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Devops Journey

I never planned to become a DevOps engineer.

In fact, I started my career over a decade ago as a backend developer, building APIs and systems for U.S. clients. I spent six years immersed in clean code, business logic, and scaling server-side applications. But as time passed, I realized that writing code was only part of building reliable software — the real magic (and sometimes the chaos) happened after deployment.

That’s when I made the shift.

💡 What Pulled Me into DevOps?

Around five years ago, I found myself constantly stepping in to troubleshoot CI failures, misconfigured servers, and release rollbacks. I realized that developer efficiency, observability, and infrastructure automation were areas I naturally gravitated toward.

So I leaned in.

I learned tools like Terraform, Kubernetes, Helm, GitLab CI/CD, Prometheus, Grafana, AWS, and Crossplane. What started as a side responsibility eventually became a full transition into DevOps and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).

🔧 What I’ve Built So Far

  • Set up GitLab CI/CD pipelines that automatically build, test, and deploy microservices to Kubernetes clusters.
  • Used ArgoCD and GitOps principles to manage app lifecycles across staging and production environments.
  • Implemented ELK and Prometheus/Grafana stacks for observability and proactive monitoring.
  • Migrated infrastructure from manual provisioning to Terraform-as-code, making environments reproducible and consistent.
  • Introduced Crossplane for dynamic provisioning of AWS resources using Kubernetes-native workflows.

Each of these projects taught me one big lesson: automation is not about writing scripts — it’s about building trust in systems.

⚠️ The Hard Lessons

This journey wasn’t smooth. I’ve:

  • Debugged broken Helm deployments under pressure
  • Misconfigured resource limits that caused outages
  • Accidentally triggered large-scale restarts through a faulty GitLab pipeline
  • Dealt with legacy systems with no documentation

But every failure refined my approach. DevOps isn’t about perfection — it’s about continuous learning, recovery, and resilience.

🌱 Where I’m Headed Next

Right now, I’m focused on:

  • Deepening my expertise in Kubernetes security and cost optimization
  • Writing infrastructure design documents and improving developer onboarding
  • Exploring OpenTelemetry and Crossplane Providers written in Go
  • Sharing more of what I’ve learned with the community (starting with this blog!)

I’m also actively looking for a new role where I can help teams build reliable, scalable, and observable systems, while staying deeply aligned with DevOps best practices.

🙏 Why I’m Starting This Blog

I want to document and share:

  • Real-world DevOps problems and how I solve them
  • Lessons from working across different tools and teams
  • Personal reflections as I grow as a platform/SRE engineer

If you’re a developer transitioning into DevOps, a fellow SRE, or someone navigating tech career shifts — I hope this space gives you insight, reassurance, or even a helpful tip.

Let’s learn together.

Samskrutha Swamy
DevOps | SRE | Kubernetes Enthusiast
📍 Berlin, Germany

💬 Let me know what topics you’d like to read about next. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or drop a comment on the post.