Undergraduate Thesis Subject

[u/Bloodman104]

Hello everyone,
I'm starting my 4th year in Computer Science and I'm looking for a DevOps/Cloud related thesis subject. I want to do this thesis in collaboration with the company I'm working at, but they told me to find some possible ideas before we decide to move forward with this.
I'm pretty new to DevOps and Cloud, I filled an intern position at the start of July, so I would like to avoid the very complex subjects.
Thank you.

[u/ArieHein]

What technologies are they using for working with code, cicd, qa, cloud, software languages used and such. Within the allowed detail level.

What do you exepct to get out of the thesis, do you aim to be recruited by thst same company?

[u/Bloodman104 → u/ArieHein]

Here's a list:

• Cloud: Microsoft Azure
• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions
• Containers: Docker
• OS: Linux
• Programming/Scripting: Python, Bash, PowerShell

I've also been doing a bit of Azure monitoring, Azure Data Explorer and querying, basics of networking and security in cloud. The project I'll be working on in the following year is fleet data related.
I don't have a certain aim after the thesis, I just want to collaborate with the company to work with processes that we use here, get more familiar, kill two birds with one stone.

[u/Silent_Ice616]

Based on the stack, it looks like the company has a decent amount of software development going on, besides configuration management/scripting automation?

I often find it a bit difficult to suggest ideas without knowing the size, field, and deeper infrastructure of the company. Since you mentioned Linux as the OS and I don't see Ansible in there, that might be something worth looking into (Ansible is used for orchestrating and automating system configuration). And since you mentioned Docker, Kubernetes could also make sense as a direction.

That said, with just the tech stack to go on, it's genuinely hard to assess which direction and exact topic would make the most sense for the thesis.

[u/Bloodman104 → u/Silent_Ice616]

I'm working at Bosch, rather big company I guess, haha. We also use K8s, haven't heard of Ansible internally yet. I'm being careful to not disclose sensitive information, the lines aren't very clear to me since it's the first time discussing something like this. The company being this big is another factor for me being at a loss on how to approach anything.

[u/Silent_Ice616 → u/Bloodman104]

Right, haha - definitely a big company.

Yeah, please don't misunderstand: you shouldn't disclose sensitive information. What I wanted to say is that it's difficult to give someone an individual idea without deeper knowledge.

By the way, it's interesting that you don't get a thesis topic - companies this big often have clear projects and theses they're searching for.

Discussing this (maybe going in the direction of Ansible or DevSecOps with tools like Sonar, Snyk, etc., if you're interested in this) with a colleague in this area, simply by brainstorming, is most of the time the easiest way, because they usually also know what they would need most / what they are missing because lack of time.

[u/Low-Opening25]

I have an interesting one. Design framework for Continuous Delivery of cryptographically attested artefacts with automated progressive rollouts. The limitation is that Prod controls require no human access and no access from non-prod is possible to drive this, you need to cryptographically promote and attest artefacts from non-prod to be automatically admitted for rollout by automation on Prod side.

[u/stack_craft]

My suggestion, stick to topics that save the company money or time: managers will easily jump at them, and they aren't overly complex for a 4th-year intern:

• FinOps / Auto-Parking: Build a lightweight pipeline/cron trigger to automatically spin down non-prod environments outside business hours and clean up orphaned disks. Measure the direct monthly $ savings for your thesis.
• CI/CD Security Gate (DevSecOps): Integrate Trivy and Gitleaks into GitHub Actions/GitLab CI. Benchmark how much build time it adds vs. how many vulnerabilities/secrets it catches early.
• Devcontainers / Local Environment Standardization: Replace complex local setup steps with standardized Devcontainers. Compare dev onboarding times before and after.

Focus on measuring a concrete metric (cost saved, build speed, security defects caught) and the thesis basically writes itself.

[u/ausecko]

I’d keep it practical and pick something you can actually prototype and evaluate during your internship. CI/CD optimization, infrastructure monitoring, deployment reliability, or cloud cost analysis could all make solid thesis topics without getting too complex.