Home / Notes

Career · DevOps · Field report

Career change into DevOps in Germany: my plan, my evidence, my gaps

I am looking for a permanent IT job, with DevOps and platform engineering as the best fit. This is an open account of what the market offers according to the numbers, where I come from and how I make my skills verifiable.

Serge Zabolotny · 2026-10-27

• DevOps
• Quereinstieg
• Karriere
• Bewerbung
• Linux
• CI/CD
• Platform Engineering

What the market offers, by the numbers

According to Bitkom’s survey of 3 September 2026, Germany is currently short of 79,000 IT specialists – 109,000 in 2025 and 149,000 in 2023. The shortage has almost halved but has not disappeared. At the same time 42% of companies use AI in IT; only 10% of those have cut jobs because of it, and 32% expect cuts in future. The interpretation is covered in detail in The world in 10–20 years: three scenarios.

For newcomers the picture is mixed: a Stanford study (“Canaries in the Coal Mine”, Brynjolfsson et al.) found a relative employment decline of 13% for 22–25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed occupations in the US, while experienced workers stayed stable. That is US data and no proof of causation – but a hint that evidence of skill matters more at entry.

Where I come from

• 2011–2017: CTO at a company in Ukraine that installed LPG conversion systems
• 2017–2022: technical support for Apple products and business customers (Teleperformance Görlitz, Concentrix Berlin)
• 2022–2023: DEKRA-certified Java web development training, 960 hours (Starta-Institut / Tel-Ran Berlin)
• since 2024: freelance developer and founder of MeisterMeld

My evidence: what you can read on this website

My gaps, stated openly

So far I have not worked in a large team with on-call duty and production responsibility, and my operations mostly run in my own homelab and on individual servers, not in large cloud environments with many people involved. That is the gap I want to close in a permanent role – and the reason I document my work so publicly. I follow regulations such as the CRA, NIS2 and the AI Act because they will shape the everyday life of DevOps teams in Germany.

If you are starting similarly: three practical steps

1. Run something real, not just tutorial copies: a server, a service, backups, monitoring.
2. Document it publicly, with decisions and mistakes. A note with commands and limits says more than a list of buzzwords.
3. Know the framework teams work under: security, reporting duties, evidence.

Sources

• Bitkom: IT skills shortage halved in three years (3 September 2026)
• Brynjolfsson et al., “Canaries in the Coal Mine” (Stanford, SIEPR): US data, no proof of causation.

Keep reading