CompTIA networking skills open doors to junior network engineer roles earning $55-75K. Traditional networking is evolving—cloud skills keep you relevant.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - START Phase (Foundation Building)**: This CompTIA course is your entry point into network engineer. Over the next 3-6 months, focus on mastering fundamentals, completing all hands-on labs, and building at least one portfolio project. This certification validates you're ready for entry-level roles. Your goal: land your first position and start gaining real-world experience.
CompTIA networking skills open doors to junior network engineer roles earning $55-75K. Traditional networking is evolving—cloud skills keep you relevant.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - START Phase (Foundation Building)**: This CompTIA course is your entry point into network engineer. Over the next 3-6 months, focus on mastering fundamentals, completing all hands-on labs, and building at least one portfolio project. This certification validates you're ready for entry-level roles. Your goal: land your first position and start gaining real-world experience.
Pluralsight
Via Pluralsight
Networking Concepts: Network and Security Appliances for CompTIA Network+
By Ross Bagurdes
Exam objectives: Certification — Network and Security Appliances for CompTIA Network+
CompTIA networking skills open doors to junior network engineer roles earning $55-75K. Traditional networking is evolving—cloud skills keep you relevant.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - START Phase (Foundation Building)**: This CompTIA course is your entry point into network engineer. Over the next 3-6 months, focus on mastering fundamentals, completing all hands-on labs, and building at least one portfolio project. This certification validates you're ready for entry-level roles. Your goal: land your first position and start gaining real-world experience.
Pluralsight
Via Pluralsight
Troubleshooting Methodology and Tools for CompTIA Network+
CompTIA networking skills open doors to junior network engineer roles earning $55-75K. Traditional networking is evolving—cloud skills keep you relevant.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - START Phase (Foundation Building)**: This CompTIA course is your entry point into network engineer. Over the next 3-6 months, focus on mastering fundamentals, completing all hands-on labs, and building at least one portfolio project. This certification validates you're ready for entry-level roles. Your goal: land your first position and start gaining real-world experience.
CompTIA networking skills open doors to junior network engineer roles earning $55-75K. Traditional networking is evolving—cloud skills keep you relevant.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - START Phase (Foundation Building)**: This CompTIA course is your entry point into network engineer. Over the next 3-6 months, focus on mastering fundamentals, completing all hands-on labs, and building at least one portfolio project. This certification validates you're ready for entry-level roles. Your goal: land your first position and start gaining real-world experience.
Certifications to Pursue
🎯 PRIMARY GOAL
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
$100 exam fee • 90 minutes • 65 questions
Essential cloud knowledge for DevOps engineers. Validates understanding of AWS services, pricing, and cloud concepts. Great starting point.
Cloud Technology networking mastery opens doors to senior network engineer roles earning $90-120K. You can design complex cloud networking solutions.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - GROW Phase (Professional Development)**: With foundational Cloud Technology knowledge, you're now building professional-grade skills. This course prepares you for real production environments and complex challenges. Apply these concepts at work immediately, volunteer for challenging projects, and start mentoring juniors. Position yourself for promotion to mid-level roles within 12-18 months.
Cloud Technology networking mastery opens doors to senior network engineer roles earning $90-120K. You can design complex cloud networking solutions.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - GROW Phase (Professional Development)**: With foundational Cloud Technology knowledge, you're now building professional-grade skills. This course prepares you for real production environments and complex challenges. Apply these concepts at work immediately, volunteer for challenging projects, and start mentoring juniors. Position yourself for promotion to mid-level roles within 12-18 months.
Cloud Technology networking mastery opens doors to senior network engineer roles earning $90-120K. You can design complex cloud networking solutions.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - GROW Phase (Professional Development)**: With foundational Cloud Technology knowledge, you're now building professional-grade skills. This course prepares you for real production environments and complex challenges. Apply these concepts at work immediately, volunteer for challenging projects, and start mentoring juniors. Position yourself for promotion to mid-level roles within 12-18 months.
Cloud Technology networking mastery opens doors to senior network engineer roles earning $90-120K. You can design complex cloud networking solutions.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - GROW Phase (Professional Development)**: With foundational Cloud Technology knowledge, you're now building professional-grade skills. This course prepares you for real production environments and complex challenges. Apply these concepts at work immediately, volunteer for challenging projects, and start mentoring juniors. Position yourself for promotion to mid-level roles within 12-18 months.
Cloud Technology networking mastery opens doors to senior network engineer roles earning $90-120K. You can design complex cloud networking solutions.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - GROW Phase (Professional Development)**: With foundational Cloud Technology knowledge, you're now building professional-grade skills. This course prepares you for real production environments and complex challenges. Apply these concepts at work immediately, volunteer for challenging projects, and start mentoring juniors. Position yourself for promotion to mid-level roles within 12-18 months.
The most valuable certification for DevOps engineers. Proves you can design, deploy, and troubleshoot Kubernetes clusters in production. Required for most senior DevOps roles.
Validates Infrastructure as Code expertise. Terraform is the industry standard for multi-cloud IaC. This certification proves you can manage infrastructure efficiently.
Build a microservices application, containerize each service, create Kubernetes manifests (Deployments, Services, Ingress), and deploy to a managed Kubernetes cluster.
KubernetesMicroservicesEKS/GKEHelm
06
Infrastructure as Code with Terraform (AWS/Azure)
Provision complete cloud infrastructure using Terraform: VPC, EC2 instances, RDS databases, load balancers, S3 buckets. Use modules, variables, and remote state.
TerraformIaCAWS/AzureGitOps
07
Complete CI/CD Pipeline with Jenkins
Build end-to-end CI/CD pipeline: code commit triggers Jenkins, runs tests, builds Docker images, pushes to registry, deploys to Kubernetes with automated rollback.
JenkinsCI/CDDockerK8s
08
Monitoring Stack with Prometheus & Grafana
Deploy Prometheus for metrics collection, Grafana for visualization, Alertmanager for notifications. Monitor Kubernetes cluster and applications with custom dashboards.
PrometheusGrafanaMonitoringObservability
RISE MASTERY: Senior Specialist (3-5 years)
Design enterprise networks and implement SD-WAN solutions
Cloud Technology network expertise qualifies you for principal network architect roles earning $120-160K+. You'll design global network infrastructure.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - MASTERY Phase (Senior Specialist)**: At this stage, you're learning to design systems, not just implement them. This Cloud Technology certification demonstrates expert-level proficiency. Use this knowledge to lead technical initiatives, establish best practices, and solve the organization's hardest problems. You're becoming the go-to expert—act like it. Take ownership of architectural decisions and mentor your team.
Cloud Technology network expertise qualifies you for principal network architect roles earning $120-160K+. You'll design global network infrastructure.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - MASTERY Phase (Senior Specialist)**: At this stage, you're learning to design systems, not just implement them. This Cloud Technology certification demonstrates expert-level proficiency. Use this knowledge to lead technical initiatives, establish best practices, and solve the organization's hardest problems. You're becoming the go-to expert—act like it. Take ownership of architectural decisions and mentor your team.
Pluralsight
Via Pluralsight
Network for Cisco CCNP Data Center (350-601 DCCOR)
Cloud Technology network expertise qualifies you for principal network architect roles earning $120-160K+. You'll design global network infrastructure.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - MASTERY Phase (Senior Specialist)**: At this stage, you're learning to design systems, not just implement them. This Cloud Technology certification demonstrates expert-level proficiency. Use this knowledge to lead technical initiatives, establish best practices, and solve the organization's hardest problems. You're becoming the go-to expert—act like it. Take ownership of architectural decisions and mentor your team.
Pluralsight
Via Pluralsight
Automating BGP Routing Security with gRPC, gNMI, and Certificates
Cloud Technology network expertise qualifies you for principal network architect roles earning $120-160K+. You'll design global network infrastructure.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - MASTERY Phase (Senior Specialist)**: At this stage, you're learning to design systems, not just implement them. This Cloud Technology certification demonstrates expert-level proficiency. Use this knowledge to lead technical initiatives, establish best practices, and solve the organization's hardest problems. You're becoming the go-to expert—act like it. Take ownership of architectural decisions and mentor your team.
Cloud Technology network expertise qualifies you for principal network architect roles earning $120-160K+. You'll design global network infrastructure.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - MASTERY Phase (Senior Specialist)**: At this stage, you're learning to design systems, not just implement them. This Cloud Technology certification demonstrates expert-level proficiency. Use this knowledge to lead technical initiatives, establish best practices, and solve the organization's hardest problems. You're becoming the go-to expert—act like it. Take ownership of architectural decisions and mentor your team.
Expert Certifications
🏆 EXPERT LEVEL
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
$395 exam fee • 2 hours • Performance-based
Advanced Kubernetes security certification. Proves you can secure containerized applications and Kubernetes platforms during build, deployment, and runtime. Required for senior DevOps/Security roles.
Multi-Region Kubernetes Cluster with Istio Service Mesh
Deploy highly available Kubernetes across multiple regions, implement Istio service mesh for traffic management, observability, and security. Configure automatic failover.
KubernetesIstioMulti-regionHA/DR
10
GitOps Platform with ArgoCD and Helm
Build a complete GitOps platform: manage multiple environments (dev, staging, prod), implement app-of-apps pattern, automated promotion workflows, and RBAC policies.
Implement full observability: metrics (Prometheus), logs (Loki), traces (Tempo), dashboards (Grafana). Set up alerts, SLIs/SLOs, and on-call rotations.
ObservabilityPrometheusGrafanaSRE
12
DevSecOps Pipeline with Security Scanning
Build secure CI/CD pipeline with automated security checks: SAST (SonarQube), DAST, container scanning (Trivy), secrets detection, compliance as code (OPA).
Cloud Technology infrastructure leadership positions you for director roles earning $150-240K+. You'll lead infrastructure strategy.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - LEADERSHIP Phase (Strategy & Management)**: You're transitioning from technical execution to strategic influence. This Cloud Technology expertise helps you shape organizational direction, build high-performing teams, and drive transformation at scale. Focus on multiplying your impact through people and processes. Your goal: move from "doing the work" to "enabling others to do the work excellently." This is executive-track preparation.
AWS infrastructure leadership positions you for director roles earning $150-240K+. You'll lead infrastructure strategy.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - LEADERSHIP Phase (Strategy & Management)**: You're transitioning from technical execution to strategic influence. This AWS expertise helps you shape organizational direction, build high-performing teams, and drive transformation at scale. Focus on multiplying your impact through people and processes. Your goal: move from "doing the work" to "enabling others to do the work excellently." This is executive-track preparation.
Cloud Technology infrastructure leadership positions you for director roles earning $150-240K+. You'll lead infrastructure strategy.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - LEADERSHIP Phase (Strategy & Management)**: You're transitioning from technical execution to strategic influence. This Cloud Technology expertise helps you shape organizational direction, build high-performing teams, and drive transformation at scale. Focus on multiplying your impact through people and processes. Your goal: move from "doing the work" to "enabling others to do the work excellently." This is executive-track preparation.
Pluralsight
Via Pluralsight
Cisco Enterprise Networks: Network Architecture and SDN
By Sean Douglas
Exam objectives: ENCOR 350-401 — Network Architecture and SDN
Cloud Technology infrastructure leadership positions you for director roles earning $150-240K+. You'll lead infrastructure strategy.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - LEADERSHIP Phase (Strategy & Management)**: You're transitioning from technical execution to strategic influence. This Cloud Technology expertise helps you shape organizational direction, build high-performing teams, and drive transformation at scale. Focus on multiplying your impact through people and processes. Your goal: move from "doing the work" to "enabling others to do the work excellently." This is executive-track preparation.
Cloud Technology infrastructure leadership positions you for director roles earning $150-240K+. You'll lead infrastructure strategy.
Your Learning Path
**ITRISE Framework - LEADERSHIP Phase (Strategy & Management)**: You're transitioning from technical execution to strategic influence. This Cloud Technology expertise helps you shape organizational direction, build high-performing teams, and drive transformation at scale. Focus on multiplying your impact through people and processes. Your goal: move from "doing the work" to "enabling others to do the work excellently." This is executive-track preparation.
Leadership Initiatives
13
Enterprise DevOps Transformation
Lead company-wide DevOps adoption. Define strategy, implement CI/CD across all teams, establish platform engineering, measure DORA metrics, reduce deployment time by 80%.
14
Build and Scale DevOps Team (5→30+ engineers)
Hire, mentor, and grow DevOps team. Establish career paths, technical standards, on-call rotations, and blameless postmortem culture. Create internal DevOps academy.
Master CCNA and network fundamentals, earn advanced Cisco certifications, build lab experience, and build toward a $150K+ career in network engineering.
