Top 10 DevOps engineers to follow in 2022!

Below is a list of ten DevOps engineers who are doing great things in the community that you should keep an eye on and follow them on Twitter or subscribe to their blog or YouTube channel — enjoy!

What is a DevOps engineer?

A DevOps engineer is someone who can introduce processes, tools, and methodologies to their companies software lifecycle or infrastructure deployment.

A DevOps engineer can come from a Developer background or an Operations background or be new to the IT industry.

Anaïs Urlichs

Anaïs an Open Source Developer Advocate based in the UK. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) named her as their Top Ambassador in 2021. She is also a GitHub Star. Her passion lies in making the cloud native ecosystem more accessible for the community.

She created the “100 days of Kubernetes” which is a self paced challenge where you can learn something new about Kubernetes for 100 days.

You can find great content on Anaïs’s YouTube Channel about Kubernetes and DevOps. She regularly has live “coffee chats” where you can join her and ask questions.

Barbara Forbes

Barbara is an Azure Technical Lead based in The Netherlands. She is a Microsoft Azure MVP, Microsoft Certified Trainer and GitHub Star. She focuses on Azure, PowerShell, Automation, Infra as Code, Azure DevOps and Serverless.

In her spare time she is also the co-founder of the Dutch DevOps & GitHub Community (DDOG) and co-hosts the Dutch PowerShell User Group (DUPSUG).

Barbara shares some fantastic blogs on things ranging from how to implement a tagging strategy with Azure Bicep templates to ensuring your PowerShell modules are all updated on your computer.

Esther Barthel

Esther is a Solutions Architect based in Holland, designing and implementing Citrix solutions for both small-business and large enterprise infrastructures. She is a Microsoft MVP and End User Computer (EUC) vExpert for VMware.

Esther is also an author, in 2014 Esther authored the “Citrix XenApp 6.5 Expert Cookbook”.

Following Esther you will learn about Azure, DevOps, Automation, PowerShell, Virtualization, Mobility, Cloud, Citrix, JSON and REST APIs. You will also find her hosting the Azure Thursday group sessions.

Michael Cade

Michael is a Community Technologist at Kasten. He’s recently starting to learn topics like Kubernetes, Cloud-Native, DevOps and the future of Software while sharing his journey with the community.

At the start of 2022 Michael started a new project #90DaysofDevOps. This project is him learning and getting a better understanding of DevOps. He’s documenting each day and it’s been a very popular topic so far with over 2,000 stars on his GitHub project. He’s covering topics such as what DevOps is, learning a programming language and the basics of Linux.

The beauty of this project by Michael is you can clone his GitHub repository and use it as a template to do your own #90DaysofDevOps learning journey.

James Cook

James is a DevOps Engineer based in the UK. He is the host of the Az Community Roundtable. James has been active in the community since 2021 sharing blog posts, creating a podcast and videos along the way.

Following James’s blog is useful as he covers a variety of topics, especially in the Infrastructure as Code space. James has been sharing some great blogs on Terraform, from getting started to how to run tests on your code to ensure there aren’t any misconfigurations.

Rob Barnes

Rob is a Senior Developer Advocate based in the UK. He is one of the hosts of the “Keepin’ IT Secure’ podcast show. Rob has been in the IT industry for a number of years and has experience of working with a lot of organisations helping develop architectural designs and fault-tolerant automated solutions.

Following Rob’s YouTube channel you’ll find a mixture of content running from building a PC, to Terraform to creating content as a Developer Relations Advocate.

Sid Palas

Sid describes himself as a “technologist, engineer, athlete, beard grower, and tiny living enthusiast.” Sid has built a large YouTube channel where he talks about Infrastructure as code (IaC), Kubernetes, DevOps and career advancement.

His interactive DevOps Office Hours sessions with others from the community have proved popular and educational. There is an opportunity to learn something from the content that Sid is creating and think about things from a different angle.

Sam Cogan

Sam Cogan has been a Microsoft MVP since 2017, primarily focussing on providing architecture and technical solutions for cloud based SaaS projects using Azure.

His knowledge around Azure ARM templates and Azure Bicep is extensive. He regularly creates content around both Infrastructure as Code toolsets. He has regularly spoken at user groups and conferences to share his knowledge and help others. If you are looking to learn more about automating your infrastructure deployments to Azure then Sam is the person that can help you expand your knowledge.

Thomas Thornton

Thomas is an Azure Technical Specialist based in Northern Ireland. Thomas holds a number of Microsoft Azure certifications including Azure Solutions Architect and DevOps Engineer. In 2021 Thomas was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for Azure.

On his blog Thomas is posting a lot of great how to’s and tutorials surrounding Azure DevOps. He shares error message resolutions he encounters. As well as creating great workshop content for you to work through and get a better understanding on a topic.

Temi Olukoko

Temi is another UK based DevOps Engineer. Temi landed a job as a software engineer without a computer science degree or attending a coding bootcamp. A lot of her content on YouTube is about that journey.

Temi is also the founder of SimplexCode. SimplexCode is an educational-technology platform to help those in the early stages of their careers what they need to navigate their way in the technology industry.