DEV Community: Mina

The perfect blend: Coffee and Cyber

Mina — Tue, 15 Oct 2024 18:55:37 +0000

Ever have so much caffeine you can practically feel your eyeballs vibrating? I have - probably too many times - most recently when I was spending every extra minute of free time I had on studying for the AWS (Amazon Web Services) SysOps exam. Spending weeks cramming videos, practice exams, labs and hundreds of cups of coffee had become something of a habit by now but hey, if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it right? This study system has worked for both the Cloud Practitioner and Security+ exams - speaking of - let's talk about what happened after that fateful day of taking the Security+ exam (if you have no idea what I'm talking about then check out my other blog posts here).

After peeling myself off the floor that day (and having a mini dance party for passing) it was time to set my next goal. I had two certifications done, multiple projects that I could use to demonstrate my knowledge, and knew I needed a break from studying. It was time to start networking and interacting with the tech community!

So next on the list was doing a presentation for a community about something involving tech, no idea WHAT about but hey, we'll figure all that out along the way! My mentor Simon connected me with Kathie (another amazing human) who runs the CLE AWS Meetup Group and she immediately got me hyped! This wasn’t only a huge deal for me because it would be my first ever community talk but also because I was going to be the first female presenter they've ever had (other than her of course), so I knew I had to smash it.

We discussed what her group normally talks about and the time I would have, the only rules I had were:

It had to be AWS-related (you could probably guess that from the group name)
I had a time slot of 45 minutes

When I heard I would need to speak about something for FORTY FIVE MINUTES I thought there was no way I could ever fill up that much time, 45 minutes is practically 7 years in Mina time. But just like everything else I thought I could never ever, EVER do in this journey I knew I had to just give it my best shot. I took a moment to breathe and tell myself I didn’t need to be overwhelmed, I would work on it one piece at a time and really - what’s the worst that could happen? So my first step was figuring out WHAT I was going to talk about, let me tell you AWS has about a million and two services so it was super overwhelming at first. After scrolling for a while and learning about some of the most niche services (did you know there's a service that helps you control your satellites in ORBIT? I sure didn't.) I landed on IoT, AKA the Internet of Things. I won't go into too much detail here since I've done a whole presentation on it, but IoT is basically the creation, deployment, management and usage of smart devices. I'm a self-proclaimed "Zillenial" (meaning I was born at the very end of the Millennials and the beginning of Gen Z, if you were wondering) and so I love having smart devices all around me - they help me drive, watch movies, cook, and of course game.

For the next few weeks I researched and built my presentation - flashy slides included of course. It seemed like half my time was spent looking for visual aids, making sure they fit properly and fighting with file types. I spent at least an hour trying to change GIFs of cats eating out of food bowls from one file type to another, they were being so dang stubborn! I felt like I was back in high school since that's the last time I had to put together a slide presentation (aaah the early days of PowerPoint), but that 45-minute timer was still looming over me. Writing something and reading something are two very different things, pages and pages of writing can be easily read in just a few minutes. It's even worse when you're doing a speaking presentation as you tend to talk a bit faster than normal when you're nervous. Thankfully I was a theater kid growing up (you're looking at Alice from the Vancouver high school original Alice in Wonderland right here) and did some live streaming so my public speaking has never been too horrible. Also quick Mina tip of the day™: I just imagine I'm talking to someone I reaaaaally don't like, that always calms the nerves - but I still ran through my presentation about 5 times just to make sure my timing was right.

The day of we had some tech issues (nothing can ever go completely smoothly right?) which didn't help to settle my nerves, but I just chanted my mantra "It is what it is" and of course enjoyed some coffee (a delicious iced latte if I remember correctly) to help bring down the anxiety. It ended up being amazing, all my work and time fighting with those dang file types, fiddling with the font size and researching AWS products turned out to be well worth the effort. Your girl totally crushed it, I got a ton of compliments and everyone in attendance loved it. If you'd like to watch it please reach out to me and I'll get you the recording! I am super appreciative to Kathie for giving me a platform to get my name out in the community, being able to practice public speaking and giving me the opportunity to be the second woman to do a presentation in the community! Also big thanks to Simon for helping to set the whole thing up, one of my favorite parts of this DevOps adventure has been connecting with so many amazing people.

So goal number two was checked off the list, next up was the thing that started this whole journey - the AWS SysOps Associate exam.
When I started this dive into tech and DevOps I leapt off the 100ft board straight into a course about passing the AWS SysOps exam. This test goes far deeper into cloud engineering than the Cloud Practitioner does since it's an associate level exam, and tests your knowledge of how to use AWS resources to solve problems - rather than just remembering the names of the services.

We had reached the final boss of level 1 - I had defeated the mini boss (Cloud Practitioner), destroyed the secret boss (Security+) and had gained enough experience to finally take on the Bowser for this part of my journey. I had spent about 9 months studying, building my own projects such as a 3 tier web app, my own website and game server (if you'd like to check out some of my projects they can be found here on my GitHub), and I felt probably the most confident I ever had going into an exam. Even though I was passing the practice exams and memorized all my flashcards, there's always that little voice in the back of your mind telling you that you aren't ready yet. In comes my mentor Simon once again to save the day (seriously if you need a hype man he's got your back). He offered to have a study session with me and after going through the practice questions all he could say was "You've got this in the BAG, no way you aren't passing this." I couldn't very well let him down now could I.

I booked the exam for the next day and got down to it, thankfully this time I wasn't on the edge of passing out, however I was worried I wasn't going to pass. Why is it that the practice exam questions are always wayyyyy different than the actual exam? Like always I simply did the best I could - as long as you give 110% you should always be proud of what you've done. I used up almost the entire time and started sweating just a teensy bit when the clock was at sub 20 minutes and I still had a few questions to go back to. With just a few minutes to spare though I finished up and hit that dreaded submit button.

Now the associate and higher level exams are EVIL - they make you wait up to 48 hours to get your results, and so after completing the exam I had no idea whether or not I had passed (put in your bets now, do you think I passed?). The waiting game started and I was able to keep myself busy with a well-deserved dinner out. After eating some delicious food and getting some sweet treats - if you know, you know - I checked my email and there it was, a nice little badge confirming I had passed the SysOps exam! This was a really big milestone for me, this cert is what I started my whole career change with, and to start from scratch - not only earning the certification but also having developed so much knowledge and growth with AWS, tech and DevOps in general was a huge accomplishment. I have been doubted in the past by some and questioned as to why I didn’t take the SysOps exam back in December instead of the Cloud Practitioner, but would you try doing surgery after only a month of medical school? I don’t think so, I needed hands-on practice and more time to learn before fully diving into the deep end. Not only was this a big step for me but in a way it also helped to squash those doubts that some people had tried to put into my head, and it showed me that no matter what - I can do this, and I can be successful in the industry!

So here I was, another certification conquered, more knowledge in the industry than I thought I was ever capable of having, and more projects on the horizon. I think it's time to really start job hunting, don't you?

As always if you've made it this far thank you so much for reading. We’ve made it through 3 certs, a community talk, multiple projects, crushed the doubters and have come so far. I really can’t wait to see what comes next! Also please feel free to reach out to me and connect on LinkedIn! Maybe next we can discuss the suffering that is trying to find a job in this market, and I can give you a sneak peek into my upcoming projects so stay tuned!

Coffee, Cloud and Cybersecurity, OH MY!

Mina — Mon, 09 Sep 2024 20:26:55 +0000

Well well well... it's been a minute hasn't it? How time flies when you're having fun, and learning more about tech than you ever have in your life!

Last I left off (9 months ago already???) I had just gotten my AWS Cloud Practitioner certification, I completed the resume challenge and I wanted to dive into Infrastructure as Code (IAC if you remember). Well, let's just say not everything always goes as planned, and when you try to learn one thing it becomes apparent that you need to learn three more things first.

So let me transport you back to February 2024, I got my new cert and was feeling good! I had an internship lined up and was SO excited to start it, sadly things don't always go my way - and the program got cancelled. That one hit hard I'm not going to lie, but what else is there to do but get back up and keep going. I soon discovered that trying to get an entry level job with no formal experience and just my CP cert wasn't going to cut it, and that "entry-level" ACTUALLY means have 10 years of experience, a masters degree and OH you'd make more money working at McDonalds (I could write a whole blog post about the ridiculousness of the job market at the moment but I digress). So with the odds against me I set out to work on my own projects, not only to help me learn more about AWS and DevOps but also to be able to demonstrate that I know how to use the resources.

Now the question became what exactly should I make? I could find guides on how to set up static websites but I had already done that. I could keep launching EC2 instances and attaching EBS volumes to them, but then doing nothing with them - boring. No, I needed a project that I cared about and WANTED to create. Something that would actually give me a reason to want to dive in.

Enter : GAMING

At the time me, my friends and even family were obsessed with a new game that had come out. The totally original, definitely not copyright infringing Palworld. Palworld uses servers that the players either get provisioned from the game itself, or servers that you can build yourself and host the game on directly - can you guess where this is going? I could totally build a Palworld server for us!

Now actually creating the server was easy peasy, set up an EC2 instance, download and set up the GSM and BOOM BAM we got ourselves a server. (I'm gonna go ahead and skip the hours of trouble shooting I went through, let's all choose to believe it deployed flawlessly the first time ok?) The server had been born and I even set it up so it had a password, but that wasn't good enough for me.

What's the point of having a server that multiple people can play on if I have to constantly turn it on and off whenever people want to jump in? It's a pain for them, and annoying for me so my next mission was figuring out how to allow others to turn the server on - without access to my AWS account. After doing some research I came to the conclusion that a Discord bot would work best (if you're a gamer you know what Discord is, if you aren't... think of Slack but built for gamers and communities). I could have the bot be set up to invoke a Lambda function which would turn the instance on or off based on whatever command someone input into the chat, and also have the bot return the status of the instance and the instance ID. Getting the ID was easy enough, but once I tried to get the bot to actually turn the instance ON I discovered APIs. Now I knew what an API was of course, but not how they really worked - this is when I found out that I would need to learn

DUN DUN DUN....
PYTHON.

For the next two months I took Python courses and did small practice projects, at the end I earned a Google Python certification (Yaaaay cert #2 is in the bag!). Am I a master of Python now? Far from it, but I at least know the basics and can more easily understand code snippets that I can use to glue some code together - thank you StackOverflow.

Throughout this time I was of course also applying for jobs, doing interviews and trying to get myself out there. Finally in May, right after finishing up my Python learning I got the opportunity to join an associate program at Hanabyte! Now you may think "Oh this program will be revolving Python, right?" WRONG - they specialize in Cybersecurity, a part of cloud engineering that I had barely dipped my toes in outside of S3 bucket policies and security groups. So here we go on yet another adventure of learning something I knew nothing about.

The program started out STRONG, I had an amazing human appointed as my mentor - Simon Abisoye. He immediately said he had a few goals for me - "By the end of the program I want you to have 3 new certifications, do a speech of some sort regarding tech, and GET YOU A JOB!!!". Let me tell you as someone who prefers to take things one step at a time this seemed like an impossible mountain to climb, but I will be forever grateful for his excitement and encouragement, I don't think I would be as far along in my journey as I am if it wasn't for you Simon! Anyway sappy stuff aside, he wanted me to start with the CompTia Security+ cert which according to their own website is recommended for people with "CompTIA Network+ and two years of experience working in a security/ systems administrator job role". I bet you can figure out how much experience I had -

Absolutely none.

So from May to July I STUDIED, as much time as I possibly could I studied for this exam. Not only was I starting from zero but the exam was also being slightly changed at the end of July and the way the questions were set up would be a bit different, so if I missed the cut off I would have to re-study on how to take the exam! On top of that this exam is OVER 400$ - YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT FOUR HUNDRED!!! Suffice it to say I had lot of pressure on me. Finally it was mid July and I was running out of time. I had watched all the videos, I had done all the practice exams, I created and memorized over 100 flash cards and I had drank a TON of coffee to get through it - it was time. I sat for the exam having a terrible migraine, the room was as hot as anything and the first question popped up. I was clueless, skip to next question, skip, skip, skip... I knew then I was going to fail this exam. Since I already knew my fate I said screw it, and answered the questions to the best of my ability. Tears in my eyes and feeling sick to my stomach an hour and a half later I hit the dreaded "End Exam" button. The fact that they make you go through a rating of their exam before getting your results is truly, TRULY cruel. I'm not going to lie I chose mostly random answers for every question since I felt so broken about failing this exam... Imagine how bad I felt when I finished the rating and the screen popped up saying "Congratulations you've passed!". Passed... I PASSED??? I felt so sick it was all I could do to open the door and lay on the cool floor and let what had just happen sink in. I really did it, I want to say I always believed in myself but let's be honest that is a bold-faced lie.

So the first step of my associate program was done, and another certification was added to the list (at the expense of a piece of my sanity of course). I really can say that I'm super proud of myself for achieving that, from no cybersecurity knowledge to passing an established and accredited exam is no small feat.

If you've gotten this far, thank you! This post is getting long and I still have many things I want to cover so I'm going to end this here and pick it up in the next part. Look forward to more adventures coming up about certs (did someone say SysOps?), presentations and projects coming up soon!

From Barista to Cloud Engineer

Mina — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 17:48:32 +0000

So imagine one day you don't even have enough skills to google a menu from the restaurant you want to eat at, then the next day you find yourself thrown into the deep end of AWS, networking, and coding. Well that's what happened to me, I woke up one day and decided I needed a job. Like a REAL job, an adult job that I could be invested in and want to grow within (that thing some people call a career). Being able to achieve that in customer service or some basic office job just wasn't going to cut it, so I went to the most trusted person in my life - MOM!

When I told her I wanted a career where I could make something of myself and be proud of myself her eyes lit up, I'm pretty certain I saw actual stars spinning in them.

"I have been waiting for this day Mina, we're going to make you into a DevOps engineer!"

Cue my look of utter astonishment, many tears had been shed and much yelling had ensued from me just attempting to connect to a printer. How in the world was I supposed to create, manage and fix problems using a computer??? I soon found out it would involve a LOT of studying and messing things up over and over until I figured out how to do them correctly, but in a matter of 2 months I completed a SysOps Associate course (this one if you're interested, I highly recommend) and passed the Cloud Practitioner Certification - SysOps Cert is coming, stay tuned.

I went from someone who could barely launch Minesweeper to someone who knows what the terminal is and can NAVIGATE it. Someone who knows what a virtual machine is and how to launch it and create things with it, who can architect solutions and use networking to do so. Ooooor so I thought, turning theory into practical abilities is a whole other beast and yet another thing I had to learn, enter the Cloud Resume Challenge.

Once I had my certificate I thought I would be ready to go, update my resume and finding a job would be easy peasy. Well I quickly realized I had no way to show I actually knew anything, although the course I took was great at teaching there weren't really any projects that you got to create during the process that weren't just step by step. So I reached out to my #1 again (Mom, of course) and other people I knew in the industry and they all recommended the Cloud Resume Challenge. Simple really, build a website and upload your resume info to it, one spot to both display your engineering prowess and to host your resume for potential employers. I quickly learned that most of the things on the list of to dos I had actually never done before:

Writing HTML and CSS (or any kind of code for that matter)
Using Github to automatically push changes to my Static Website S3
bucket
Troubleshooting and fixing issues or bugs (Wow that's a big one)
Creating and connecting a Lambda function to a database
Creating a blog (Guess I can check that one off the list)

So where does one start when they have a huge list of to dos and they have to learn it all from scratch. Personally I'm a very visual person so I wanted to be able to see my progress as quickly as possible and see how changes and additions of steps affected it. To me that meant I had to start with building the website - HTML, CSS and JavaScript - three things I had absolutely zero knowledge in. What I had gained knowledge in was Google, and I quickly discovered that you don't have to write code from scratch (all though I am still in the process of learning different languages so that I can) but you can take bits and pieces from peoples published code, splice it together, add a sprinkle of your own spice and BAM! You've got a basic website that can get the job done. As I learn more, I can add more and really make it how I envision it. For now it works, and I'm very proud I managed to put it together with my zero knowledge of coding.

SO I managed to learn enough to put together the files for a website but how do I make them actually... website? S3 of course! This section was pretty easy as I had created a static website in my course, and figuring out how to set it up with Cloudfront wasn't too difficult considering AWS has a ton of great resources and plenty of step by step guides. Now I had an actual domain which pointed to the S3 bucket that held my files and Voila! we have a website.

Now having the website is all fine and dandy but the fact that you have to manually remove and then upload a new HTML file every time you make changes is a pain. Thankfully we have our next step, and lesson, to help us out. CI/CD was a completely foreign concept to me and boy did github give me trouble when setting up my repository (if you see 3 practice repos, no you don't). Once I had spent a few hours fiddling with the command line and learning many new git commands I got my repository set up and setting up CI/CD was really the easiest part. I discussed with my new old friend google and it pretty quickly gave me a simple answer of using a github action. After some errors and figuring out how to fix those errors, yay for learning to troubleshoot, my github now updates the documents to my S3 bucket directly.

Now I have a website, but it needs to have a bit more pizzazz (pizzaze? who knows) to show off some more skills. Let's add a viewer counter to the page! At first I thought you could just add one within the index.html which, yes you can, but that doesn't really show any extra skills and it can easily just be reset. No, the better way is to create a Lambda function with an API which accesses a DynamoDB table that holds and updates your count. So... how exactly does one do that? Back to google we go! I knew I had to create a DynamoDB table so that part was easy enough, and a Lambda function of course, but once again my mortal enemy returned. CODING - python to be exact. Turns out it wasn't that hard to find some code similar to what I needed, change it up a bit and there we have it. A Lambda function which... didn't work at first. After a snack and a coffee, which is essential in cloud engineering I'm discovering, the issue was simple to figure out easy to fix (Needed to add permissions, I know you were just dying for the answer). I popped that function into my website with some added HTML and Javascript and away it goes, counting like there's no tomorrow.

And that brings us to where we are now, checking off that last item off of creating a blog. I've never made one, but I've gotta say it's pretty therapeutic. I guess I've done everything I need to do for my Cloud Resume Challenge...

WAIT A MINUTE

IAC

Infrastructure as Code is still looming over me, so that instead of manually creating everything in the AWS console you simply upload a document and it spits out all the resources you defined. You know what that means - more CODE

Well, I guess it's time for me to take some more lessons and do some more Googling until I figure out IAC. But which to choose, CFN or Terraform? I think I'm going to make these a series so keep an eye out for my next post about my adventures with IAC!