DevOps & Cloud Engineer Program
Eight-month accelerator for platform leaders.
Cohort-based learning for engineers, SREs, and ops leaders who want to master modern delivery. Live workshops, paired labs, office hours, mentorship, and a capstone that mirrors ZAE’s platform engagements.
Hybrid · remote-friendly Max 18 learners Duration: 32 weeks + capstone
What you’ll build
Enterprise-grade delivery system.
- • Terraform landing zone with IAM guardrails and observability.
- • GitOps-powered release flow hooking GitHub/GitLab to ArgoCD.
- • SLO dashboards, PagerDuty runbooks, and incident practice scripts.
- • Executive-ready roadmap and readiness checklist.
Included extras
Tooling + mentorship + certification prep.
- • Sandbox cloud accounts + Git repos for labs.
- • 1:1 coaching slots with ZAE platform leads.
- • Interview + portfolio prep (case studies & architecture decks).
- • AWS DevOps Pro / Terraform Associate exam pointers.
Cohort schedule · 8 phases
Phase 1 · Foundations (Weeks 1-4)
- Cloud-native mindset, value-stream mapping, and DevOps culture blueprints.
- AWS/Azure/GCP account strategy, IAM guardrails, and Git workflows.
- Quick lab: GitHub Actions + Terraform bootstrap.
Phase 2 · Infrastructure as Code (Weeks 5-8)
- Terraform deep dive, module structure, workspaces, and policy-as-code.
- Hands-on with Control Tower / Landing Zone Accelerator patterns.
- Quick lab: multi-account provisioning with drift detection.
Phase 3 · Delivery Automation (Weeks 9-12)
- GitOps patterns using ArgoCD/Flux, progressive delivery, and approvals.
- CI/CD pipelines across GitHub/GitLab/Jenkins with automated quality gates.
- Quick lab: blue/green rollout with observability hooks.
Phase 4 · Reliability & Observability (Weeks 13-16)
- Observability stacks (Datadog, Grafana, CloudWatch) with SLO modeling.
- Incident response, runbooks, and chaos drills.
- Capstone: design a managed platform playbook for a sample org.
Phase 5 · Security & Compliance (Weeks 17-20)
- Zero-trust networking, IAM/SCP automation, and secrets management pipelines.
- Policy-as-code, drift detection, and compliance evidence automation.
- Quick lab: AWS Security Hub + Azure Defender guardrails tied to GitOps.
Phase 6 · Platform Operations (Weeks 21-24)
- Golden image pipelines (Packer/EC2 Image Builder), SCCM/Intune orchestration.
- Backup/DR automation, hybrid networking (Fortinet/Palo Alto), and runbooks.
- Quick lab: hands-free patching and runbook-as-code templates.
Phase 7 · Data & Experience (Weeks 25-28)
- Snowflake/BigQuery pipelines, dbt modeling, and analytics governance.
- Developer portals and UX enablement with Contentful/Sanity, SEO ops.
- Quick lab: launch a metrics portal with auth + logging.
Phase 8 · Capstone & Leadership (Weeks 29-32)
- Architecture reviews, budgeting/FinOps exercises, stakeholder storytelling.
- Incident commander simulations, SRE scorecards, and OKR alignment.
- Capstone: deliver a modernization roadmap and exec brief.
Who should join
Engineers leveling into DevOps leadership.
- • Platform engineers running IaC/GitOps at scale.
- • Sysadmins modernizing toward cloud-native operations.
- • SREs/Product owners who need cross-functional platform literacy.
Outcome guarantees
12+ labs
Hands-on projects reviewed by ZAE engineers.
3 capstones
Architecture review + Ops playbook + exec deck.
40 hrs
Live coaching & office hours.
1 plan
Personalized platform roadmap for your org.
Tuition: $11,500 per participant (volume pricing available). Includes lifetime access to recordings, templates, and community Slack.
Secure a seat via Google Forms