads, how the database holds state, how event-driven functions react, and how networking, caching, and background workers all cooperate to make one application operate as a whole.
Here’s the important part:
If background processing suddenly stops, you might never think of the queue unless you understand the request flow. And even if you suspect it, you can only fix it if you know how it was configured and what recently changed.
Tools rarely fail alone. Systems do.
That’s why watching tutorials isn’t enough. Always connect what you learn back to the real application.
When you join a team, first understand the architecture:
- What is legacy?
- What is modernized?
- What depends on what?
Only then should you dive into the tools.
*Challenge *
Create a complete architecture diagram of your application. Include every service or layer. Trace the full journey. From user request to database to async processing and back, focusing on components, not technologies.
Because without understanding the application, you can’t reliably keep it running. And in the end, that’s what truly matters.
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