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DevSecOps Engineer Roadmap

Learn to embed security at every stage of the DevOps pipeline. Container scanning, SAST/DAST, secrets management, Kubernetes hardening, and compliance as code.

4–6 months
7 phases
FoundationIntermediateAdvancedExpert
Phase 1

Security Fundamentals for DevOps

The mindset before the tooling

Foundation2–3 weeks

What to learn

  • OWASP Top 10 — web vulnerabilities every dev must know
  • CIA triad: Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability
  • Authentication vs Authorization
  • Zero Trust principles
  • Threat modelling basics (STRIDE)
  • Common attack vectors: injection, XSS, SSRF

Key tools

OWASP ZAPBurp Suite (community)
Phase 2

Secure Code — SAST & SCA

Catch vulnerabilities before they ship

Foundation2–3 weeks

What to learn

  • SAST — static analysis in CI pipelines
  • SCA — software composition analysis (OSS deps)
  • Secret scanning — catch leaked credentials
  • Dependency vulnerability management
  • License compliance scanning
  • SARIF format and GitHub Security tab

Key tools

SemgrepSnykTrivyGitLeaksDependabotOWASP Dependency-Check
Phase 3

Container Security

Secure your images and runtime

Intermediate3–4 weeks

What to learn

  • Dockerfile best practices — minimal, rootless images
  • Image scanning: Trivy, Grype, Snyk Container
  • Distroless and scratch base images
  • Container runtime security (seccomp, AppArmor)
  • Image signing and verification (Cosign, Notary)
  • Private registry security (ECR, GHCR policies)

Key tools

TrivyCosignGrypeDocker ScoutSyft
Phase 4

Kubernetes Security Hardening

Lock down your cluster

Intermediate4–5 weeks

What to learn

  • RBAC — least privilege for every service account
  • Pod Security Admission (PSA) — restricted/baseline
  • Network Policies — deny by default
  • OPA Gatekeeper / Kyverno policy enforcement
  • etcd encryption at rest
  • Audit logging and alerting
  • CIS Kubernetes Benchmark

Key tools

OPA GatekeeperKyvernoFalcokube-benchPolaris
Phase 5

Secrets Management

Never store secrets in code again

Intermediate2–3 weeks

What to learn

  • HashiCorp Vault — dynamic secrets, PKI, leases
  • AWS Secrets Manager and Parameter Store
  • External Secrets Operator for Kubernetes
  • OIDC-based keyless auth (no long-lived keys)
  • Secret rotation strategies
  • Vault agent sidecar injection

Key tools

HashiCorp VaultExternal Secrets OperatorAWS Secrets ManagerSealed Secrets
Phase 6

Runtime Security & Threat Detection

Detect attacks as they happen

Advanced3–4 weeks

What to learn

  • Falco — runtime syscall monitoring
  • Tetragon — eBPF-based security observability
  • SIEM integration for container events
  • Incident response for Kubernetes
  • Forensics — preserving pod state after breach
  • Security chaos engineering

Key tools

FalcoTetragonCiliumWizAqua Security
Phase 7

Compliance as Code

Automate audits and stay compliant

Advanced2–3 weeks

What to learn

  • CIS Benchmarks for Linux, Docker, Kubernetes
  • SOC 2 / ISO 27001 controls mapped to DevOps
  • SBOM generation and management
  • SLSA framework — software supply chain levels
  • Policy as code with OPA / Sentinel
  • Automated compliance reporting in CI

Key tools

OpenSCAPkube-benchCheckovTerrascanOSCAL

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