Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert

AZ-400 · ● Active · Expert · Microsoft

Exam facts

Vendor source — Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert ↗

Official exam guide — Study guide for Exam AZ-400 ↗

Exam objectives — Exam AZ-400 details ↗

About

The Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400) is a professional-level certification for engineers who design and implement DevOps practices, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, infrastructure automation, and instrumentation strategies on the Microsoft Azure platform. It is the highest-level certification in the Azure DevOps track, building on foundational Azure administration or development skills. The exam was significantly updated on April 24, 2026, to reflect evolving DevOps practices including Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) strategies and modern instrumentation.

Domain context — DevOps/Automation

DevOps fuses development and operations practices to automate software delivery, reduce lead time, improve reliability, and enable continuous feedback. On Azure, DevOps engineers implement version control strategies, build and release pipelines, automated testing, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring, and incident response. This certification validates expertise across the full CI/CD spectrum—source control, artifact management, deployment automation, observability, and security gates.

Read full deep dive — Microsoft Azure + M365 →

Topics covered

1. Define and implement continuous integration (20–25%)

   • Design and implement Azure Pipelines
   • Manage build agents and build infrastructure
   • Manage code repositories and version control
   • Configure build triggers and pipeline parameters

2. Define and implement a continuous delivery and release management strategy (10–15%)

   • Design deployment strategies
   • Implement automated releases and approvals
   • Create and manage release pipelines
   • Manage deployment environments

3. Manage source control (10–15%)

   • Design source control strategies
   • Implement branching and merge strategies
   • Configure Git repositories
   • Integrate source control with CI/CD pipelines

4. Facilitate communication and collaboration (10–15%)

   • Configure Azure Boards for work tracking
   • Integrate monitoring and feedback loops
   • Promote knowledge sharing and transparency
   • Design communication workflows

5. Develop a security and compliance plan (10–15%)

   • Implement dependency scanning
   • Configure security gates in pipelines
   • Manage secrets and credentials
   • Ensure compliance and audit logging

6. Develop a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) strategy (5–10%)

   • Design reliability targets and SLOs
   • Implement chaos engineering principles
   • Plan incident response and recovery
   • Define on-call and escalation procedures

7. Develop an instrumentation strategy (5–10%)

   • Design monitoring and alerting
   • Configure Application Insights
   • Implement distributed tracing
   • Collect and analyze telemetry

Source: Official exam study guide ↗

Common skills at DevOps · Expert

• Designing and implementing complex CI/CD pipelines at enterprise scale
• Automating infrastructure provisioning and configuration management across cloud environments
• Implementing advanced monitoring, alerting, and observability solutions
• Designing and executing containerized and microservices deployment strategies
• Architecting security and compliance into the DevOps workflow (shift-left security)
• Leading cross-functional teams through digital transformation and cultural change
• Implementing infrastructure-as-code (IaC) frameworks (Terraform, ARM, Bicep)
• Designing chaos engineering and resilience testing strategies
• Automating testing, security scanning, and code quality gates
• Implementing secrets management and secure credential handling

Recommended courses at DevOps · Expert

Course-selection rule: Each course listed is specifically mapped to AZ-400 topics. John Savill's YouTube content, while independent, is widely trusted by the Azure community and covers all exam domains in detail at no cost.

Practice exams

Books

Book rule: The Microsoft Press Exam Ref (2023) remains current for AZ-400 domain coverage, though the April 2026 exam update introduced SRE strategy as a new topic domain; the book may have limited coverage of this new area. Verify book edition against exam objectives before purchase.

Typical job titles at DevOps · Expert

Azure DevOps Engineer · Senior DevOps Engineer (Azure) · Platform Engineer (Azure-focused) · Azure Automation Engineer · Cloud Infrastructure Engineer (Azure) · DevOps Architect · Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) · Release Manager (Azure)

(Job titles drawn from current Azure job postings that list AZ-400 or equivalent as required or preferred.)

Salary

Salary rule: Ranges reflect roles explicitly requiring or preferring Azure DevOps / AZ-400 certification as of 2026. Senior and architect-track roles exceed these ranges significantly (often $200k+). South African data drawn from PayScale ZA and Glassdoor ZA; GBP data includes London premium rates (£65k–£140k in major cities, lower in regional markets).

Skills validated

• Azure Pipelines (YAML and classic editors)
• Git and TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control) branching strategies
• Continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD)
• Release management and deployment strategies
• Infrastructure-as-code (ARM templates, Bicep, Terraform)
• Azure Container Registry and Docker
• Kubernetes (AKS) deployment and management
• Application Insights and Azure Monitor
• Azure DevOps (Boards, Repos, Pipelines, Test Plans, Artifacts)
• Security and compliance (dependency scanning, SAST, DAST)
• Azure Key Vault for secrets management
• Service Fabric and App Service deployment
• Database migration and schema management tools
• Azure Security Center and compliance policies
• SRE principles (SLOs, incident response, chaos engineering)

Related certifications

• Prerequisite for: Must complete AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate) or AZ-204 (Azure Developer Associate) before attempting AZ-400
• Stacks with: AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect Expert) ↗ — both target Azure infrastructure and platform expertise
• Peer level (adjacent domain): AWS DevOps Engineer - Professional ↗ — equivalent role on AWS
• Replaces: AZ-400 does not replace a previous version; it is a continuous certification launched in 2019
• Vendor overview: Microsoft Vendor Overview ↗

Sources

• Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert
• Exam AZ-400: Designing and Implementing Microsoft DevOps Solutions
• Study Guide for Exam AZ-400
• Glassdoor: Azure DevOps Engineer Salary
• ZipRecruiter: Azure DevOps Engineer Salary
• PayScale: DevOps Engineer with Microsoft Azure
• IT Jobs Watch: Azure DevOps Engineer (UK)
• PayScale UK: Development Operations Engineer
• PayScale ZA: Development Operations Engineer
• MeasureUp: AZ-400 Practice Test
• Whizlabs: AZ-400 Practice Exam
• Pluralsight: AZ-400 Learning Path
• LinkedIn Learning: AZ-400 Cert Prep
• Exam Ref AZ-400 (Microsoft Press)

Last verified: 2026-05-01

Parent ecosystem: Microsoft Azure + M365 Ecosystem

Parent domain: DevOps/Automation Domain

Vendor overview: Microsoft Vendor Overview