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Amazon/AWS DevOps Roadmap

Complete roadmap for Amazon DevOps Engineer roles. Covers AWS services, system design, CI/CD, Leadership Principles, and the Amazon interview loop.

4–8 months prep
6 phases
FoundationIntermediateAdvancedExpert
Phase 1

Leadership Principles (LP)

Amazon interviews are 50% LP stories — start here

Foundation3–4 weeks

What to learn

  • Prepare 15–20 STAR stories covering all 16 LPs
  • Customer Obsession — always start with the customer
  • Ownership — think long-term, never say 'that's not my job'
  • Dive Deep — know your metrics, root causes, data
  • Bias for Action — calculated risks, speed matters
  • Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit
  • Deliver Results — focus on outcomes, not activity

Key tools

Amazon LP listSTAR method
Phase 2

AWS Services Deep Dive

Know the services you'll be operating

Intermediate4–6 weeks

What to learn

  • EC2, ASG, ELB — compute and scaling fundamentals
  • VPC — subnets, security groups, NACLs, peering
  • ECS/EKS — container orchestration on AWS
  • Lambda — serverless patterns and limitations
  • S3, RDS, DynamoDB — storage and databases
  • CloudWatch, CloudTrail, X-Ray — observability
  • IAM — policies, roles, cross-account access

Key tools

AWS ConsoleAWS CLITerraform
Phase 3

CI/CD & Automation

Amazon lives and breathes deployment automation

Intermediate3–4 weeks

What to learn

  • CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy — AWS native CI/CD
  • GitHub Actions / Jenkins for non-AWS pipelines
  • Blue-green and canary deployment strategies
  • Infrastructure as Code — CloudFormation or Terraform
  • Configuration management — SSM Parameter Store, Secrets Manager
  • Automated testing — unit, integration, load testing in pipelines

Key tools

CodePipelineCodeDeployCloudFormationTerraform
Phase 4

System Design

Design for Amazon-scale distributed systems

Advanced6–8 weeks

What to learn

  • Design a deployment pipeline for 1000+ microservices
  • Design a monitoring and alerting system
  • Design an auto-scaling system
  • Design a log aggregation platform
  • Operational excellence — runbooks, automation, self-healing
  • Cost optimization at scale
  • Multi-region architecture and disaster recovery

Key tools

AWS Architecture CenterExcalidraw
Phase 5

Coding (Bar Raiser Round)

LeetCode medium + scripting/automation

Advanced6–8 weeks

What to learn

  • LeetCode medium problems — 100+ solved
  • Focus: arrays, hashmaps, trees, graphs, DP basics
  • Scripting — Python/Bash automation scenarios
  • Write clean, production-quality code
  • Explain time/space complexity clearly
  • Amazon-style: pair programming, think out loud

Key tools

LeetCodePythonBash
Phase 6

Interview Loop Prep

The Amazon loop is unique — prepare specifically

Expert3–4 weeks

What to learn

  • Phone screen format — 1 coding + LP questions
  • Onsite loop — 4-5 rounds (coding, system design, LP, bar raiser)
  • Every round includes LP questions — weave stories naturally
  • Bar Raiser round — highest bar, cross-team interviewer
  • Ask good questions at the end of each round
  • Mock interviews with someone who knows Amazon's format

Key tools

Prampinterviewing.ioAmazon interview guides

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about the Amazon/AWS DevOps roadmap

1What is the Amazon DevOps Engineer interview like?
Amazon DevOps interviews include: coding (LeetCode medium), system design (AWS-focused architecture), DevOps-specific (CI/CD, IaC, monitoring), and behavioral (Amazon Leadership Principles — this is critical).
2How important are Amazon Leadership Principles?
Extremely important. Amazon evaluates every candidate against their 16 Leadership Principles. Prepare 2+ STAR stories per principle. Behavioral rounds often determine the hiring decision more than technical rounds.
3What AWS services should I know for Amazon interviews?
Deep knowledge of: EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, S3, VPC, IAM, CloudFormation/CDK, CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CloudWatch, Route 53, ALB/NLB, DynamoDB, SQS/SNS, and Secrets Manager.
4What is the Amazon DevOps Engineer salary in 2026?
Amazon SDE/DevOps L5 (entry-senior): $180K–$250K TC, L6 (senior): $280K–$380K TC, L7 (principal): $400K–$550K+ TC. Amazon's TC is heavily RSU-weighted with back-loaded vesting.
5How long should I prepare for Amazon DevOps?
3–5 months is typical. Focus areas: 1 month Leadership Principles + STAR stories, 2 months coding (150+ LeetCode), 1 month system design, and ongoing AWS services deep-dive.
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