- When production broke, were you the person who stayed calm? (yes / no)
- Have you read logs to find a cause nobody else could see? (yes / no)
- Have you automated a manual task because doing it twice annoyed you? (yes / no)
- Do you like writing down what happened so it doesn't happen again? (yes / no)
- Could you live with an on-call rota, if it's fair and well run? (yes / no)
Let's explain the route plainly. Site reliability engineering (SRE) applies software engineering to operations: measuring reliability, automating repetitive work, responding to incidents and learning from them. Production support is closely related and often the entry point. "site reliability engineer jobs" gets about 1,000 searches a month in India and 1,900 in the US.
Path cards inside the route
Production support engineer (L2/L3) Investigates incidents, applies fixes, escalates well. Good entry point for developers with app knowledge.
Site reliability engineer Defines SLOs, builds monitoring, automates toil, improves resilience. Needs coding plus systems knowledge.
Platform / DevOps engineer Builds pipelines and infrastructure others deploy on. Overlaps with SRE; titles vary by company.
Incident manager Coordinates response, communication and postmortems. Suits calm communicators with technical depth.
Flip cards: the vocabulary
Tap a card to flip it.
Quest-complete chime
When you tick a quest on this page, a soft two-note chime can play and the Path Card glows briefly — a tiny nod to the satisfying "resolved" sound of an incident tool. It's off by default; turn it on with the bell toggle. Respects your device's reduced-motion setting, and the sound never plays unless you choose it. A gentle reward for steady progress.
The resolved chime
Free ways to learn and practise
- Google's SRE books — free to read online at sre.google/books.
- Prometheus — open-source monitoring.
- Grafana Cloud Free — listed as "Always free" with 10k active metrics series, 50 GB of logs and 14-day retention (checked 23 Oct 2026); paid Pro plans add usage charges.
- PagerDuty — has a Free plan for trying on-call workflows; check limits on its site.
Moving from developer to SRE: what changes
You'll spend less time building features and more time asking "how will this fail, and how will we know?" Your code shifts towards automation, tooling and configuration. Your audience widens: other engineers rely on your dashboards and runbooks. The calm you already show during incidents becomes the core skill, not a side talent.
A monitored-app proof project
Take a small app (your own or open source). Add metrics with Prometheus, a dashboard in Grafana, two meaningful alerts, a runbook for each, and a practice postmortem for a simulated incident (for example, a database slowdown). Document SLIs and a proposed SLO. This shows the whole loop.
Who moves into SRE
Java developers with production-support experience, backend developers who were always pulled into incidents, and system administrators learning to code more.
SRE hiring in India and globally
India: GCCs, product companies, banks and IT services firms hire for SRE and support; 24×7 coverage roles are common. Global: SRE roles are competitive; strong automation proof helps. Visa questions are outside our scope.
Your realistic 90 days
Production support engineers, sysadmins and L2/L3 support staff come here. SRE adds monitoring, automation and blameless postmortems to the support work you already know. Your starting artefact is an incident you handled at 2 a.m.
Assumes 2–3 hours a day alongside job applications, a laptop and a phone, and free plans only. Every step has a smaller version and a way to pause. Use them. It runs in three blocks of 30 days, each ending with a signal that you're on track. A signal is not a promise of a job or income.
Worries people bring to this route
- Over 40 on night shifts? Calm under incidents comes with years. Ask about rotation and shift policy in the first call.
- A gap. A dated runbook and monitoring demo on a free tier closes it.
- Degree. Skills tests and incident stories decide most interviews.
- English during incidents. Incident notes are short timestamped lines; practise one.
- Family worries about shifts. Ask openly; some teams follow-the-sun across regions.
- Runway. L2 support roles hire comparatively quickly; use one as a start.
What AI changed in your old tasks
| You used to… | Now you… |
|---|---|
| Restarted services by runbook | Automate the runbook |
| Watched dashboards | Define SLOs and alerts that matter |
| Closed incidents | Write blameless postmortems |
Your first 7 days
| Day | Task | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Write a postmortem for an incident you handled (anonymised) | Postmortem |
| 2 | Run a small app in Docker on your laptop | Running |
| 3 | Add Prometheus and Grafana (free, open source) | Dashboard |
| 4 | Define 2 SLOs and an alert | Alert fires on test |
| 5 | Script one runbook step in Bash or Python | Script |
| 6 | Break the app on purpose and practise recovery | Drill notes |
| 7 | Save 8 'SRE', 'production support', 'DevOps' postings | 8 links |
Days 1–30: An observability lab
| Step | Time | Done when | Smaller version | If you need to pause |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publish repo + dashboard screenshot + postmortem | about 14 hours across 3 weeks | Repo | Dashboard. | Let go of “publish repo + dashboard screenshot + postmortem”. |
| Share with 4 ops contacts | about 2 hours | 4 | Share with 2 ops contacts. | Put on ice “share with 4 ops contacts”. |
Signal by day 30: An SRE asks about your SLO choice.
Days 31–60: Cloud basics
| Step | Time | Done when | Smaller version | If you need to pause |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AWS Skill Builder free Cloud Practitioner Essentials or Linux Foundation's free Kubernetes intro (LFS158) | about 10 hours | Done | Half. | Skip for now “AWS Skill Builder free Cloud Practitioner Essentials or Linux Foundation's free Kubernetes intro (LFS158)”. |
| Apply to 10 SRE/support roles | about 5 hours | 10 | Apply to 5 SRE/support roles. | Set aside “apply to 10 SRE/support roles”. |
Signal by day 60: A screening call.
Days 61–90: On-call stories
| Step | Time | Done when | Smaller version | If you need to pause |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Write 3 incident STAR stories | about 3 hours | Stories | Write 1 incident STAR stories. | You can defer “write 3 incident STAR stories” once applications are out. |
| Ask 2 ex-leads for referrals | about 1 hour | 2 | Ask 1 ex-lead for referrals. | Set aside “ask 2 ex-leads for referrals” till a lighter week. |
Signal by day 90: A technical round.
Where the openings are, and what to type
Also worth a weekly look: Instahyre, Cutshort, Wellfound, and iimjobs or hirist for senior roles. Upwork and Contra if you want freelance work.
IT services firms, banks, telecoms and SaaS companies. Naukri carries many 'production support', 'application support' and 'SRE' posts; LinkedIn adds product firms.
- LinkedIn search string:
(SRE OR "site reliability" OR "production support" OR "application support") AND (Linux OR Kubernetes OR monitoring) - Naukri / foundit keywords: production support engineer, application support, SRE, L2 support
Job-hunt moves that matter for this route
- Search 'SRE', 'production support', 'site reliability' on Naukri.
- GCCs and fintechs run 24×7 teams; ask about shift patterns.
- Postmortems show judgment better than tool lists.
Your 30/60/90 quests
XP: learning 20 · proof 60 · outreach 40. Ranks: Wayfinder → Builder → Pathmaker. Progress stays in your browser only.
SRE pay
We haven't verified pay data for SRE or support roles. Ask how on-call is compensated; practices differ.
Job scams in DevOps and SRE
"DevOps job guarantee" courses, fees for interviews, OTP or UPI PIN requests. Official domains only. Report: cybercrime.gov.in / 1930 (India), ReportFraud.ftc.gov (US).
Reliability questions
Do I need Kubernetes? Common in listings; learn it after monitoring basics. Is on-call unhealthy? It can be, if poorly run. Ask about rota size, escalation and time off after incidents.
Bridges into this route
Quick quiz: does this path fit?
Answer each, then press Check. Every answer explains itself.
Make your Path Card
A shareable reminder of where you're heading. The day count starts the first time you open this page; quest XP comes from your log above.
Scam check before you apply anywhere
- Real job and gig platforms are free to join. Never pay a "joining" or "training" fee.
- Never share an OTP or UPI PIN — no genuine employer needs them.
- Use official domains only; type the address yourself.
- India: report at cybercrime.gov.in or call 1930.
- US: report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Small steps, every day.
Each quest has a smaller version for hard weeks, and a pause button. Nothing is lost.
Keep exploring
Sources
Checked 23 Oct 2026. We opened every link below ourselves. Search volumes on this site come from OpenSEO keyword research (Oct 2026).
| What we checked | Where |
|---|---|
| Prometheus (open source) | prometheus.io |
| Grafana Cloud Free: 10k metrics series, 50 GB logs, 14-day retention | grafana.com |
| Google SRE books free online | sre.google |
| PagerDuty Free plan | pagerduty.com |