In advance I want to say: I won't sell you a bootcamp, I won't send you to a Udemy course and I don't guarantee anything. I just want to share my story with you 🥲, as I believe many people are struggling to get "DevOps" or "Developer" job in this market.
Backstory
The year is 2019. I was to just graduate from a university with a Master of Engineering degree in Computer Science. With this on my resume, three years of experience at Intel (although as an intern 😅) and published apps for Android with a modest ad revenue, I went into the job hunting spree. Checkboxes:
- ✅ Bachelor's degree, Master's is just a formality,
- ✅ 3 years of experience in Big Tech,
- ✅ Some Python experience from the above,
- ✅ Java experience from Android,
- ✅ Some PHP websites I built in high school as "the next Facebook",
- ✅ Entrepreneurial spirit with proven projects.
I go for the biggest ones first: Amazon and AMD. First one, final round, rejection. Second one, "Here's a take home coding challenge", I do it, "not good enough". Maybe I should be a bit more humble next time. I apply to bigger and smaller companies for Java jobs. Silence. I apply for PHP jobs. Python. JavaScript. Silence. Android job. 200 people competing for one junior position. Of course I failed, what the hell is MVVM and how to use mocks in unit tests? (Fun fact: one company called me 2 years later for junior Java position!)
It was a disaster back then. As at the time I was a member of a Toastmaster's club, I just randomly chatted with one colleague who was a senior dev since a long time. He gave me just this simple one advice: "Go for IT helpdesk or DevOps, once you are in, it's easier to switch to Java or whatever".
First Steps into DevOps
I took his advice and picked DevOps. I had no idea what DevOps is back then. So I went home and searched what are the requirements for DevOps. I knew Linux, used it for some years already. I used Docker once or twice. Added these details to my resume. I sent maybe 3 or 4 applications. Got two responses. Went to the first interview. I said "I know some basic Docker, I know Linux, I want just a trial period, I will manage to do this/I will figure it out". The one in bold might have been the deciding factor 😂 and I got the job 🎉!
Everything afterwards was just smooth sailing ⛵️. Recruiters started to contact me themselves, I switched jobs multiple times. But most importantly, I learned whatever I could at work and tried hard to be useful, whether it was writing some Python scripts or replacing power cables in desk computers.
Fast forward to today
I have more than 5 years of experience in DevOps and many certifications at this point. I don't say this to brag but to give you a specific perspective: I almost get zero job offers. A recruiter contacts me once every two months at most. Even if I apply, there's almost no response. If I even get to a call, I don't get any exciting offers. Nowhere in the process did anyone ask me for certifications. I even applied to AWS and nowhere in the process I was asked or said anything about certifications. The only thing that mattered was problem solving, and grind and persistence (or as they call it in Amazon - following Leadership Principles 😆). What I want to underline here as well is that recruiters have a bias towards people who are currently employed, somewhat of a social proof of sort. Maybe it's subconscious, I don't know, I was never a headhunter 😝.
Let's go back to the title of this post and review some tips that are shared around by professionals. First: do and publish projects on GitHub. Far from it. First of all, it's 2025 and you can just vibe code it, and even if we assume that AI doesn't exist, nobody has time to look at your React ToDo app - and 200 other ones sent in by other candidates. If you have something very useful and unique, you might have a chance with that. At best, the time to show your project is to demonstrate it working during the interview. Second one: bootcamps - unless you are switching from one language to another, let's say Java bootcamp while being a Python pro or Cloud Architect while having experience as Software Product Manager, this is just waste of money. You might learn coding but your job chances will likely stay on the same level. There's another reason I will explain in digression below. Third one: certifications - although everyone clearly state all the time "certification won't get you a job" - which is true, the second part is too vague "only hands on experience matters". But let me also digress the certifications topic at the end of this post.
That leaves us with one tip I want to give you today:
Get any job in IT.
Whether you wanted a Java role and they offer you entry-level database admin, take it. If you wanted to be a Cloud Engineer but what you find is a sysadmin of physical servers, do it. IT person at a local school? You are the one. Assistant to the guy setting up routers in offices? You pass him the screwdriver. If you have to carry a server rack, you carry it. If someone needs ethernet cable or new Windows installation, you crawl under the desk to connect it and plug in USB stick with Windows ISO. If someone calls you asking how to install Adobe Reader for the third time today, you take the call and instruct them patiently step-by-step. I'm not saying this to make you do things out of your contract (only if you really want to yourself) but to tell you that someone has to do it and companies are in need of such specialists. Repeating one fact: the most valuable point on your resume is being currently employed. And far fewer people flock to on-site physical IT, or repeatable less creative jobs nowadays. (Tbh, most jobs are quite frustrating often. Look at game development. Video games are shiny, creative, and fun but in reality its development is the quickest path to burnout and crunch.)
If this company has software engineers, you are even luckier - ask to join stand-ups just to listen. Ask one developer to look over as they work. Ask them if you can ask questions - you will be surprised how many people are willing to help and teach you (maybe because it makes them feel important and smart? I don't know 🤣). With that you might have opportunity to switch to become SWE. Hiring internally is way easier - even more powerful than referrals.
You will have a modest salary (don't work for free though ❗️), put something what is left over aside. This is your budget for upskilling. Save for courses, certifications, books, whatever you are curious about. Buy a domain for a year, get a VPS server for a month. Buy a used tablet to test your apps. Take a Python course and value every minute of it - you earned this money and it was hard. This will give you finally opportunities to get where you want to be.
And if you are adventurous, or there's no IT offers around you, try getting any job. Maybe introducing Excel to a local Mom-and-Pop shop will be the way. Maybe you can find a book in a local library about HTML or data analytics and you will volunteer to teach it to kids. Google Forms for a local charity - isn't this IT? Any such small and trivial thing will move you closer to the path you want. If you get hired for a different position in an office where there is an IT department, it's even better - this is the same as above but with one extra step. On the other hand you might be the first pillar to establish one in the existing business.
But maybe... Maybe you will just love the job you got. I did. I never expected to be where I am now.
I get you, you spent so much time learning already. You did all those projects, all these courses, bootcamps and now you have to do something else completely? Not use any of those skills you spent time and energy to acquire? This is harsh reality, unfortunately. I don't say you should give up on that thing you learned. What I want to present you is a strategy to actually realize this in the future. Because statistically if you sent 1000 applications to various companies for this specific Typescript Developer job, 1001st is not likely to work either. Again this another opening will get hundreds of resumes. Get into the game first, then move forward on the board 🎲.
My suggestion contradicts the common advice of focusing on one thing and trying hard to get there. I advise you to diffuse and be open. Prepare quickly before the interview, get some basic knowledge about the things in the job description. Learn on the job, be curious, try being useful at every opportunity, at every hour you are in the office. Don't be afraid to ask questions. If you have an idea, don't just say it - implement it - even if your manager says "it's not worth the effort", but you believe it's the best what should be done - do it (just not directly on production 🤣). Trust me, implemented example of your idea is the strongest convincing force to any naysayer.
Digression: why or rather when certifications work
It is often said that you just need hands-on experience. Some will advice to not spend hundreds of dollars on the exams and just get the Udemy course during a sale for $10 and do the exercises along. This is as effective as telling someone to just eat less to lose weight, or cheer up and look at the beauty of the world around to not be sad when you are rejected from every job offer since a year. Both the courses and bootcamps have one thing in common: the pushing force of "sunk cost fallacy". However, as the time passes by, this momentum fades away and you just accept the money you "lost". One force that is pulling on the other side, is the certification, the exam. You put money on the line on the other end, so you subconsciously want to prepare for it and not just binge watch Udemy. However, both forces need to be close enough to each other in time axis. And note for AWS and other organizers: 75%-off vouchers do work 😉. End of digression.
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