Getting started in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) or DevOps can feel isolating, especially if you’re coming in without a network. Early in my own SRE career, I learned that no matter how strong your technical skills are, having access to a peer-driven community is critical for long-term growth and success.
Here are the best communities I recommend joining to stay supported, informed, and never feel like you’re figuring things out alone.
Reddit Communities
r/sre
A focused community where engineers share best practices, production issues, incident management strategies, and cultural topics related to the SRE role. Great for peer-to-peer insight and experience-driven advice.
r/devops
A high-volume subreddit that covers automation, pipelines, infrastructure as code, career questions, and DevOps culture. Ideal for practical tool comparisons and CI/CD discussions.
r/terraform, r/aws, r/kubernetes
These technology-specific communities are helpful for deep technical issues. If you’re working on Terraform modules, cloud permissions, or Kubernetes clusters, these forums provide technical answers and examples.
Facebook Groups
DevOps and SRE
A large, general-purpose group that shares a wide range of resources including articles, tooling recommendations, and discussion threads about real-world DevOps and SRE problems.
DevOps | DevSecOps | SRE
Focused on the intersection of development, security, and operations. A good space for professionals interested in secure pipelines, compliance automation, and infrastructure governance.
Site Reliability Engineering
A group tailored to SREs at all levels. The content is more technical in nature, covering topics like monitoring stacks, alerting strategies, service ownership, and SLIs/SLOs.
DevOps, SRE & Platform Engineering Jobs
While job-focused, this group also includes discussions about team structure, platform maturity models, and what hiring teams are looking for in real-world SRE candidates.
Why These Communities Matter
Immediate Support
When you hit a roadblock—whether it’s around Terraform state handling, incident response planning, or AWS IAM policies—these communities offer near real-time peer guidance.
Experience Sharing
You’ll often find discussions that are less about theory and more about how things break in the real world, how people fix them, and what lessons are learned. These conversations often fill in the gaps that documentation leaves behind.
Career Insight
Many engineers share their transitions, promotions, burnout stories, and learning paths. These insights can be especially valuable if you’re navigating your first role or trying to level up strategically.
Advice for Participation
- Be specific when asking questions. Context improves response quality.
- Follow up and share what worked when someone helps you.
- Document what you learn. It builds your credibility and helps others.
- Don’t be afraid to engage early. Everyone starts somewhere.
Final Thoughts
Succeeding in DevOps or SRE is not just about knowing YAML, Git, or cloud platforms. It’s about thinking systemically, failing safely, and staying connected. These communities make that possible. They help transform isolated engineers into confident, well-informed professionals who can troubleshoot, collaborate, and lead with clarity.