From Resetting Passwords to Containerizing Java: My Pivot to DevOps

Olive Lawal — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 12:08:47 +0000

For 4 years, I lived in the world of IT Operations.
My days were spent handling incident response, managing data lifecycles, and making sure systems stayed online. I learned how to troubleshoot under pressure, talk to frustrated users, and keep the business running.
But I had a lingering frustration: I was always fixing other people's code. I never got to build it. And more importantly, I was fixing problems manually that I knew could be automated.
So, I decided to make a massive pivot. I went back to university (VILNIUS TECH) and recently started a Java Engineering internship at Coherent Solutions.
My goal isn't just to become a Java developer. My goal is to bridge the gap between Development and Operations-DevOps.

In my first few weeks at Coherent, we started learning about enterprise architecture. But the moment that truly clicked for me was when I built my first Docker image for our project.
In my past IT life, deploying an app was a nightmare. "It works on my machine!" was a constant joke (and a constant headache for the Ops team). Setting up environments, installing the right Java version, configuring databases—it was manual, error-prone, and boring.
Then I wrote a Dockerfile.
I packaged our Java application and its dependencies into a single, isolated container. Suddenly, I realized: This is how you solve the "works on my machine" problem forever.
As someone who used to be the guy manually fixing those environment issues, writing a few lines of code to completely automate that process felt like a superpower.

I'm starting this blog to document my journey in real-time. I'm currently diving deep into:
🔹 Java 21 (the newest LTS—highly recommend checking out Virtual Threads!)
🔹 Spring Boot & enterprise backend architecture
🔹 Docker & containerization
🔹 Next up: CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
If you are currently stuck in IT Support or SysAdmin roles and dreaming of becoming a DevOps or Software Engineer—you aren't alone. Let's learn together.
Question for the veterans: For those who made the jump from IT Ops to DevOps, what was the first automation tool or concept that made you realize you were on the right path? Let me know in the comments

DEV Community: Olive Lawal

From Resetting Passwords to Containerizing Java: My Pivot to DevOps