Builds the infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and monitoring that engineers ship on.
High demand. Large, steady volume of postings across industries. A realistic target for an active job search.
Common titles for this role at each level. Companies vary; see Role titles decoded.
| Level | Typical titles |
|---|---|
| Entry | Junior / Associate DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer · DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer I |
| Mid | DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer · DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer II |
| Senior | Senior DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer · Lead DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer |
| Expert (IC track) | Staff / Principal DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer |
| Management track | Manager, DevOps / Platform / SRE → Director of DevOps / Platform / SRE → VP |
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Searching for: DevOps Engineer · anywhere in the US · change
Opens the job board's own search; results and counts are theirs.
Sources:
BLS has no DevOps/SRE occupation; it splits between 15-1252 (software developers) and 15-1244 (sysadmins). Title-specific Glassdoor data is used for the median.
Bachelor's in CS/engineering is listed as required on many postings, with 'or equivalent experience' common; hands-on Linux, cloud, and Kubernetes experience matters more than the degree.
| Exam fee | $150 |
| Training | AWS Skill Builder free tier; prep courses $20-300 |
| Renewal | every 3 years ($150 exam) |
| Typical total | $150-450 |
Named in cloud/DevOps postings as a preferred cert; the standard proof of AWS breadth.
| Exam fee | $300 |
| Training | self-study; paid courses $30-400 |
| Renewal | every 3 years ($300 exam) |
| Typical total | $300-700 |
The AWS cert that maps directly to this title; valued for senior DevOps roles on AWS.
| Exam fee | $445 |
| Training | free LFS158 intro; $645 bundle with LFS258 course |
| Renewal | valid 2 years; retake exam |
| Typical total | $445-650 |
Hands-on, performance-based exam; a current posting (Securiport, Reston VA) listed CKA as a required qualification for DevOps/sysadmin.
| Exam fee | $71 |
| Training | free HashiCorp tutorials |
| Renewal | expires after 2 years |
| Typical total | $70-150 |
Cheap, quick validation of IaC skills that nearly every DevOps posting requires (Terraform named in all current postings).
| Exam fee | not published |
| Training | Microsoft Learn free path |
| Renewal | free online assessment every 12 months |
| Typical total | exam priced by region; pricing on request |
Azure-shop equivalent of the AWS associate; listed as preferred on Azure-focused infrastructure postings.
Current DevOps/SRE postings mostly required tools (Terraform, Kubernetes, cloud) rather than certs; certs appeared as 'preferred' on the cloud-infrastructure posting and CKA as 'required' on one government-adjacent posting. AZ-104 exam fee is region-priced and not shown on Microsoft's page. Levels.fyi SRE page not available; no senior_or_manager figure recorded.
Figures are US, from the sources listed, and change often; verify before deciding.