Azure DevOps Engineer — Complete Learning Package
Beginner Labs (1–15)
- Create Azure DevOps project + repo
- YAML pipeline: build → test → publish
- Release pipeline to App Service
- Branch policies (PR + reviewer + build validation)
- GitHub Actions CI/CD
- Variable groups + Key Vault integration
- Bicep deployment via pipeline
- Deployment slot swap
- Service connection (service principal)
- Terraform infra deployment
- PR build validation
- Scheduled pipeline
- Test execution in pipeline
- Docker build + push to ACR
- Deploy container to App Service
Intermediate Labs (16–35)
- Multi-stage pipeline with approvals
- Blue/green deployment (App Service)
- Canary deployment (AKS)
- Bicep module library
- Terraform remote state
- Terraform plan → approval → apply
- AKS Helm deployment
- Feature flags deployment
- Infra what-if validation
- Self-hosted agent setup
- Secret scanning (detect-secrets)
- SAST (CodeQL/SonarQube)
- SCA (Dependabot/Snyk)
- Container scanning (Trivy/Defender)
- IaC scanning (Checkov/tfsec)
- DAST (OWASP ZAP)
- Pipeline template reuse
- Env-based configs
- Auto rollback
- GitOps with Flux
Advanced Labs (36–50)
- Full DevSecOps pipeline
- Multi-region deployments
- AKS blue/green with Front Door
- A/B testing pipeline
- Database migrations in CI/CD
- Multi-tenant deployment pipeline
- Self-service provisioning pipeline
- Compliance-as-code validation
- DR deployment pipeline
- Observability deployment pipeline
- Canary analysis + rollback
- Multi-cloud pipeline
- Container promotion pipeline
- SBOM generation
- Enterprise CI/CD pipeline
Major Projects
Core CI/CD Systems
- Enterprise microservices CI/CD (AKS)
- Multi-environment pipeline with IaC
- DevSecOps pipeline
- Blue/green deployment system
- Canary deployment with rollback
Advanced Systems
- Multi-region deployment orchestration
- Database CI/CD pipeline
- Feature flag system
- Self-service provisioning
- Container promotion pipeline
Platform Engineering
- GitOps platform with Flux
- Compliance-as-code system
- DR automation
- DORA metrics tracking
- Full enterprise DevOps platform
Gotchas & Common Mistakes
- YAML errors only show at runtime
- Service principal secrets expire
- Terraform state contains secrets
- Use specific image tags (not latest)
- ACR replication lag
- Pipeline variables vs variable groups confusion
- Approval gates need timeout
- Rollback must handle DB schema
- Feature flags need kill switch
- AKS autoscaler delay (5–10 mins)
- Pipeline caching requires correct key
- GitOps must be Git-only (no manual changes)
- Hosted agents are ephemeral
- Deployment slots not in free tier
- CI/CD is mandatory (no manual deploys)
Pipeline Design Checklist
- Build → test → lint
- Security scan (SAST, SCA, secrets)
- Package artifact/container
- Deploy to staging
- Run integration tests
- Approval before production
- Deploy production (blue/green or canary)
- Smoke test
- Rollback plan
- Monitoring integration
DORA Metrics
- Deployment Frequency
- Lead Time
- Change Failure Rate
- MTTR (Mean Time To Recovery)
IaC Pipeline Flow
Push → Validate → Lint → Security Scan → Plan → Review → Deploy Staging → Validate → Approve → Deploy Prod → Verify