Career Roadmap

MLOps Engineer Roadmap 2026

Deploy, monitor, and scale ML models in production.

Phase 1: Foundations

Python, Linux, Git, basic ML

Phase 2: DevOps & Infrastructure

Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, CI/CD

Phase 3: ML Engineering

Model training, evaluation, experiment tracking

Phase 4: MLOps Core

CI/CD for ML, model versioning, monitoring, pipelines

Phase 5: Production LLM Infrastructure

Inference serving, quantization, scaling

MLOps Tools Stack (2026)

CategoryTools
Experiment TrackingMLflow, W&B, Neptune
Data VersioningDVC, LakeFS
Model RegistryMLflow, SageMaker, Vertex AI
OrchestrationAirflow, Prefect, Dagster
ServingvLLM, TensorRT, Triton, BentoML
MonitoringPrometheus, Grafana, Evidently AI
InfrastructureDocker, K8s, Terraform, ArgoCD

FAQ

What is MLOps?

MLOps combines ML engineering, DevOps, and data engineering to deploy, monitor, and maintain ML models in production reliably.

What salary can an MLOps engineer expect?

US: Entry $100-140K, Mid $150-200K, Senior $220-320K. High demand because most companies struggle to productionize models.

Is MLOps different from DevOps?

Yes. MLOps extends DevOps with data versioning, experiment tracking, model registries, drift detection, and retraining pipelines.