My First AWS Community Day Dubai & that too as a Speaker :)

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My First AWS Community Day Dubai (And That Too as a Speaker!)

Speaking at an AWS event was always on my "someday" list.
But "someday" arrived a lot sooner than I expected.

This past Sunday, I attended AWS Community Day UAE 2025 in Dubai.
And I didn't just attend.
I gave my first-ever talk.

The Announcement: Is This Real?

When the speaker list dropped, seeing my name next to industry veterans felt surreal.

Session: The Winning Stack: Lessons from a DevOps Hackathon Winner
Who: Me (DevOps Engineer at SUDO Consultants)

Representing my team and sharing my own messy, real-world journey in front of the AWS community? Humbling. Terrifying. But mostly, exciting.

The Talk: No Fluff, Just Real DevOps

I didn't want to give a lecture on textbook theory. We have documentation for that.
I wanted to talk about what actually happens when things are on fire.

I focused on:

How winning a DevOps Hackathon changed my perspective.
Why time pressure forces you to build better architectures.
How to build a secure CI/CD pipeline that actually works in production.
The massive gap between "Best Practices" and "Real Reality."

My goal was simple:
Share what actually works.

A Sunday Well Spent

The event was on a Sunday, and the turnout was incredible.
The best part wasn't even the sessions—it was what happened in the hallways.

I saw students asking about cloud careers for the first time.
I saw senior engineers swapping war stories about production outages.
I saw a community that actually wants to help each other.

One attendee told me later that hearing my story—going from a student to a DevOps pro—helped them understand what skills actually matter.
That feedback alone? Worth all the prep time.

Check out this post from the event

Why You Should Go

Events like this aren't just about the tech.
They are about the reality check.

You get honest career stories you won't find in a whitepaper.
You get networking that feels human, not transactional.
For anyone starting in Cloud or DevOps, this is how you accelerate.

Big Thanks

I have to give a shoutout to the people who made this happen:

SUDO Consultants for trusting me and pushing me forward.
The AWS User Group UAE volunteers—you guys run a world-class show.
The audience for the questions and the energy.

Being part of a group that values sharing over competition is rare. I don't take it for granted.

To Students & First-Timers

If you're a student or a junior engineer wondering if you should go to these events... or if you're "ready" to speak at one:

Don't wait until you feel ready.

You will never feel 100% ready.
These events don't reward perfection. They reward showing up.
Every expert on that stage started exactly where you are right now.