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Stefan Moore
Stefan Moore

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Journey into a cloud career

The journey into the cloud began with me obtaining my AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
and Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certifications. At that point I thought I was ready to begin my cloud transition journey. Little did I know the mistake I was making. I was applying for the wrong role and lacked the required experience.

A Solution Architect (SA) is a senior level position that requires years of experience. I had no actual understanding of how multiple applications and services interact with each other. No clue of the knowledge into gathering business requirements to recommend the right solution and work through the trade-offs of the choice between one service over another.

Feeling unmotivated and on the cusp of giving up, I went down the YouTube rabbit hole and lost my way in a sea of pointless videos. I kept coming across cloud content creators. I would watch their lips move and didn’t care to hear what they had to say as I was no longer interested in what they had to say. Then one day, I took a chance and decided to stop using them as a filler for whatever I was doing. As I began to finally listen to them, I found out what mistakes I was making in looking for a cloud role and no knowledge or understanding of Linux, Bash scripting, Python, AWS CLI, CI/CD, and other technologies that seamlessly integrate into the AWS ecosystem.

I continued to listen to them with pen in hand or the use of a text editor and I began creating my roadmap towards my cloud career. I’ve started and stopped several times as I had to continuously revise my plan for various reasons. For whatever those reasons are I can say that I’m learning project management.

Nonetheless, I still have a roadmap that will guide me towards a career working in the cloud. I know I will go through some things along the way. The outcome of this journey is to have that offer letter in my hand.

Top comments (2)

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michaeltharrington profile image
Michael Tharrington

Just to say you got this Stefan!

I think the breadth of things there is to learn out there in the beginning can be a bit intimidating. However, breaking it down into sections and creating yourself a roadmap like you're talking about sounds like a wise move. I would think that should make it a bit more manageable!

If you're looking for feedback on your roadmap, please do share it here on DEV, I'd be happy to try and help tag some others in here to give ya some pointers on it. Feel free to hit me back here if ya decide to do that!

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stefanmoore profile image
Stefan Moore

Michael, thanks for the feedback. My road map is on my Github page under Projects. I have some revisions to make on it. FYI...I do have a few more posts to put up. So much of what you said about being overwhelmed will be addressed in a posting soon. Let me know if you need the link to my Github. Im happy to share and take advice.