The Question Every Developer Eventually Asks
At some point in your career, it happens.
Your code works locally.
Tests pass.
The PR gets approved.
Then someone says:
“It broke in production.”
Suddenly you’re staring at logs, pipelines, dashboards, YAML files, and thinking:
“Wait… how much DevOps am I actually expected to know as an SDE?”
This question comes up constantly. As teams move faster and ownership shifts left, the line between dev and ops keeps getting blurrier. The short answer: more than before, less than a DevOps engineer.
The long answer is where real-world experience matters.
The Old Model vs. Today’s Reality
The Old World (Mostly Gone)
Earlier, responsibilities were clear:
- Developers wrote code
- Ops deployed and ran it
- Production issues were “someone else’s problem”
That worked when releases were slow and systems were simpler.
The World We Actually Work In
Today:
- CI/CD is automatic
- Systems are distributed
- Failures are expected
- Teams own services end to end
Even if your title says Software Development Engineer, production doesn’t care.
What DevOps Knowledge Is Not Required
Let’s clear some confusion.
As an SDE, you are not expected to:
- Design Kubernetes clusters from scratch
- Be an expert in Terraform modules
- Tune networking or kernel internals
- Fully replace a DevOps/SRE team
The Minimum DevOps Knowledge Every SDE Should Have ✅
This is the baseline I’ve seen across healthy engineering teams.
1. Deployment Awareness
You should know:
- How your service gets deployed
- What happens after you merge to main
- Where to look when deployments fail
You don’t need to build pipelines — but you must understand them.
2. Logging & Monitoring
If your code runs in production, you should know:
- Where logs are stored
- How to search and filter them
- What “normal” vs “broken” looks like
If you can’t debug your own service, someone else will — and they won’t be happy about it.
3. Basic Cloud & Container Concepts
You don’t need deep expertise, but you should understand:
- What containers are
- Why environment variables matter
- What scaling actually means
- Why stateless services are preferred
This is table-stakes knowledge now.
4. CI/CD Basics
You should be comfortable:
- Reading pipeline configs
- Understanding failed builds
- Knowing when a rollback is required
Pipelines are part of the codebase. Ignoring them isn’t an option.
Kubernetes: How Deep Should You Go?
You don’t need to become a Kubernetes expert overnight.
But as an SDE, it helps to understand:
- What Pods, Services, and Deployments are
- How your app is exposed
- How config and secrets are injected
- How crashes and restarts work
If you want a structured, developer-friendly way to learn this, I’ve documented my own journey here:
👉 30 Days of Kubernetes for Backend Developers
https://nileshblog.tech/category/backend-dev/kubernetes/30-days-kubernetes/
It’s written from a developer’s perspective — not an infra-first one — and focuses on just enough Kubernetes to be effective.
A Real Mistake I Made Early On
Early in my career, I treated deployments as “not my responsibility.”
My service deployed automatically, so I never checked the pipeline. One day, a config change caused the app to crash-loop in production.
The logs clearly explained the issue.
I just didn’t know where to find them.
What I learned:
- If you write the code, you own how it behaves
- DevOps knowledge isn’t about control — it’s about responsibility
- Learning the basics is cheaper than debugging blindly
That mistake permanently changed how I approach production.
How DevOps Expectations Scale With Seniority
Junior SDE
- Understand deployments conceptually
- Read logs and metrics
- Fix CI-related failures
Mid-Level SDE
- Debug production issues independently
- Understand scaling and configuration
- Make small infra or pipeline changes
Senior SDE
- Design services with operability in mind
- Review infra changes safely
- Mentor others on production readiness
Notice the pattern?
Depth increases — scope doesn’t.
You don’t become a DevOps engineer.
You become a more production-aware engineer.
Final Verdict
So how much DevOps knowledge is required for an SDE?
Enough to:
- Own your code in production
- Debug issues confidently
- Collaborate effectively with DevOps/SRE teams
Not enough to:
- Replace DevOps engineers
- Run infrastructure alone
- Burn out doing two jobs
DevOps knowledge isn’t about role overlap — it’s about shared responsibility.
If you can ship code and understand what happens after shipping, you’re exactly where you should be.
💬 Discussion
How much DevOps knowledge is expected in your current role?
And where do you think the line should be?
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