DevOps Career Path
See reference/career-levels.md for
the shared 8-level ladder, the progression diagram, and the three
track-agnostic advancement dimensions (Autonomy, Impact/scope,
Mentorship). This file adds only what’s specific to DevOps.
Levels
Section titled “Levels”| Level | Scope in DevOps |
|---|---|
| Trainee | Executes small, well-defined pipeline/config changes under close guidance. |
| Junior | Builds a single pipeline job or environment config from a spec, with review before and after. |
| Junior Advanced | Builds and maintains pipelines/environments independently; asks for help only on ambiguous requirements. |
| Semi Senior | Owns a project’s CI/CD pipeline end-to-end: build, test and deploy stages. |
| Semi Senior Advanced | Owns the project’s full infrastructure/environment setup, including monitoring and incident response. |
| Senior Level 1 | Owns a project’s delivery architecture decisions (pipeline design, environment strategy, observability). |
| Senior Level 2 | Defines DevOps patterns and standards reused across projects on the account. |
| Senior Level 3 | Leads the project’s technical delivery end-to-end, managing the Developers on the team — see roles/leader.md. |
Criteria to advance
Section titled “Criteria to advance”Each transition lists only the track-specific bar (Technical
complexity). Autonomy, Impact/scope and Mentorship are the same for
every track — see
reference/career-levels.md.
Trainee → Junior
Section titled “Trainee → Junior”- Technical complexity: Ships a small pipeline/config change that passes review without rework on fundamentals.
Junior → Junior Advanced
Section titled “Junior → Junior Advanced”- Technical complexity: Builds a pipeline job or environment config from a spec using the project’s tooling, with review.
Junior Advanced → Semi Senior
Section titled “Junior Advanced → Semi Senior”- Technical complexity: Designs and builds a project’s CI/CD pipeline independently, including rollback/failure handling.
Semi Senior → Semi Senior Advanced
Section titled “Semi Senior → Semi Senior Advanced”- Technical complexity: Owns the project’s full environment setup (infrastructure, monitoring, incident response).
Semi Senior Advanced → Senior Level 1
Section titled “Semi Senior Advanced → Senior Level 1”- Technical complexity: Makes reliability and security trade-off calls for the delivery pipeline without escalating them.
Senior Level 1 → Senior Level 2
Section titled “Senior Level 1 → Senior Level 2”- Technical complexity: Defines the project’s delivery architecture (pipeline design, environment strategy, observability).
Senior Level 2 → Senior Level 3
Section titled “Senior Level 2 → Senior Level 3”- Technical complexity: Sets DevOps standards adopted across multiple projects on the account, in addition to taking on project delivery ownership.