Skip to content

Master Curriculum: 40 Weeks

This is the comprehensive reference plan — the full day-by-day schedule covering every topic, case study, and scenario. New here? Start at training/START_HERE.md. For shorter curated paths, see paths.md.

All DevOps technical topics, case studies, and interview scenarios in a single day-by-day schedule. Designed for 60-90 minutes per day, 5 days per week.

Total time: ~37 weeks (~185 sessions) Daily budget: 60-90 minutes Schedule: Monday-Thursday = primary topics, Friday = review + supplement Tracks covered: Foundations, Containers, K8s Core, Helm, Observability, Incident Response, Advanced Platform, SRE & Reliability, Cloud & FinOps, Infrastructure, Modern CLI, Professional Skills

Table of Contents

How to Use This Curriculum

  1. Follow the days in order. Each day builds on previous work.
  2. Use the exit criteria. Don't advance until the criteria are met.
  3. Friday supplements are not optional. They build skills that accelerate everything else.
  4. Use spaced repetition. After each topic, review its flashcards. Run make run-training-session weekly.
  5. Track progress. Use make report-training-progress to see coverage and weak areas.

If you fall behind, skip to the next Monday and backfill Fridays. The technical sequence matters more than completeness.

Phase 1: Foundations (Weeks 1-5)

Week 1: Linux & Bash Foundations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
1 Orientation + deploy Read START_HERE.md. Run make deploy-all && make status All pods running 45 min
2 Linux ops basics Read linux-ops primer. Bash exercises levels 01-03 quest run succeeds on each 60 min
3 Advanced bash Read advanced-bash primer. Bash exercises levels 04-05 quest run succeeds 60 min
4 Process management Read process-management primer + terminal-internals primer Can explain PID, signals, job control 60 min

Week 2: Linux Deep Dive + Git

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
6 Systemd + storage Read linux-ops-systemd primer + linux-ops-storage primer Can explain unit files and mount lifecycle 60 min
7 Filesystem internals Read inodes primer + mounts-filesystems primer Can explain inode exhaustion vs disk full 60 min
8 Package management + cron Read package-management primer + cron-scheduling primer Can write a cron expression from memory 60 min
9 Git mastery Read git primer + git-advanced primer. Git drills Can use reflog to recover a lost commit 60 min

Week 3: Networking Foundations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
11 Networking overview Read networking primer. Complete networking.fundamentals skillcheck Identified gaps in OSI/TCP knowledge 60 min
12 Subnetting + IP addressing Read subnetting-and-ip-addressing primer. Practice CIDR math + dns-ops primer Can calculate usable hosts in a /26 60 min
13 Routing + ARP + NAT + DHCP Read routing primer + arp primer + nat primer + dhcp-ipam primer Can explain ARP table population 75 min
14 VLANs + STP + LACP Read vlans primer + stp primer + lacp primer Can explain why STP exists 60 min

Week 4: Containers

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
16 Docker basics Read docker primer. Docker exercises levels 01-05 quest run succeeds on each 60 min
17 Docker intermediate Docker exercises levels 06-10. Study Dockerfile quest run succeeds. Can explain multi-stage build 60 min
18 Container runtime Read containers-deep-dive primer Can explain containerd vs Docker engine 60 min
19 Security scanning Read security-scanning primer. Run lab-runtime-06 ./verify.sh passes 60 min

Week 5: Python + Modern CLI

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
21 Python basics Python exercises levels 01-05. Read python-infra primer quest run succeeds on each 60 min
22 Python intermediate Python exercises levels 06-10 quest run succeeds 60 min
23 Modern CLI overview Read modern-cli primer + modern-cli-workflows primer Can name 4 modern CLI replacements 60 min
24 jq + ripgrep Read jq primer + ripgrep primer. Practice jq drill Can extract nested JSON fields with jq 60 min

Phase 2: Kubernetes Core (Weeks 6-10)

Week 6: K8s Fundamentals

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
26 Pods + deployments Read k8s-ops primer. K8s exercises levels 01-03 quest run succeeds 60 min
27 Services + labels K8s exercises levels 04-06 quest run succeeds 60 min
28 Probes Read k8s-ops primer. Run lab-runtime-01 ./verify.sh passes 60 min
29 HPA Read k8s-ops primer. Run lab-runtime-02 ./verify.sh passes 60 min

Week 7: K8s Operations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
31 Failure patterns Read crashloopbackoff primer + oomkilled primer Can explain both from memory 60 min
32 Networking Read k8s-networking primer. K8s exercises levels 07-10 quest run succeeds 60 min
33 RBAC + OOM lab Read k8s-rbac primer. Run lab-runtime-08 ./verify.sh passes 60 min
34 Storage + debugging Read k8s-storage primer + k8s-debugging-playbook primer Can describe the 5-step debugging flow 60 min

Week 8: Helm & GitOps

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
36 Helm anatomy Read helm primer. Study devops/helm/grokdevops/. Run make helm-lint Lint passes 60 min
37 Helm drills helm_drills.md. Practice helm template, helm diff All drills completed 60 min
38 Helm rollback lab Run lab-runtime-05 ./verify.sh passes 60 min
39 GitOps Read gitops primer. Run lab-runtime-07 ./verify.sh passes 60 min

Week 9: Networking Deep Dives

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
41 Troubleshooting + tools Read networking-troubleshooting primer + linux-ops primer Can use ss, ip, tcpdump for triage 60 min
42 MTU + HTTP Read mtu primer + http-protocol primer Can explain MTU blackhole scenario 60 min
43 VPN + firewalls Read vpn-tunneling primer + firewalls primer Can explain IPsec vs WireGuard tradeoffs 60 min
44 Load balancing + Cisco Read load-balancing primer + cisco-fundamentals-for-devops primer Can explain L4 vs L7 LB 60 min

Week 10: Modern CLI + Text Processing

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
46 fzf + fd Read fzf primer + fd primer. Practice fzf/fd drills Can use fzf for git branch selection 60 min
47 Regex + text wrangling Read regex-text-wrangling primer. Bash exercises levels 11-15 quest run succeeds 60 min
48 Advanced bash Bash exercises levels 16-20 quest run succeeds 60 min
49 strace + binary Read strace primer + binary-and-floats primer Can trace a syscall with strace 60 min

Phase 3: Operations & Observability (Weeks 11-15)

Week 11: Observability Foundations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
51 Monitoring fundamentals Read monitoring-fundamentals primer. Verify observability stack: make status Grafana accessible via port-forward 60 min
52 Observability deep dive Read observability-deep-dive primer. Browse Grafana dashboards Can navigate to app metrics dashboard 60 min
53 Prometheus lab Run lab-runtime-03. Read prometheus_target_down runbook ./verify.sh passes 60 min
54 Loki lab Run lab-runtime-04. Read loki_no_logs runbook ./verify.sh passes 60 min

Week 12: Observability Advanced

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
56 Logging + log pipelines Read logging primer + log-pipelines primer Can explain structured logging benefits 60 min
57 Tracing + OpenTelemetry Read tracing primer + opentelemetry primer Can explain trace propagation 60 min
58 Alerting rules Read alerting-rules primer. Practice promql_drills.md Can write a burn-rate alert 60 min
59 eBPF + migration Read ebpf-observability primer + monitoring-migration primer Can explain eBPF vs traditional probes 60 min
60 Supplement: Systems thinking Read systems-thinking primer. Case study: ssl-cert-chain-incomplete Case study completed 60 min

Week 13: CI/CD & Infrastructure as Code

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
61 CI/CD foundations Read cicd primer. Review .github/workflows/ Can explain the CI pipeline stages 60 min
63 Terraform Read terraform primer. terraform_drills.md Drills completed 60 min
64 Ansible + Packer Read ansible primer. Read packer primer. Ansible exercises levels 01-05 quest run succeeds. Can explain Packer + Ansible image pipeline 75 min

Week 14: Security Foundations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
66 Security basics + attack patterns Read security-basics primer + offensive-security-basics primer Can explain OWASP top 10, SQL injection, DDoS types 75 min
68 Secrets management Read secrets-management primer. Interview scenario 13 Can articulate incident response for leaked secret 60 min
69 Linux hardening Read linux-hardening primer + selinux-apparmor primer Can explain SELinux enforcing vs permissive 60 min

Week 15: Security & Platform

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
71 Audit + compliance Read audit-logging primer + compliance-automation primer Can explain audit trail requirements 60 min
72 Opsec + forensics Read opsec-mistakes primer + infra-forensics primer Can name 5 common opsec mistakes 60 min
73 K8s ecosystem Read k8s-ecosystem primer + api-gateways primer Can explain ingress vs API gateway 60 min
74 Multi-tenancy + policy Read multi-tenancy primer + policy-engines primer Can explain namespace isolation limits 60 min
75 Supplement: Career engineering Read career-engineering primer. Case study: firewall-shadow-rule Case study completed 60 min

Phase 4: SRE & Incident Response (Weeks 16-20)

Week 16: Incident Response

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
76 Incident command Read incident-command primer + incident-triage primer Can explain IC role and triage flow 60 min
77 Incident psychology Read incident-psychology primer. Run make incident YES=1 && make investigate Incident resolved with journal entry 75 min
78 Debugging methodology Read debugging-methodology primer. Run second incident Incident resolved within 15 min 60 min
79 Chaos engineering Read chaos-engineering primer. Run 2 chaos scripts. Capture make incident-forensics Evidence bundle generated 60 min

Week 17: SRE Practices

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
81 SRE foundations Read sre-practices primer + postmortem-slo primer Can explain SLO/SLI/error budget 60 min
82 Runbook craft Read runbook-craft primer. Review all runbooks Can explain triage flow for 5 runbooks 60 min
83 War stories + legacy Read ops-war-stories primer + legacy-archaeology primer Can name 3 anti-patterns in legacy systems 60 min
84 Interview practice Interview scenarios 01-05. make challenge YES=1 MINUTES=10 x2 Can explain investigation path for each 75 min

Week 18: Data & Storage

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
86 Database ops Read database-ops primer + database-internals primer Can explain ACID and WAL 60 min
87 SQL + search Read sql-fundamentals primer + elasticsearch primer Can write basic SQL joins 60 min
88 Kafka + etcd Read kafka primer + etcd primer. etcd_drills.md Can explain partition leadership 60 min
89 Storage + backup Read storage-ops primer + backup-restore primer Can explain 3-2-1 backup rule 60 min

Week 19: Cloud Operations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
91 Cloud foundations Read cloud-ops-basics primer + cloud-deep-dive primer Can explain shared responsibility model 60 min
92 AWS troubleshooting Read aws-troubleshooting primer Can debug IAM permission issues 60 min
93 Azure + GCP Read azure-troubleshooting primer + gcp-troubleshooting primer Can compare IAM models across providers 60 min
94 FinOps Read finops primer. finops_drills.md. Interview scenario 20 Can articulate cost investigation process 60 min

Week 20: Platform + Mid-Course Assessment

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
96 Platform engineering Read platform-engineering primer + service-mesh primer Can explain platform team responsibilities 60 min
97 Operators + node lifecycle Read k8s-ecosystem primer + k8s-node-lifecycle primer Can explain operator reconciliation loop 60 min
98 Fleet ops + edge Read fleet-ops primer + edge-iot primer Can explain fleet management at scale 60 min
99 Disaster recovery Read disaster-recovery primer + capacity-planning primer Can explain RPO/RTO 60 min
100 Mid-course assessment Interview scenarios 06-10. Complete kubernetes.skillcheck.md + observability.skillcheck.md Identified remaining weak areas 90 min

Phase 5: Advanced Platform & Datacenter (Weeks 21-25)

Week 21: Advanced Platform Drills

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
101 Service mesh drills service_mesh_drills.md. Interview scenario 15 Can articulate 503 debugging in mesh 60 min
102 Operators + policy drills k8s_operators_drills.md + policy_engine_drills.md Drills completed 60 min
103 GitOps + secrets drills gitops_argocd_drills.md. Interview scenario 16 Can articulate drift detection response 60 min
104 Secrets + Vault secrets_management_drills.md. Interview scenario 19 Can articulate secret rotation flow 60 min

Week 22: Datacenter Foundations

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
106 Datacenter + hardware Read datacenter primer + server-hardware primer Can explain rack unit layout 60 min
107 Dell + IPMI Read dell-poweredge primer + ipmi-and-ipmitool primer Can explain iDRAC access methods 60 min
108 Redfish + firmware Read redfish primer + firmware primer Can explain Redfish vs IPMI 60 min
109 Bare-metal provisioning Read bare-metal-provisioning primer Can explain PXE boot sequence 60 min

Week 23: Datacenter Advanced + Case Studies

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
111 OOB + provisioning Read datacenter primer Can explain out-of-band management 60 min
112 RAID + disk failures Read disk-and-storage-ops primer Can explain RAID levels and rebuild risk 60 min
113 DC interview + drills Interview scenario 11. Datacenter drills Can articulate server-won't-POST triage 60 min
114 DC case studies Case studies: firmware-update-boot-loop + bios-settings-reset-after-cmos Both completed 60 min

Week 24: Networking Case Studies

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
116 LACP + ARP cases Case studies: lacp-mismatch-one-link-hot + arp-flux-duplicate-ip Both completed 60 min
117 BGP + asymmetric Case studies: bgp-peer-flapping + asymmetric-routing-one-direction Both completed 60 min
118 Loop + VLAN Case studies: network-loop-broadcast-storm + vlan-trunk-mistag Both completed 60 min
119 Networking drills Networking drills speed run. Review all networking flashcards 20+ cards reviewed 60 min

Week 25: Linux Advanced + Performance

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
121 Linux performance Read linux-performance primer + linux-performance primer Can use USE method for triage 60 min
122 Kernel troubleshooting Read kernel-troubleshooting primer Can interpret dmesg output 60 min
123 Perf profiling + node Read perf-profiling primer + node-maintenance primer Can explain flame graphs 60 min
124 Linux case studies Case studies: runaway-logs-fill-disk + time-sync-skew-breaks-app Both completed 60 min

Phase 6: Remaining Technical + Career (Weeks 26-30)

Week 26: DevOps Tooling Wrap-up

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
126 Web servers Read nginx-web-servers primer Can explain reverse proxy config 60 min
127 Virtualization + homelab Read virtualization primer + homelab primer Can explain hypervisor types. Homelab IaC plan drafted 60 min
128 PowerShell + AI DevOps Read powershell primer + ai-devops-tools primer + ai-ml-ops primer Can query AD with Get-ADUser. Can explain MLOps pipeline 75 min
129 Developer tools Read claude-code primer + vscode primer + css-fundamentals primer Configured key VS Code extensions 60 min
130 Supplement: Change + vendor mgmt Read change-management primer + vendor-management primer Can explain change advisory board process 60 min

Week 27: Identity, Corporate, Remaining DC Cases

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
131 Identity + corporate Read ldap-identity primer + corporate-it-fluency primer Can explain LDAP bind operation 60 min
132 DC case studies I Case studies: idrac-unreachable-os-up + memory-ecc-errors-increasing Both completed 60 min
133 DC case studies II Case studies: nvme-drive-disappeared + power-supply-redundancy-lost Both completed 60 min
134 Interview practice II Interview scenarios 11-16. Interview scenario 12 + 14 Can articulate investigation paths 75 min
135 Supplement: Power Read power primer Can explain 5 bases of power 60 min

Week 28: Career & Professional Deep Dives

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
136 Career engineering deep dive Reread career-engineering street_ops + footguns Personal career plan drafted 60 min

Week 29: Remaining Case Studies I

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
141 DC case studies III Case studies: pxe-boot-fails-uefi-mismatch + os-install-fails-raid-controller Both completed 60 min
142 DC case studies IV Case studies: rack-pdu-overload-alert + serial-console-garbled Both completed 60 min
143 Network case studies III Case studies: dhcp-relay-broken + dns-split-horizon-confusion Both completed 60 min
144 Network case studies IV Case studies: jumbo-frames-partial + proxy-arp-causing-issues Both completed 60 min
145 Supplement: Interview practice III Interview scenarios 17-22. Focus on 17, 18, 21, 22 Can articulate all investigation paths 75 min

Week 30: Remaining Case Studies II

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
146 K8s case studies Case studies: cni-broken-after-restart + imagepullbackoff-registry-auth Both completed 60 min
147 K8s case studies II Case studies: daemonset-blocks-eviction + resource-quota-blocking-deploy Both completed 60 min
148 Linux case studies II Case studies: iptables-blocking-unexpected + stuck-nfs-mount Both completed 60 min
149 Network case studies V Case studies: multicast-not-crossing-router + ospf-stuck-in-exstart Both completed 60 min
150 Supplement: Review + assessment Complete all remaining skillchecks. Run make report-training-progress Coverage report reviewed, weak areas identified 75 min

Phase 7: Review & Reinforcement (Week 33)

Week 33: Systems, Change & Vendor Review

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
162 Systems thinking (reread) Reread systems-thinking -- street_ops Can restate the system's key feedback loops from memory 60 min
164 Change management (reread) Reread change-management street_ops Can explain a recent change management process end to end 60 min
165 Vendor + power + leadership Reread vendor-management, power, leadership -- street_ops Can explain vendor lock-in mitigation 60 min

Phase 8: Integration & Capstone (Weeks 37-40)

Week 37: Remaining Topics + Case Studies

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
183 DC case studies V Case studies: bonding-failover-not-working + cable-management-wrong-port + disk-full-root-services-down All completed 75 min
184 DC case studies VI Case studies: hba-firmware-mismatch + link-flaps-bad-optic + server-intermittent-reboot All completed 75 min
185 Remaining case studies Case studies: server-remote-console-lag + bmc-clock-skew-cert-failure + source-routing-policy-miss + tcp-rst-after-idle All completed 75 min

Week 38: DevOps Review Sprint

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
186 Skillcheck review Complete all skillchecks: Linux, Bash, K8s, Docker, Observability, Networking, Helm All completed with honest self-evaluation 90 min
187 Interview review I Review scenarios 01-08. Practice articulating answers aloud Fluent answers without notes 75 min
188 Interview review II Review scenarios 09-16. Practice articulating answers aloud Fluent answers without notes 75 min
189 Interview review III Review scenarios 17-22. make challenge YES=1 MINUTES=10 x5 All challenges resolved within time 90 min
190 Drill speed runs Speed runs: kubectl_drills, helm_drills, obs_drills, linux_ops_drills All drills under target time 75 min

Week 39: Integration Exercises

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
191 End-to-end deploy Full cycle: make build -> make deploy-all -> observe metrics -> make incident YES=1 -> resolve Incident resolved, metrics visible 90 min
192 Cross-domain: network + K8s make incident YES=1 x2. Focus on networking + K8s failure intersection Both resolved with journal entries 75 min
193 Cross-domain: DC + Linux Review datacenter + Linux case studies that share root causes. Identify patterns 3 cross-domain patterns documented 60 min
194 Architecture review Review platform-engineering + service-mesh + gitops integration patterns. Draft architecture for a hypothetical platform Architecture diagram sketched 60 min
195 Mock interview day Combined technical + behavioral mock interview. Use scenarios + STAR stories Full mock completed 90 min

Week 40: Capstone & Assessment

Day Objective Action Exit criteria Time
196 Final self-assessment All remaining skillchecks. make report-training-progress Full coverage report generated 75 min
197 Personal runbook library Document top 10 operational procedures from memory (no references) 10 procedures written 75 min
198 SM-2 guided review python3 tools/build_study_plan.py --preset weak-and-due. Execute the full plan All due + weak items reviewed 75 min
199 Final incident gauntlet make incident YES=1 x10. Resolve all without hints All 10 resolved 90 min
200 Retrospective Write learning journal: what worked, what didn't, remaining gaps, next steps. Run make report-training-progress --profile <name> one final time Retrospective written. Curriculum complete 60 min

Topic Coverage Verification

All 203 topics are scheduled. Use this checklist to verify nothing was missed.

Full topic-to-day mapping (click to expand) | Topic | Day(s) | |-------|--------| | advanced-bash | 3 | | ai-devops-tools | 128 | | ai-ml-ops | 128 | | alerting-rules | 58 | | ansible | 64 | | api-gateways | 73 | | arp | 13 | | audit-logging | 71 | | aws-troubleshooting | 92 | | azure-troubleshooting | 93 | | backup-restore | 89 | | bare-metal-provisioning | 109 | | binary-and-floats | 49 | | capacity-planning | 99 | | career-engineering | 75, 136 | | change-management | 130, 164 | | chaos-engineering | 79 | | cicd | 61 | | cisco-fundamentals-for-devops | 44 | | claude-code | 129 | | cloud-deep-dive | 91 | | cloud-ops-basics | 91 | | compliance-automation | 71 | | containers-deep-dive | 18 | | corporate-it-fluency | 131 | | crashloopbackoff | 31 | | cron-scheduling | 8 | | css-fundamentals | 129 | | database-internals | 86 | | database-ops | 86 | | datacenter | 106 | | datacenter | 111 | | disk-and-storage-ops | 112 | | debugging-methodology | 78 | | dell-poweredge | 107 | | dhcp-ipam | 12 | | disaster-recovery | 99 | | dns-ops | 12 | | docker | 16, 17 | | ebpf-observability | 59 | | edge-iot | 98 | | elasticsearch | 87 | | etcd | 88 | | fd | 46 | | finops | 94 | | firewalls | 43 | | firmware | 108 | | fleet-ops | 98 | | fzf | 46 | | gcp-troubleshooting | 93 | | git | 9 | | git-advanced | 9 | | gitops | 39 | | helm | 36, 37 | | homelab | 127 | | http-protocol | 42 | | incident-command | 76 | | incident-psychology | 77 | | incident-triage | 76 | | infra-forensics | 72 | | inodes | 7 | | ipmi-and-ipmitool | 107 | | jq | 24 | | k8s-debugging-playbook | 34 | | k8s-ecosystem | 73 | | k8s-ops (HPA) | 29 | | k8s-networking | 32 | | k8s-node-lifecycle | 97 | | k8s-ecosystem | 97 | | k8s-ops | 26 | | k8s-ops (Probes) | 28 | | k8s-rbac | 33 | | k8s-storage | 34 | | kafka | 88 | | kernel-troubleshooting | 122 | | lacp | 14 | | ldap-identity | 131 | | leadership | 135, 165 | | legacy-archaeology | 83 | | linux-hardening | 69 | | linux-ops | 41 | | linux-ops | 2 | | linux-performance | 121 | | linux-ops-storage | 6 | | linux-ops-systemd | 6 | | linux-performance | 121 | | load-balancing | 44 | | log-pipelines | 56 | | logging | 56 | | modern-cli | 23 | | modern-cli-workflows | 23 | | monitoring-fundamentals | 51 | | monitoring-migration | 59 | | mounts-filesystems | 7 | | mtu | 42 | | multi-tenancy | 74 | | nat | 13 | | networking | 11 | | networking-troubleshooting | 41 | | nginx-web-servers | 126 | | node-maintenance | 123 | | observability-deep-dive | 52 | | offensive-security-basics | 66 | | oomkilled | 31 | | opentelemetry | 57 | | ops-war-stories | 83 | | opsec-mistakes | 72 | | package-management | 8 | | packer | 64 | | perf-profiling | 123 | | platform-engineering | 96 | | policy-engines | 74 | | postmortem-slo | 81 | | powershell | 128 | | power | 135, 165 | | process-management | 4 | | python-infra | 21 | | redfish | 108 | | regex-text-wrangling | 47 | | ripgrep | 24 | | routing | 13 | | runbook-craft | 82 | | secrets-management | 68 | | security-basics | 66 | | security-scanning | 19, 66 | | selinux-apparmor | 69 | | server-hardware | 106 | | service-mesh | 96, 101 | | sql-fundamentals | 87 | | sre-practices | 81 | | storage-ops | 89 | | stp | 14 | | strace | 49 | | subnetting-and-ip-addressing | 12 | | systems-thinking | 60, 162 | | terminal-internals | 4 | | terraform | 63 | | tracing | 57 | | vendor-management | 130, 165 | | virtualization | 127 | | vlans | 14 | | vpn-tunneling | 43 | | vscode | 129 |

DevOps Transition Plan Coverage

Every item from the DevOps transition priority list maps to specific curriculum days:

Priority Skill Where in Curriculum
1 Linux CLI Weeks 1-2 (Days 1-10): linux-ops, advanced-bash, systemd, storage, inodes
2 Git Week 2 Day 9: git + git-advanced
3 Bash Weeks 1-2, 10: exercises levels 01-20, bash drills
3 Python Week 5 (Days 21-22): exercises levels 01-10 + python-infra
4 Networking Week 3 (Days 11-14): networking, subnetting/IPv4/IPv6, DNS, routing, VLANs
4 Subnetting / IPv6 Week 3 Day 12: subnetting-and-ip-addressing (CIDR math, IPv6 fundamentals)
5 Ansible Week 13 Day 64: ansible primer + exercises
5 Terraform Week 13 Day 63: terraform primer + drills
5 Packer Week 13 Day 64: packer primer (image pipeline with Ansible)
6 APIs + jq Week 5 Day 24: jq + ripgrep. Week 9 Day 42: http-protocol (REST/curl)
6 PowerShell Week 26 Day 128: powershell primer (mixed-environment survival)
7 Docker Week 4 (Days 16-19): exercises levels 01-10, containers-deep-dive
7 Kubernetes Weeks 6-8 (Days 26-39): exercises, labs, Helm, GitOps
8 Security Week 14-15: security-basics, offensive-security-basics (SQL injection, XSS, DDoS, password cracking), TLS/PKI, secrets-management, hardening
8 SSH Week 14 Day 69: linux-hardening (SSH hardening covered in security-basics)
8 Ransomware-safe backups Week 18 Day 89: backup-restore (immutable backups, air-gapped copies, retention)
9 Cloud cert Week 19 (Days 91-94): cloud-ops-basics, cloud-deep-dive, AWS/Azure/GCP troubleshooting
10 Homelab portfolio Week 26 Day 127: homelab (IaC portfolio, Proxmox, k3s, monitoring)
10 Public GitHub Week 15 Day 75 + Week 28 Day 136: career-engineering (portfolio, proof of work)
— Grafana / Prometheus Week 11 (Days 51-54): monitoring-fundamentals, observability-deep-dive, labs
— CI/CD Week 13 (Days 61-62): cicd, cicd-pipelines-realities
— Virtualization Week 26 Day 127: virtualization (hypervisor types, containers vs VMs)

Case Study Coverage

All 60 case studies are scheduled across the curriculum:

  • datacenter_ops (20): Days 105, 114, 115, 132, 133, 141, 142, 183, 184, 185
  • kubernetes_ops (10): Days 30, 35, 40, 55, 85, 90, 146, 147
  • linux_ops (10): Days 10, 20, 65, 70, 80, 124, 125, 148
  • networking (20): Days 15, 45, 60, 75, 95, 116, 117, 118, 120, 143, 144, 149, 185

Interview Scenario Coverage

All 22 scenarios are scheduled:

  • Scenarios 01-05: Day 84 (Week 17)
  • Scenarios 06-10: Day 100 (Week 20)
  • Scenario 11: Day 113 (Week 23)
  • Scenarios 12, 14: Day 134 (Week 27)
  • Scenario 13: Day 68 (Week 14)
  • Scenario 15: Day 101 (Week 21)
  • Scenario 16: Day 103 (Week 21)
  • Scenarios 17-22: Day 145 (Week 29)
  • Scenario 19: Day 104 (Week 21)
  • Scenario 20: Day 94 (Week 19)
  • Full review: Days 187-189 (Week 38)