A complete DevOps and infrastructure curriculum for experienced Rails engineers who deploy apps but have never truly understood what happens beneath the deploy command. Built on the field's canonical books, hands-on lab platforms, and the best free documentation on the internet. The path runs from Linux fundamentals through containers, orchestration, cloud platforms, and observability to full SRE practice.

Join the path to enroll in courses — they unlock in order as you finish each one.

DevOps, Infrastructure & Cloud Media Track #

Companion to: DEVOPS_INFRA_MASTERY_CURRICULUM.md Purpose: Video lectures, YouTube channels, talks, podcasts, and documentaries paired to each module. DevOps is best learned by watching production war stories, conference talks, and practitioners explain why they made the decisions they made -- not just how.

Last updated: April 30, 2026

How to Use This File #

Watch alongside labs. Brendan Gregg's flame graph talk while setting up Prometheus. DHH's Kamal talk while deploying your first Rails app to a VPS.
Break weeks. Between heavy modules (Module 3->4, Module 6->7), watch a documentary or keynote.
Mood tags: (Technical), (Inspiring), (Historical), (Fun), (Deep Dive), (War Story)

Module 0: Linux Fundamentals & Shell Mastery #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Revolution OS (documentary)	Documentary	85 min	Historical	The story of Linux, GNU, and open source. Watch first -- understand the world you're entering.
Fireship: Linux in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Fastest possible Linux overview.
NetworkChuck: Linux for Hackers (series)	YouTube Series	15-30 min each	Fun	Energetic, beginner-friendly Linux tutorials. Good companion to How Linux Works.
Brian Kernighan: UNIX -- A History and a Memoir	Talk	60 min	Historical	UNIX co-creator reflects on the design philosophy. Everything in DevOps traces back here.
Gary Explains: Linux File System	Video	15 min	Technical	Visual explanation of the Linux filesystem hierarchy.

Module 1: Networking & Security Foundations #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Computerphile: How the Internet Works (series)	YouTube Series	10-15 min each	Technical	DNS, TCP/IP, TLS explained visually. Watch before reading the networking chapters.
LiveOverflow: Binary Exploitation / Security	YouTube Series	10-20 min each	Deep Dive	Security concepts explained by a practitioner. Relevant to Module 1 security foundations.
NetworkChuck: Networking Fundamentals	YouTube Series	15-20 min each	Fun	Subnetting, DNS, firewalls made approachable.
Fireship: SSL/TLS in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick TLS mental model before diving deeper.
Julia Evans: Networking Zines	Zines	varies	Fun	Visual, memorable networking concepts. Her "How DNS Works" zine is legendary.

Module 2: Containers & Docker #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Fireship: Docker in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Fastest possible Docker overview.
TechWorld with Nana: Docker Tutorial for Beginners	Video	3 hrs	Technical	THE Docker tutorial on YouTube. Watch alongside Docker Deep Dive.
Docker official: DockerCon talks	Talks	30-45 min each	Technical	Official conference. Watch talks on multi-stage builds and security.
Jess Frazelle: Containers Are Not VMs (talk)	Talk	30 min	Deep Dive	What containers actually are under the hood -- namespaces, cgroups, chroot.
Liz Rice: Containers From Scratch (talk)	Talk	35 min	Deep Dive	Building a container runtime in Go in 30 minutes. Demystifies everything.

Module 3: Container Orchestration & Kubernetes #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
TechWorld with Nana: Kubernetes Tutorial for Beginners	Video	4 hrs	Technical	THE K8s tutorial on YouTube. Comprehensive, beginner-friendly.
Kelsey Hightower: Keynotes (various)	Talks	20-45 min each	Inspiring	The most influential voice in Kubernetes. His "No Code" keynote is legendary.
KubeCon talks	Talks	30-45 min each	Technical	Annual CNCF conference. Watch talks on operators, service mesh, and failure stories.
Fireship: Kubernetes in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick K8s mental model.
Viktor Farcic: DevOps Toolkit K8s series	YouTube Series	15-30 min each	Technical	Practical K8s patterns from a DevOps practitioner.

Module 4: Infrastructure as Code #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
HashiCorp: Terraform talks (HashiConf)	Talks	30-45 min each	Technical	Official Terraform conference talks. Watch the intro and advanced patterns talks.
Michael DeHaan: Ansible creator talks	Talk	40 min	Historical	Ansible's creator explains the philosophy of agentless configuration management.
GitOps: Weaveworks and ArgoCD talks	Talks	30 min each	Technical	GitOps pattern explained -- infrastructure changes via pull requests.
Fireship: Terraform in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick IaC mental model.
Kelsey Hightower: Infrastructure as Code is Not the Answer	Talk	25 min	Inspiring	A contrarian take that makes you think about what we are actually trying to solve.

Module 5: Cloud Platforms & Architecture #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
AWS re:Invent Keynotes	Talks	60-90 min	Inspiring	Werner Vogels keynotes are legendary. Cloud architecture thinking at the highest level.
Fireship: AWS in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick AWS mental model.
Adrian Cantrill: AWS courses and talks	YouTube Series	varies	Technical	The best AWS educator. Deep, accurate, and practical.
Fireship: Serverless in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick serverless mental model before diving into Lambda.
AWS This Is My Architecture (series)	YouTube Series	5-10 min each	Technical	Real companies explain their AWS architectures. Short and practical.

Module 6: Observability & Monitoring #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Brendan Gregg: Linux Performance Tools (talk)	Talk	45 min	Deep Dive	THE performance talk. Flame graphs, perf, tracing tools. Watch before any monitoring work.
Charity Majors: Observability talks	Talks	30-40 min each	Inspiring	Honeycomb founder. She changed how the industry thinks about observability vs monitoring.
OpenTelemetry talks (KubeCon)	Talks	30 min each	Technical	The future of telemetry. Traces, metrics, logs unified.
Brendan Gregg: BPF Performance Analysis	Talk	50 min	Deep Dive	eBPF for production observability. Advanced but transformative.
Grafana: GrafanaCon talks	Talks	30 min each	Technical	Dashboard design, alerting patterns, Loki and Tempo deep dives.

Module 7: CI/CD, SRE & Production Operations #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Google SRE: Keys to SRE (Ben Treynor)	Talk	25 min	Inspiring	The founder of Google SRE explains error budgets, SLOs, and toil elimination.
GitHub Universe: CI/CD talks	Talks	30 min each	Technical	GitHub Actions best practices, reusable workflows, security.
DHH: Kamal -- Deploy web apps anywhere (Rails World)	Talk	30 min	Inspiring	Rails creator explains Kamal -- deploying without Kubernetes. Directly relevant to your stack.
Google SRE: Incident Management (talks)	Talks	30-40 min each	War Story	Blameless postmortems, on-call practices, incident response.
Fireship: CI/CD in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick CI/CD mental model.

Module 8: Streaming, Data Infrastructure & Advanced Topics #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
Martin Kleppmann: Turning the Database Inside-Out	Talk	45 min	Deep Dive	DDIA author explains event streaming as a fundamental architecture shift. Watch FIRST.
Kafka Summit talks	Talks	30-45 min each	Technical	Production Kafka patterns, exactly-once delivery, stream processing.
Martin Kleppmann: Event Sourcing and Stream Processing	Talk	40 min	Deep Dive	Connects event sourcing to stream processing.
Fireship: Kafka in 100 Seconds	Video	2 min	Fun	Quick Kafka mental model.

Module 9: Capstone Projects #

Resource	Type	Duration	Mood	Why
SREcon: Production War Stories	Talks	30-40 min each	War Story	Real incidents at scale. What broke, why, and how they fixed it.
Charity Majors: The Future of Ops (talk)	Talk	35 min	Inspiring	Where DevOps/SRE is heading. Good capstone perspective.
KubeCon Failure Stories	Talks	30 min each	War Story	Kubernetes production failures and lessons learned.
DevOpsDays: Ignite Talks	Talks	5 min each	Fun	Fast-paced, high-energy DevOps talks. Good for capstone inspiration.

Podcasts #

Podcast	Focus	Why
Ship It! (Changelog)	DevOps, infrastructure, deployment	Production deployment stories. Practical and grounded.
Arrested DevOps	DevOps culture, tools, practices	Long-running DevOps podcast. Good mix of culture and technical content.
The New Stack Podcast	Cloud native, Kubernetes, infrastructure	Covers the CNCF ecosystem. Good for staying current.
DevOps Paradox	DevOps, SRE, platform engineering	Viktor Farcic and Darin Pope. Opinionated and practical.
Software Engineering Daily	Broad engineering, strong infra coverage	Deep-dive interviews on infrastructure topics. Listen selectively.

Channel	Focus	Why
TechWorld with Nana	Docker, K8s, DevOps	THE DevOps tutorial channel. Clear, comprehensive, beginner-friendly.
NetworkChuck	Linux, networking, security	Energetic, hands-on tutorials. Makes networking fun.
Fireship	Quick overviews, all tech	"In 100 Seconds" series gives you fast mental models for every tool.
Adrian Cantrill	AWS, cloud architecture	The most thorough AWS educator on YouTube.
DevOps Toolkit (Viktor Farcic)	K8s, GitOps, platform engineering	Opinionated, practical DevOps content with real demos.

Watch one talk per week. Subscribe to Ship It! and Arrested DevOps. DevOps is best learned by hearing practitioners explain what went wrong in production -- and what they changed.

DevOps, Infrastructure & Cloud Community Guide #

Companion to: DEVOPS_INFRA_MASTERY_CURRICULUM.md Purpose: Newsletters, blogs, forums, conferences, and open-source projects for DevOps and infrastructure. The DevOps community is uniquely cross-disciplinary -- developers, ops engineers, SREs, and platform engineers all share the same spaces. Understanding the community helps you learn idiomatically and stay current in a fast-moving field.

Last updated: April 30, 2026

Newsletters & Blogs #

Blog/Newsletter	Author/Source	Focus	Why
DevOps Weekly	Gareth Rushgrove	DevOps news roundup	THE DevOps newsletter. Subscribe. Weekly curated links on tooling, culture, and practices.
SRE Weekly	Lex Neva	Reliability, incidents, SRE	Curated links on reliability engineering. Incident reports, postmortems, and SRE practices.
Last Week in AWS	Corey Quinn	AWS news, cloud costs	Hilarious and informative. Nobody covers AWS billing and announcements better.
Brendan Gregg's Blog	Brendan Gregg	Performance, observability, eBPF	THE performance engineering blog. Flame graphs, BPF tools, and systems analysis.
Charity Majors' Blog	Charity Majors	Observability, engineering management	Honeycomb founder. Changed how the industry thinks about observability. Unfiltered and sharp.
Julia Evans (b0rk)	Julia Evans	Linux, networking, systems	Makes complex systems topics accessible through zines and blog posts. Her DNS, networking, and Linux posts are legendary.
Kelsey Hightower (social/talks)	Kelsey Hightower	Kubernetes, cloud native	The most influential voice in cloud native. Follow for sharp takes on infrastructure simplicity.
Jessie Frazelle's Blog	Jessie Frazelle	Containers, Linux, security	Deep container internals. She literally ran her desktop in Docker containers.
Cindy Sridharan's Blog	Cindy Sridharan	Distributed systems, observability	Author of "Distributed Systems Observability." Deep, well-researched posts on monitoring and tracing.
Cloudflare Blog	Cloudflare	Networking, security, edge computing	Engineering blog that reads like a textbook. Every outage report and technical post is worth reading.
Fly.io Blog	Fly.io	Edge computing, deployment, Elixir	Practical infrastructure posts. Their "We Moved to SQLite" and deployment strategy posts are excellent.
HashiCorp Blog	HashiCorp	Terraform, Vault, Consul, Nomad	Official source for IaC best practices and infrastructure patterns.

Forums & Communities #

Community	Platform	Focus	Why Join
r/devops	Reddit	DevOps practices, tools	Large, active community. Career advice, tool comparisons, war stories.
r/kubernetes	Reddit	Kubernetes	K8s questions, cluster design, production issues.
r/docker	Reddit	Docker	Container questions, Dockerfile optimization, compose patterns.
r/aws	Reddit	AWS	AWS architecture, cost optimization, certification study.
r/linux	Reddit	Linux	Linux news and discussions. Higher signal than r/linuxquestions.
r/sysadmin	Reddit	Systems administration	Production war stories, automation, infrastructure management.
CNCF Slack	Slack	Cloud native ecosystem	Official CNCF community. Channels for every CNCF project.
Kubernetes Slack	Slack	Kubernetes	Official K8s Slack. #kubernetes-users and #sig-* channels are active.
HashiCorp Discuss	Forum	Terraform, Vault, Consul	Official HashiCorp forum. Good for Terraform module questions and patterns.
DevOps Discord servers	Discord	DevOps	Multiple active servers. Good for real-time questions and discussions.

Conferences (Recordings Available Free) #

Conference	Focus	How to Access	Why
KubeCon + CloudNativeCon	Kubernetes, cloud native	YouTube (free)	THE cloud native conference. Thousands of talks on K8s, service mesh, observability, and GitOps.
AWS re:Invent	AWS, cloud architecture	YouTube (free)	Massive AWS conference. Werner Vogels keynotes and deep-dive breakout sessions.
HashiConf	Terraform, Vault, infrastructure	YouTube (free)	Official HashiCorp conference. IaC patterns, secrets management, service mesh.
DevOpsDays	DevOps culture, practices	YouTube (free)	Community-organized, global. Mix of technical talks and open spaces. Every city has its own flavor.
SREcon	Site reliability engineering	YouTube (free)	USENIX SRE conference. Deep SRE practices, incident management, reliability.
LISA	Systems administration	YouTube (free)	Classic USENIX systems conference. Deep systems administration and engineering.
DockerCon	Containers, Docker	YouTube (free)	Official Docker conference. Container best practices, security, and ecosystem.
GitOpsCon	GitOps, ArgoCD, Flux	YouTube (free)	Focused on GitOps patterns. Growing quickly.
Monitorama	Monitoring, observability	YouTube (free)	THE monitoring conference. Small, focused, high signal. Charity Majors, Brendan Gregg, and community.

Open-Source Projects to Study #

Study these for their architecture, CI/CD pipelines, and operational patterns -- not just their code.

Project	What It Is	Why Study
Docker/Moby	Container runtime	THE container project. Study its architecture, image layering, and network drivers.
Kubernetes	Container orchestration	Study its controller pattern, reconciliation loops, and API design. The operator pattern is everywhere.
Terraform	Infrastructure as code	Study its provider plugin architecture and state management. HCL design decisions.
Ansible	Configuration management	Agentless design. Study its module system and playbook patterns.
Prometheus	Metrics and alerting	Pull-based monitoring. Study its data model (labels, time series) and PromQL design.
Grafana	Visualization and dashboards	Study its plugin architecture and data source abstraction. Dashboard-as-code patterns.
ArgoCD	GitOps continuous delivery	Kubernetes-native GitOps. Study its sync engine and application model.
Traefik	Reverse proxy, load balancer	Auto-discovery of services. Study its provider pattern and middleware chain.
Caddy	Web server with automatic HTTPS	Automatic TLS via Let's Encrypt. Study its module system and Caddyfile design.
Kamal	Deploy web apps anywhere	Rails! 37signals' deployment tool. Study this deeply -- it is your stack's answer to Kubernetes.
cert-manager	TLS certificate management for K8s	Automates certificate lifecycle in Kubernetes. Study its issuer/certificate CRD design.
Istio	Service mesh	Study its sidecar proxy pattern, traffic management, and mTLS. Complex but influential.

Certifications Worth Considering #

Not required, but useful for credibility when transitioning from pure Rails to infrastructure roles.

Certification	Provider	Why
AWS Solutions Architect Associate	AWS	The most recognized cloud cert. Validates your understanding of AWS architecture patterns.
CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator)	CNCF	Hands-on, practical exam. Proves you can operate K8s clusters, not just talk about them.
CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer)	CNCF	Developer-focused K8s cert. More relevant for a Rails engineer deploying apps to K8s.
HashiCorp Terraform Associate	HashiCorp	Validates IaC fundamentals. Good signal for infrastructure-aware application engineers.
Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator	Linux Foundation	Proves Linux competency. Hands-on exam.

People to Follow #

Key voices in the DevOps and infrastructure space. Follow on social media and read everything they publish.

Person	Known For	Where to Follow
Kelsey Hightower	Kubernetes, cloud native advocacy	GitHub, conference talks
Charity Majors	Observability, engineering leadership	charity.wtf, social media
Brendan Gregg	Systems performance, flame graphs, eBPF	brendangregg.com
Julia Evans	Making systems topics accessible	jvns.ca, zines
Jessie Frazelle	Container internals, Linux	blog.jessfraz.com
Corey Quinn	AWS, cloud economics, snark	lastweekinaws.com
Viktor Farcic	DevOps practices, K8s, GitOps	DevOps Toolkit YouTube
Cindy Sridharan	Distributed systems observability	Medium
DHH	Rails deployment, Kamal, anti-complexity	world.hey.com/dhh
Liz Rice	Container security, eBPF	Conference talks, books

Essential Talks (Watch These) #

The 10 talks everyone in the DevOps and infrastructure world references.

Talk	Speaker	Year	Focus	Why
No Code (keynote)	Kelsey Hightower	2018	Kubernetes	Legendary satirical keynote about infrastructure complexity. The punchline lands harder the more you learn.
Observability -- A 3-Year Retrospective	Charity Majors	2021	Observability	How observability differs from monitoring. Changed the industry vocabulary.
Linux Performance Tools (tutorial)	Brendan Gregg	2015	Performance	THE systems performance reference talk. Flame graphs and the USE method.
Deploying Rails with Kamal (Rails World)	DHH	2023	Deployment	Rails creator explains Kamal. Directly relevant to your stack and career.
The Rails Doctrine (Omakase)	DHH	Various	Philosophy	Why Rails makes opinionated choices. The Kamal philosophy extends from this.
Containers From Scratch	Liz Rice	2018	Containers	Builds a container in Go in 30 minutes. Demystifies namespaces and cgroups.
10 Deploys Per Day (Velocity 2009)	John Allspaw & Paul Hammond	2009	DevOps	THE talk that started the DevOps movement. Still relevant.
Turning the Database Inside-Out	Martin Kleppmann	2015	Streaming	DDIA author on event streaming as architecture. Fundamental shift in how to think about data.
3 Practices for Effective SRE	Google SRE team	Various	SRE	Error budgets, SLOs, and toil elimination from the team that invented SRE.
Choose Boring Technology	Dan McKinley	2015	Architecture	Every team gets a limited number of innovation tokens. Spend them wisely. Essential wisdom for a Rails engineer.

DevOps is a culture before it is a toolchain. Join r/devops and the CNCF Slack. Subscribe to DevOps Weekly and SRE Weekly. The community teaches you what the books cannot -- what actually breaks in production and why.