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Terraform
Frequently Asked Questions

How do you become a terraform developer?

The best way to become a Terraform developer is to follow a "Learn-Practice-Apply" approach:

  • Learn: Read about Terraform, study for the Terraform certification exam, and use resources such as a practice test to measure your progress towards certification readiness.
  • Practice: Use Terraform on your own to practice creating various resources.
  • Apply: Seek out professional opportunities where you can use Terraform to automate infrastructure tasks. Build your experience over time as you use Terraform in various situations.

Does Terraform require coding?

Yes, but not in the traditional sense that most people think of when they say "coding".
Terraform uses a language that is based on HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) which is a declarative programming language. Instead of defining a program that executes a series of steps sequentially, Terraform accepts a configuration, examines all of the related dependencies, compares the desired state to the previous state, and then performs the actions necessary to implement the desired state.

Is Terraform in demand?

Yes. As of September 12, 2022, on LinkedIn, there were 39,985 job postings in the United States that mention "Terraform".

What is a Terraform engineer?

There may not be many job titles of "Terraform Engineer", but Terraform expertise is often a key job requirement for engineers working in Dev Ops, System Administration, Platform Engineer, or Software Development roles.

What is Terraform used for?

Terraform is an IaC, or Infrastructure as Code, tool that is used to create and maintain IT infrastructure. It is typically used for cloud infrastructure, but can be used on-prem as well.
With Terraform, you define a configuration describing all of the resources that you want your infrastructure to have and Terraform will perform the actions necessary to create those resources.
When changes are made to previously applied Terraform configuration, Terraform is able to detect which changes need to be made and perform the actions to change the infrastructure to match the new configuration.

Is Terraform a CI/CD tool?

Terraform can, and often is, used in CI/CD, but it use is not confined to CI/CD. You can use Terraform in an automated CI/CD pipeline or as a standalone tool that you execute interactively.

Which language is used in Terraform?

Terraform uses a language that is based on HCL (HashiCorp Configuration Language) which is a declarative programming language.

What type of language is Terraform?

Terraform is a declarative programming language.