Journey to Becoming a Cloud Engineer

I want to tell you how I went from knowing absolutely zero about the clouds to becoming a fully fledged Cloud engineer in just three months I did all of this using completely free resources on the internet and I didn't pay for any materials and learned everything I needed to get multiple job offers and in this video I'm going to tell you exactly how I did it what I learned the resources I used along with the projects that I built to Showcase my skills because if I can do it in three months then you can do it too now not long ago I had no idea what the cloud even was I was working for a tech company in a completely different role and there were projects happening about moving applications to the cloud I started to hear about infrastructure as code CI CD AWS and to be honest I had no idea what any of these words really meant so just like any one would I started researching into Cloud engineering and realized that the cloud industry is expected to be a 800 billion dollar market by 2025 and going into the trillions in the next decade so moving into the cloud made sense as it was a growing industry lots of jobs were being created and I could make a lot of money now later in this video I'm going to share with you a free 12-week boot camp that not many people know of which will help accelerate your journey into cloud and get a cloud job so stay tuned for that now at the time I decided I wanted to become a cloud engineer I was actually working as a technical architect but I quit this job as soon as I knew that I wanted to move into cloud and be a cloud engineer now I know what you're thinking why did you quit the job that I was doing wasn't aligned with where I wanted to focus my skills and development on now looking back I don't recommend anyone quitting any job unless they have something else lined up however for me I had some savings and I bettered on myself to be in a new job as a cloud engineer with within three months most people are scared to try something new especially if it takes some time there is a part of them doubting that they can learn a new skill a new technology or even a new role but for me it's exciting I like being uncomfortable I like knowing that I don't know anything in an area like the cloud but one thing that I do know is that if I stick with it over time I will only get better at it and making use of the compounding effect so once I quit and no longer had a job I put all my tension into Cloud properly but I stumbled across my first problem which was which cloud provider should I learn there was AWS Azure and gcp at that time gcp was quite new and not that popular as it is now but Azure was being used by my clients and then AWS was being used out of my previous workplace I started Googling into this and decided to pursue AWS as I knew that they were the market leader which meant that they had more businesses use AWS and it also meant that there would be more opportunities in this area in the future so that's why I decided to go with AWS so how did I learn AWS now to learn AWS properly I first needed to learn four core Technologies almost like the foundational and fundamental layers of learning the cloud these four core fundamentals were networking virtualization operating systems and databases now firstly we have networking knowing how the data moves across the internet is crucial for setting up Cloud infrastructures secondly we have operating systems understanding how systems operate is essential for tasks like server management and next we have virtualization this concept is at the heart of cloud computing and finally databases giving that much of what we do goes into the cloud is actually data understanding databases is a non-negotiable therefore I strongly recommend learning these Concepts first before diving into the cloud as it will help you learn the cloud services much faster once you have the base level understanding of these fundamentals so once I learned these I started to look at Cloud certifications especially the AWS ones which is the cloud that I decided to learn AWS Cloud practitioner foundational certification helped me get a better understanding of why the cloud exists why businesses should adopt the cloud along with high level overview of the core AWS services and pillars such as computes Storage security networking along with the well architected framework billing and so much more now for this certification I use the free codecam YouTube channel which covered the whole certification along the AWS exam guides now after two weeks I took my cloud foundational practitioner certification exam and passed it first time and I actually have a full video breakdown over here that you can check out after this video now I'm going to be honest learning the cloud isn't easy because there's just so many services that these Cloud platforms use for example AWS has over 200 different services but if you focus on the core categories you will learn quite a lot so for me I focus on these fundamental services that help me learn AWS really well like VPC IAM ec2 cloudfront S3 Route 53 Cloud watch and Lambda now as you get into the cloud and work on projects these are very common services that are being used across different solutions architectures and customers these are the heart of the AWS platform and from here you can build and involve into other services now I guarantee almost every single project that you work on for clients will have some of these Services if not all of these Services being used now after this initial stage of learning the cloud and passing my first AWS certification I started to apply for jobs but I quickly realized that I wasn't getting interviews as just having a certification isn't going to get me a job therefore I started to focus on building projects because today job as a cloud engineer you need way more than just passing a certification in fact I think certifications are completely overrated and don't guarantee anything especially when you are a cloud engineer you have to demonstrate your skills by being Hands-On and by building projects certifications are great for your CV as it shows you have a baseline understanding but it's not enough to get you a job so this is where things got interesting as I knew I had to learn some basic scripting or automation with python as I would be working with servers Landers and even infrastructure as code now I did do front-end development back in the day and I hated it but I gave me a good knowledge of programming in general and now a few years later into my job as a cloud engineer I've understood and learned that coding isn't mandatory because you can get away with not knowing how to code but having programming skills will give you a considerable Edge for example if you want to learn infrastructure's code and use powerful self-services in AWS and you already know a programming language like python or typescript then picking up terraform will be an absolute Breeze for you now over time as I learn new tools my understanding of code and programming has given me a secret well not a secret it's giving me a superpower in the cloud space so therefore I recommend learning some bash or python or at least know the fundamentals of it so you can get around with some scripting now on the flip side I work with Cloud Engineers who have no coding skills or background and they have managed to do fine but to be a really good Cloud engineer I think you should know and learn to code because it makes your life way easier and you'll find learning new things so much simpler once you have a solid coding foundation for this I recommend watching Brad from transverse media and again free code cab on YouTube now the best way to learn anything is by Project based learning you first learn some Theory and then immediately you put it into practice and here are some beginner friendly projects that I built to get my hands dirty and for me to get my first job as a cloud engineer now one of my first projects was setting up a virtual machine in AWS such as an ec2 understanding the different ec2 types the memory side and so on now the next project I built was a cloud storage based system I ended up playing around with AWS S3 and RDS and documented a difference between the services and when you use one versus the other and the third project that I built was a web app and deployed it onto S3 and cloudfront as a static website now initially I built all of these projects using the AWS console which is the UI and you click a few buttons but to do things properly everything we do as Cloud Engineers is via code and therefore I reveal all these projects with terraform which is the most popular infrastructures code tool and I suggest you learn that once you have some basic and foundational AWS encoding experience under your belt now after this I start try to think of ways that I can utilize more tools and build more of an end-to-end project and this is where I came across the cloud resume challenge which is a 16 Step Challenge where you build your Cloud resume using various Technologies such as infrastructures code python CI CD apis https and so much more and it also works if you do gcp and Azure the cloud resume challenge will give you a real taste of what it's like being a cloud engineer and I had so much fun building this project and from here on I was hooked to keep learning and getting my first job as a cloud engineer and there's also a massive community on Twitter that take this Challenge and when they first get started in the cloud and it's helped so many other people to get their first Cloud jobs I will link the challenge Below in the description for you to check out so once I was certified and had some projects under my belt I started to apply for jobs and found the best way to find jobs is 100 violin tin now almost everyone who works in Tech has a profile on LinkedIn it's the place to find your new opportunity I changed my profile and added that I'm looking for a cloud roles and I also added my cloud resume URL onto my profile in case recruiters wanted to see my journey in the cloud from here I just started applying one application after another I was getting rejections after rejections and started to change my strategy every time that I applied I also started messaging the recruiters or the hiring managers at the company that I just applied for that I'm interested in their role and wanted to learn more about the opportunity now this seemed to work really well and started to get me some interviews now the interview process varies for the companies that you applied for but I always referred back to the projects that I built and referred back to the core AWS services that I learned and build projects with some interviews required to take home tests someone is a Hands-On test in the interview some just wanted a technical discussion it really depends on the company and the position that I applied for but within interviewing it's really all about luck you might get someone who's super easy to get going with in your interview and makes it very simple for you to get through the stages but you can also get some horrible interviewers overall it's just a numbers game the more jobs you apply for the more interviews you'll have at least that was the case for me now that I've been working in the cloud for several years I'm starting to focus on specialization and I recommend you do the same once you're exposed to different Industries different projects different tools and different customers then you'll have a much better idea of what you like doing and what you don't like doing now for me I'm going to focus on devops and serverless development for now and maybe in the next year I will start to look at AI because it's something that we all need to be familiar with I recommend picking a route and sticking with it because you also will make way more money if you're more specialized and it'll help you stand out way more I also want to say that the cloud space is always changing there are new tools Services coming out all the time especially with AI so please don't get discouraged keep learning and ultimately keep building projects as that's truly the only way that you will learn things properly and if I can learn the cloud and get a job as a cloud engineer in three months then you can do it too it's never too late to start learning and there are plenty of free resources available pick your root you care about the most stick with it don't give up because it will get hard but the ones that are successful are the ones that keep going no matter what now I could have given up I had no choice I had no job I needed to make money so I just got my head down and got to work now learning the cloud and learn its code will be a skill that will pay you for a lifetime now earlier in this video I said that I will share a free 12-week boot camp that you can do to get your first job in the cloud now I'm going to share exactly how you can do this in my upcoming email newsletter so go down below sign up to my free email Weekly Newsletter to find out how you can get onto this free 12-week Cloud boot camp now if you found this video helpful drop a comment down below subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you on the next one

I want to tell you how I went from knowing absolutely zero about the clouds to becoming a fully fledged Cloud engineer in just three months I did all of this using completely free resources on the internet and I didn&#39;t pay for any materials and learned everything I needed to get multiple job offers and in this video I&#39;m going to tell you exactly how I did it what I learned the resources I used along with the projects that I built to Showcase my skills because if I can do it in three months then you can do it too now not long ago I had no idea what the cloud even was I was working for a tech company in a completely different role and there were projects happening about moving applications to the cloud I started to hear about infrastructure as code CI CD AWS and to be honest I had no idea what any of these words really meant so just like any one would I started researching into Cloud engineering and realized that the cloud industry is expected to be a 800 billion dollar market by 2025 and going into the trillions in the next decade so moving into the cloud made sense as it was a growing industry lots of jobs were being created and I could make a lot of money now later in this video I&#39;m going to share with you a free 12-week boot camp that not many people know of which will help accelerate your journey into cloud and get a cloud job so stay tuned for that now at the time I decided I wanted to become a cloud engineer I was actually working as a technical architect but I quit this job as soon as I knew that I wanted to move into cloud and be a cloud engineer now I know what you&#39;re thinking why did you quit the job that I was doing wasn&#39;t aligned with where I wanted to focus my skills and development on now looking back I don&#39;t recommend anyone quitting any job unless they have something else lined up however for me I had some savings and I bettered on myself to be in a new job as a cloud engineer with within three months most people are scared to try something new especially if it takes some time there is a part of them doubting that they can learn a new skill a new technology or even a new role but for me it&#39;s exciting I like being uncomfortable I like knowing that I don&#39;t know anything in an area like the cloud but one thing that I do know is that if I stick with it over time I will only get better at it and making use of the compounding effect so once I quit and no longer had a job I put all my tension into Cloud properly but I stumbled across my first problem which was which cloud provider should I learn there was AWS Azure and gcp at that time gcp was quite new and not that popular as it is now but Azure was being used by my clients and then AWS was being used out of my previous workplace I started Googling into this and decided to pursue AWS as I knew that they were the market leader which meant that they had more businesses use AWS and it also meant that there would be more opportunities in this area in the future so that&#39;s why I decided to go with AWS so how did I learn AWS now to learn AWS properly I first needed to learn four core Technologies almost like the foundational and fundamental layers of learning the cloud these four core fundamentals were networking virtualization operating systems and databases now firstly we have networking knowing how the data moves across the internet is crucial for setting up Cloud infrastructures secondly we have operating systems understanding how systems operate is essential for tasks like server management and next we have virtualization this concept is at the heart of cloud computing and finally databases giving that much of what we do goes into the cloud is actually data understanding databases is a non-negotiable therefore I strongly recommend learning these Concepts first before diving into the cloud as it will help you learn the cloud services much faster once you have the base level understanding of these fundamentals so once I learned these I started to look at Cloud certifications especially the AWS ones which is the cloud that I decided to learn AWS Cloud practitioner foundational certification helped me get a better understanding of why the cloud exists why businesses should adopt the cloud along with high level overview of the core AWS services and pillars such as computes Storage security networking along with the well architected framework billing and so much more now for this certification I use the free codecam YouTube channel which covered the whole certification along the AWS exam guides now after two weeks I took my cloud foundational practitioner certification exam and passed it first time and I actually have a full video breakdown over here that you can check out after this video now I&#39;m going to be honest learning the cloud isn&#39;t easy because there&#39;s just so many services that these Cloud platforms use for example AWS has over 200 different services but if you focus on the core categories you will learn quite a lot so for me I focus on these fundamental services that help me learn AWS really well like VPC IAM ec2 cloudfront S3 Route 53 Cloud watch and Lambda now as you get into the cloud and work on projects these are very common services that are being used across different solutions architectures and customers these are the heart of the AWS platform and from here you can build and involve into other services now I guarantee almost every single project that you work on for clients will have some of these Services if not all of these Services being used now after this initial stage of learning the cloud and passing my first AWS certification I started to apply for jobs but I quickly realized that I wasn&#39;t getting interviews as just having a certification isn&#39;t going to get me a job therefore I started to focus on building projects because today job as a cloud engineer you need way more than just passing a certification in fact I think certifications are completely overrated and don&#39;t guarantee anything especially when you are a cloud engineer you have to demonstrate your skills by being Hands-On and by building projects certifications are great for your CV as it shows you have a baseline understanding but it&#39;s not enough to get you a job so this is where things got interesting as I knew I had to learn some basic scripting or automation with python as I would be working with servers Landers and even infrastructure as code now I did do front-end development back in the day and I hated it but I gave me a good knowledge of programming in general and now a few years later into my job as a cloud engineer I&#39;ve understood and learned that coding isn&#39;t mandatory because you can get away with not knowing how to code but having programming skills will give you a considerable Edge for example if you want to learn infrastructure&#39;s code and use powerful self-services in AWS and you already know a programming language like python or typescript then picking up terraform will be an absolute Breeze for you now over time as I learn new tools my understanding of code and programming has given me a secret well not a secret it&#39;s giving me a superpower in the cloud space so therefore I recommend learning some bash or python or at least know the fundamentals of it so you can get around with some scripting now on the flip side I work with Cloud Engineers who have no coding skills or background and they have managed to do fine but to be a really good Cloud engineer I think you should know and learn to code because it makes your life way easier and you&#39;ll find learning new things so much simpler once you have a solid coding foundation for this I recommend watching Brad from transverse media and again free code cab on YouTube now the best way to learn anything is by Project based learning you first learn some Theory and then immediately you put it into practice and here are some beginner friendly projects that I built to get my hands dirty and for me to get my first job as a cloud engineer now one of my first projects was setting up a virtual machine in AWS such as an ec2 understanding the different ec2 types the memory side and so on now the next project I built was a cloud storage based system I ended up playing around with AWS S3 and RDS and documented a difference between the services and when you use one versus the other and the third project that I built was a web app and deployed it onto S3 and cloudfront as a static website now initially I built all of these projects using the AWS console which is the UI and you click a few buttons but to do things properly everything we do as Cloud Engineers is via code and therefore I reveal all these projects with terraform which is the most popular infrastructures code tool and I suggest you learn that once you have some basic and foundational AWS encoding experience under your belt now after this I start try to think of ways that I can utilize more tools and build more of an end-to-end project and this is where I came across the cloud resume challenge which is a 16 Step Challenge where you build your Cloud resume using various Technologies such as infrastructures code python CI CD apis https and so much more and it also works if you do gcp and Azure the cloud resume challenge will give you a real taste of what it&#39;s like being a cloud engineer and I had so much fun building this project and from here on I was hooked to keep learning and getting my first job as a cloud engineer and there&#39;s also a massive community on Twitter that take this Challenge and when they first get started in the cloud and it&#39;s helped so many other people to get their first Cloud jobs I will link the challenge Below in the description for you to check out so once I was certified and had some projects under my belt I started to apply for jobs and found the best way to find jobs is 100 violin tin now almost everyone who works in Tech has a profile on LinkedIn it&#39;s the place to find your new opportunity I changed my profile and added that I&#39;m looking for a cloud roles and I also added my cloud resume URL onto my profile in case recruiters wanted to see my journey in the cloud from here I just started applying one application after another I was getting rejections after rejections and started to change my strategy every time that I applied I also started messaging the recruiters or the hiring managers at the company that I just applied for that I&#39;m interested in their role and wanted to learn more about the opportunity now this seemed to work really well and started to get me some interviews now the interview process varies for the companies that you applied for but I always referred back to the projects that I built and referred back to the core AWS services that I learned and build projects with some interviews required to take home tests someone is a Hands-On test in the interview some just wanted a technical discussion it really depends on the company and the position that I applied for but within interviewing it&#39;s really all about luck you might get someone who&#39;s super easy to get going with in your interview and makes it very simple for you to get through the stages but you can also get some horrible interviewers overall it&#39;s just a numbers game the more jobs you apply for the more interviews you&#39;ll have at least that was the case for me now that I&#39;ve been working in the cloud for several years I&#39;m starting to focus on specialization and I recommend you do the same once you&#39;re exposed to different Industries different projects different tools and different customers then you&#39;ll have a much better idea of what you like doing and what you don&#39;t like doing now for me I&#39;m going to focus on devops and serverless development for now and maybe in the next year I will start to look at AI because it&#39;s something that we all need to be familiar with I recommend picking a route and sticking with it because you also will make way more money if you&#39;re more specialized and it&#39;ll help you stand out way more I also want to say that the cloud space is always changing there are new tools Services coming out all the time especially with AI so please don&#39;t get discouraged keep learning and ultimately keep building projects as that&#39;s truly the only way that you will learn things properly and if I can learn the cloud and get a job as a cloud engineer in three months then you can do it too it&#39;s never too late to start learning and there are plenty of free resources available pick your root you care about the most stick with it don&#39;t give up because it will get hard but the ones that are successful are the ones that keep going no matter what now I could have given up I had no choice I had no job I needed to make money so I just got my head down and got to work now learning the cloud and learn its code will be a skill that will pay you for a lifetime now earlier in this video I said that I will share a free 12-week boot camp that you can do to get your first job in the cloud now I&#39;m going to share exactly how you can do this in my upcoming email newsletter so go down below sign up to my free email Weekly Newsletter to find out how you can get onto this free 12-week Cloud boot camp now if you found this video helpful drop a comment down below subscribe if you haven&#39;t already and I&#39;ll see you on the next one

Transcript for:Journey to Becoming a Cloud Engineer

Transcript for:
Journey to Becoming a Cloud Engineer