These are the top salaries I’ve seen if you’re committed to living somewhere inexpensive like I am.
This assumes 3 years+ of experience. DevOps is harder experience to get sometimes so just study cloud architecture and engineering which is similar. That whole field lends itself to self-study.
There are lots of non-remote jobs that pay higher than my current salary, but I don't see that many remote jobs in the $180k to $200k range.
Currently a sys admin in a standard large microsoft server environment with VMware, DHCP, dns and AD as my typical daily tools.
Change jobs to a role that will get you the experience you want. This may seem paradoxical, but no training is like on-the-job training. If you search around for a while you'll find somebody who you can convince that you're capable of doing the job.
I didn't have the background, experience, or credentials that mean most large places won't even look at your resume, but I found a startup that needed the strange role-straddling niche I was interested in and it's amazing. I like almost every part of my job, and the org is still small enough that I can see my work have a significant impact (good and bad).
Really I’m a “major cloud provider sysadmin” who learned a few DevOps things over a couple of months (Docker, Kubernetes, a good amount of PHP) to take jobs that offered big salaries...
Cloud Architect / Engineer roles usually will pay at least 20k less than whatever has DevOps in the title.
(Somewhat kidding)
That "DevOps" is supposed to be so easy that an ordinary full-stack developer can pick it up and there is no need for expensive senior system administrators and especially DBAs (="the cloud will handle it for us").
True: when one relies on cloud-provided databases (Amazon RDS), the need for a DBA goes down a bit, especially with a decent support contract from the cloud provider.
But the other part, like how to configure a machine for maximum throughput, how to properly implement failover networking, how to do OS upgrades (and especially with Docker containers, how to keep the stuff in the images updated!) and most importantly how to write a Docker image that does not "just work" but is performant, upgradeable and doesn't place stuff around everywhere totally ignoring LSB... this needs Linux administration experience.
tl;dr: companies label it "devops" to save money for Linux/DB Admins, but this gamble can really fuck up when you suddenly do need the skillset of a real admin.
There is DevOps the practice and philosophy(think agile) in which people with software engineering and systems administration experience work on "the same team" to deliver and operate product and/or services. They form a matrix team with complimentary and overlapping skills.
Then there is DevOps the team. These are typically also staffed with people who have experience in both developing and operating systems. Typically they will not work so directly with the product developers though, and they will be more focused on developer tooling, system automation, and operations.
Finally there is the role DevOps. Most places envision this as a person with both systems and software development experience to work in any of the aforementioned teams. For many they were called "systems engineers" previously and simply go with the title flow. Often they are full-full-stack developers; they also work at the systems/operations level.
Some places have DevOps assembly lines though, and they are staffed and run like a technical support call center.. Or a ticket mill.. You get the idea.