DevOps engineer is a very demanded profession nowadays. This is not a surprise, because the DevOps area is growing very fast and efficiently. It arose more than ten years ago and became more popular every year. That’s why there are a lot of people who want to become a DevOps engineer. Also, there are a lot of education platforms you can use, and the platforms that provide video content are especially popular, as it is convenient to perceive and learn. So, the logical question is: “Can I become a DevOps, using educational videos on YouTube?”

Well, let’s define DevOps and its features.

What is DevOps?

The biggest myth about DevOps methodology is the next definition: “DevOps engineer is a mix of developer’s, Quality Assurance (QA) engineer’s and sysadmin’s skills”. In fact, DevOps as the methodology is a strong collaboration between developers, QA engineers and sysadmins. DevOps engineer doesn’t need all the skills of these specialties, DevOps engineer has his own skillset. The main idea of DevOps philosophy is the automation of routine processes. It provides changes in the basic software development processes that make it more efficient.

Before the DevOps spread, the main model of software development was a Waterfall. It provides gradual development, with a strict step by step plan. As a result, applications were developed very slowly, because while the developer is writing code, QA engineer and sysadmin are waiting. After that, the QA engineer is making tests and developers with sysadmin are waiting. Then sysadmin is deploying the project and others are waiting. Looks laborious, isn’t it? Such a model doesn’t allow fast releases and updates, so Agile was created as a flexible methodology of planning with a big focus on team collaboration. DevOps is a practical implementation of Agile in software development.

DevOps provides automation and collaboration between teams. It uses powerful modern tools and evolves  all the time. That’s why the requirements for becoming a DevOps engineer are quite complicated architectural design guidelines.

How to become a DevOps engineer?

Honestly, the entry threshold for DevOps engineers is very high. You can open any vacancy of DevOps specialist and look at the requirements and responsibilities. You will see that the very first requirement is an experience as a system administrator of at least 1-2 years. The idea is that if you don’t understand how it works and don’t work with infrastructure manually, you can’t understand the strong necessity of automation. That’s why good DevOps engineers grow out of system administrators. Unfortunately, DevOps specialist is not the profession you can learn on YouTube. It is hard work for years. You can’t become a DevOps with YouTube video, you need a lot of practice, learning the tools and more practice.

You might use video resources like part of self-education but that’s all. It would be better to find a mentor who will lead you and ask him as many questions about best practices, tools, successful cases, as possible.

Considering YouTube there are a lot of channels where you can find some information, for example, Azure DevOps, Intellipaat and edureka! where you can find some useful information and tutorials for DevOps engineers. But still, the more efficient way is to read the tools documentation, ask experienced colleges and practice.

Conclusion: do YouTube is useful for DevOps engineer?

There is no unequivocal answer. When you are studying, all the ways are good. But be careful with sources. You might find some outdated information or unscrupulous source. If you find some great DevOps engineer who shares his experience on YouTube, why not? The thing is, great and experienced specialists rarely have time for making videos, so it is really hard to find them.

Anyway, if you want to become a DevOps engineer, you will study all your life because our dynamic world dictates its own rules. Try to find an experienced mentor and reliable sources for studying and let you get lucky.