How do I plan to obtain Microsoft Azure certifications?

Portuguese version: https://dev.to/bepizu/como-eu-pretendo-conseguir-as-certificacoes-da-microsoft-azure-2ec8

At the end of 2023, I secured a position in DevOps, something I had been striving for over the past three or four years. The challenge of working as a DevOps at ADTsys Data Cloud, providing services to Ambev, is enormous:

• Working with a cloud I've never worked with before, Microsoft Azure.
• Dealing with a highly robust infrastructure, presenting various opportunities and challenges.
• Constantly working with FinOps.

Starting the year with my first full-time DevOps job couldn't be better! I was so excited about this opportunity that I decided to create a plan for the first semester of 2024 to become the best version of myself as a DevOps professional. In summary, the plan involves making improvements in key areas that I consider important for my future career, such as:

• Incorporating English into my daily work routine (this post is one of the tasks to achieve that 😊).
• Technical deepening and experience in a new cloud (in this case, I chose Azure).
• Understanding how Ambev operates with Public Cloud to become independent sooner and contribute to infrastructure improvements and support.
• Deep diving into Networking, something I've wanted to explore for a long time, with a focus on Azure since I'm studying it.

As the first major step in this plan, I obtained my AZ-900: Azure Fundamentals certification. This step was crucial for me, not only for achieving one of my planning goals but also because it marked my first technical certification in my entire career. In this post, I will discuss my motivation for certifying with Microsoft Azure and how I prepared (both technically and emotionally) for this first certification.

First step: Where do I want to go?

First and foremost, you need to understand where you want to go in terms of practical knowledge. Define what to study, how to deliver what you've studied, and set a future date to reflect on what you've achieved. In my case, I set broad goals, aiming to become a professional capable of architecting and developing an effective (easy to understand and extend) and efficient (lower costs with greater deliverables) infrastructure within the next 6 months. These goals can be broken down into smaller parts, with more time allocated to each—this varies based on individual planning. The key is to have clear objectives (how you will do it and how you will evaluate these objectives) and defined deadlines (when you will deliver and assess the results).

To achieve my goals, I sought a good platform to take the necessary courses for certifications and understand the theoretical and practical paths to follow. I used the Pluralsight training platform, specifically Cloud Guru, recommended by a former colleague (thanks, Ingson!! ❤️). While I'm not trying to convince anyone to use it (as I'm not sponsored), I'd like to mention that my experience with it has been excellent so far. I found a set of courses, the famous roadmaps, that would help me become a complete Azure DevOps professional. Based on this roadmap, I set a goal to obtain 5 certifications this semester (yes, on hard mode): AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals, AZ-104 Azure Administrator, AZ-204 Azure Developer Associate, AZ-400 DevOps Engineer Expert, and AZ-305 Azure Solutions Architect Expert. Once you understand where you want to go and figure out how to do it, it's time to plan the practical aspects.

Second step: How do I get there?

Our time is limited, and without a plan, we become entirely subject to chance. With the first step taken, we already have an idea of the content we need to consume and deliver. Now we need to create a schedule, correlating these tasks with our daily lives, understanding the complexity of each task. This action will bring out some important aspects: a sense of urgency, responsibility, and habit changes.

• With a sense of urgency, we understand how necessary it is to study what we've defined. Depending on what needs to be delivered during work or practice days, some tasks may be added or removed from the plan. For example, I struggled to understand networking, and the chosen roadmap didn't provide the depth I needed to overcome this challenge. In this case, I added another course focused on Microsoft Azure, AZ-500 Secure Networking, to ensure that by the end of the semester, this won't be a significant obstacle. Currently, it's not something I want to certify in, but it's urgent to address for the success of my plan.
• With a sense of responsibility, we understand what is important at a given time: when to study, when to deliver, when to work on something outside the scope of our studies, and so on. For those creating a plan to meet work requirements, it's essential to know that, regardless of our knowledge or experience gaps, we are paid to deliver what was requested. Proactively not letting things slip is crucial in these situations. As I recently started at the company, I need to create accesses and permissions to use Ambev's resources. This gave me time to study the infrastructure along with my first course and deliver tasks with my current knowledge. Along with urgency, comes the responsibility to, if necessary, adjust and execute the plan while keeping an eye on whether you're being responsible with your deliveries.
• With habit changes, we can alter results and achieve things that our old habits couldn't. I believe that new habits are crucial factors that enable us to reach new heights. The bigger and crazier the goal, the more significant and radical the change in one or more habits. Understanding which habits hinder you today and identifying those that are necessary but absent is essential to executing the plan. In my case, I needed to change my sleep routine (going to bed and waking up earlier to gain more time and energy), add study hours, and practice and write content about my learning for better retention.

Certainly, we are not masters of time, and unforeseen events happen, but the more prepared we are, the smaller the impact of these occasions. I believe that, with the three items mentioned above in mind, achieving your goals amidst adversity will not be impossible.

Third and final step: conclude, evaluate, and evolve

This step can be treated as part of the process and as the conclusion of your plan. It becomes part of the process because after completing a small task, you evaluate how it was done, its results, and identify improvements for the next action. However, it becomes the conclusion of your plan when, from a macro perspective, you achieve your major goals. You evaluate the entire execution process, including results, and take stock of what went well and what needed modification. At this stage, self-awareness and honesty with yourself will be important to apply it effectively, without being affected by imposter syndrome or falling victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The conclusion of the plan is not always positive in terms of results. We can plan many things and achieve 80%, 60%, 40%, or even 20% of it. The important thing at this moment is to have a clear head to understand when you made mistakes and how to avoid them in the next plan. Yes, the next one, because we need to keep evolving as individuals and professionals. These analyses, regardless of the percentage of correctness, reveal how much we need to improve (question your self-criticism if you don't find improvements in yourself 🙂). The results of this third and final step will depend on your ability to self-evaluate and understand what went wrong during the process. Oh, and celebrate your victories, even if they are still small.

In my case, I took the AZ-900 exam and passed, marking my first achievement this semester. However, I scored 790 out of 1000 points, with 700 points required for passing. I studied a lot, especially considering that it's an easy exam, but achieving a perfect score wasn't possible. Regardless of the slightly bitter feeling for not achieving 100% correctness, it cannot prevent me from seeing that the goal was achieved and that there are things I can improve. We move forward learning, adapting, and accomplishing 👍.

That's it!

I sincerely hope that this content can help people who have not yet found a way to organize themselves to achieve their goals. If you think differently or want to contribute more perspectives, comments are welcome, and I will read them all. If you want to follow my crazy journey this semester, you can follow it here. Until next time!