Learning Terraform as a Backend Team: How We Took Over DevOps
When I joined Ackee’s backend team, we worked closely with an in-house DevOps team. Back then, there were five DevOps engineers. Now? Zero.
What happened when the DevOps team went undefined? Did the AI take over? Not really! It was a gradual shift. As cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and our favorite GCP introduced more fully managed, developer-friendly services, it made sense for backend developers to take charge of infrastructure.
We saw an opportunity to gather new skills. And that’s how the School of Terraform was born. In this post, I’ll share how we turned this challenge into a structured, engaging, and effective crowd-learning experience.
School of Terraform
With the DevOps team gone, we had to step up and learn Terraform — a powerful Infrastructure as a Code (IaaS) tool that lets us define and manage cloud resources through the code. Rather than just reading documentation alone, we decided to learn together.
We embedded crowd-learning sessions into our weekly backend meetings, which are hour-long sessions during which we typically share knowledge within the team. We dedicated part of these meetings to the School of Terraform, a four-month series.
Each session lasted around 30 minutes and followed this format:
- Theory — A short presentation on key Terraform concepts like variables, modules, expressions, validations, built-in functions, and testing.
- Hands-on task — A practical assignment for the following week, where we worked with storage buckets, managed secrets, IAM, database resources, and more.
To keep things structured, everyone had their own Git repository where they submitted tasks and solutions.
Why It Was a Success
We applied key principles from previous backend crowd-learning sessions at Ackee (advanced TypeScript features, and Rust), ensuring the schedule was structured, engaging, and effective.
Built-in time and commitment
Instead of adding extra work outside office hours, we integrated learning directly into our weekly backend meetings. This way, every attendee could participate without disrupting their regular workload.
Engagement Through Ownership and Gamification
- Rotating speakers — Each session had a different presenter, keeping it fresh and making people responsible for the agenda.
- Hands-on tasks — Learning theory is not enough. Every session ended with an assignment where developers could apply what they learned.
- Points and competition — Participants earned points for completing tasks. Even without a prize, the friendly competition kept motivation high.
Real-world Problems and Immediate Impact
After covering fundamentals, we analyzed our company’s internal Terraform modules, which were originally built by DevOps and are still used in ongoing projects.
Most importantly, we applied what we learned directly to real projects. Knowledge gained was not just theoretical and became immediately practical.
From DevOps to Backend
These days, Terraform is a part of our backend workflow. We are responsible for managing infrastructure not just for our projects but also for other teams in Ackee that need support.
Even though the School of Terraform series has ended, Terraform remains a regular topic in our backend meetings.
Seeing our lovely DevOps team leave wasn’t easy, but we turned it into an opportunity — to learn new skills, collaborate, and take ownership of infrastructure at Ackee.
