What does it really cost to become a DevOps engineer? Getting started in DevOps without spending a dime

Let's be real, when most people Google "how to become a DevOps engineer," they land on listicles selling $500 Udemy courses, $300/year certification prep, and cloud subscriptions that bill you before you've written your first pipeline. Here's the truth: you don't need to spend anything to get started. Zero. What is DevOps, really? DevOps is a culture, a set of practices, and a toolchain that bridges software development and IT operations. It's about shipping faster, breaking less, and recovering quickly when things go wrong. Learnable for free. OS and virtualization Ubuntu / Debian The go-to Linux distro for learning. Free, well-documented, massive community. VirtualBox Run Linux VMs on any machine. Free and cross-platform. WSL2 Run a full Linux environment inside Windows. No VM overhead needed. Multipass Instantly spin up Ubuntu VMs on Mac, Windows, or Linux. Free CLI tool. Version control and collaboration Git The foundation. Learn it before anything else. Free and open source. GitHu