Microsoft · Professional Certification · Expert
Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400)
Crydd Score 52
Demand High
Career Value High
Recognition High
AZ-400 at a glance
- Provider
- Microsoft
- Credential type
- Professional Certification
- Exam required
- Yes
- Category
- DevOps & Platform
- Level
- Expert
- Cost
- About $165
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to earn
- 4–6 months
- Validity
- 1 year (free annual renewal)
- Format
- 40–60 questions, 150 minutes
- Prerequisites
- Requires AZ-104 or AZ-204 first
What is AZ-400?
Microsoft's expert-tier DevOps credential, covering delivery pipelines across Azure DevOps and GitHub. It requires an associate certification first, so it genuinely sits on top of a foundation.
Skills it covers
- CI/CD pipelines
- Infrastructure as code
- Azure DevOps
- GitHub Actions
- Release management
Is AZ-400 worth it? The Crydd Verdict
CS 52Choose it if
You run delivery pipelines in a Microsoft shop and already hold AZ-104 or AZ-204.
Consider alternatives if
Your stack is AWS-centric — the AWS DevOps Professional maps more directly to your day.
Why we say so
High demand, a mandatory prerequisite that keeps the credential honest, and an unusually low renewal burden for an expert-tier badge.
Market demand
DevOps roles are among the hardest to fill in software, and the Azure DevOps and GitHub toolchain covers a very large share of enterprise delivery pipelines.
Where AZ-400 takes you
- DevOps Engineer
- Site Reliability Engineer
- Cloud Engineer
Career roadmaps show where this certification fits in each path. See the roadmaps.
Related certifications
Curated connections from the catalog — each labelled with how it relates to AZ-400, so you know why it’s here.
