2023 as AWS Community Builder
Tags: aws, community
Published: 2024-01-22 12:10:18

It's the 3rd week of January 2024. ~~The [Community Builder form](https://aws.amazon.com/developer/community/community-builders/) for the current year is probably already closed, right?~~ Ah, it's not true. It will be closed on the 27th of January, so you still have some time - 5 days. If you need a TLDR, go and [apply](https://pulse.aws/application/ZDVCOXKA) as fast as possible! Do it now! If you've already applied, I have some stories to share or rather an extended 2023 summary. Please treat this as a possible path; I think you can do it better. 
## January  
That was a regular January. I worked for [ISS A/S](https://www.issworld.com/en) as a Platform Architect. My main task was migrating the Atlassian Platform to AWS, including Jira, Confluence, and Crowd implementation. I have some AWS-oriented skills, as I've already worked with Cloud Computing for more than 2 years as a general consultant. Also, I know a bit about Machine Learning, so I reserved a spot on the [SageMaker Immersion Day](https://catalog.us-east-1.prod.workshops.aws/workshops/63069e26-921c-4ce1-9cc7-dd882ff62575/en-US), conducted by [Chaos Gears](https://www.chaosgears.com/pl/strona-glowna), on the 4th of February. An important note: [Wojtek Gawroński](https://pl.linkedin.com/in/afronski/pl) shared the Community Builder application form on LinkedIn. So, without being involved in the AWS Community, I decided to apply. I wasn't very optimistic. I only have 2 blog posts related to AWS and a newsletter. 
## February  
The SageMaker Immersion Day was great. [Tomek](https://pl.linkedin.com/in/tomaszdudek95/pl) provided a lot of information to the audience, and the general experience was great. During the event, I met [Dominik](https://pl.linkedin.com/in/dominik-grzywaczewski). I already knew that he was a Community Builder, so I asked him, "Is it good to be a Community Builder?" Dominik said that it's a great thing and it's worth becoming part of the program. Now I know that he was lying, as he decided to become an "AWS Hero." Just kidding. 
### 24th of February 

During 5 hours, I was accepted as a Community Builder, then refused and accepted again. 

![CB acceptance email](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/x2eg145rx57opzi1p8eu.png)

Thankfully, it was night in Poland, and I was able to read email after email. However, I was a bit confused at the beginning. After that, I was an official AWS Community Builder. So, what does it mean? In general, access to a community of experts. For example, if you are interested in a topic, like DNS resolving of a private DB in a private network inside the regular Internet, you can just ask. There is a huge chance that an AWS employee who knows the internal logic very well will respond. Besides that: 

- free exam voucher 
- re:Invent discount 
- $500 AWS credits 
- swag 

But, in general, the community on Slack is the biggest advantage of the program.  
## March
I submitted my first talk for AWS User Group Warsaw. The title was **Self-service or not to self-service**, a good topic, and quite a solid presentation. My talk was accepted for the event and at the end of March, I had my first public talk. I was very stressed, also execution was hm, could have been better. 
## April
I passed AWS SA Pro, without any AWS exam before. On first attend, however, it required a lot of work and preparation. In my opinion, it's not an exam that you can pass based on your hands-on experience. Some questions need in-depth knowledge about a particular domain, not used in regular day-to-day work. Why not start with the Associate exam? There was a promotion code, that allowed you to get 50% off on the Pro/Speciality exam, so I decided that If I could get it for 150$, I prefer to start from a higher bar. And boom - passed. 
## June 
AWS Community Day, Warsaw, [PGE Narodowy](https://www.pgenarodowy.pl/). The big event, where I also submitted a talk. Now it was in English and the topic was more technical - **Use Machine Learning for video subtitles**. My presentation was the last talk, with solid talks in parallel. Now I was stressed, as you can guess English isn't my native language, also the rank of the event was big. Overall score after the talk? 3.5/5, only two questions. So, yes it could be better, however, I was proud that I was accepted and able to deliver. 
## September 
After a vacation, I had a chance to conduct the same talk on [WarsawJS](https://warsawjs.com/), as the whole implementation was done in TypeScript. The talk wasn't recorded due, to technical issues, but you can watch it as post-recording  [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGiTTV6gDbc). After that, even I show it to an internal workshop for my external client. So at this point, I was after 3 public talks. 
## October 
During my work for ISS, I met Filip who is a Security Architect, he was asked to become a member of the program committee in the cloud security area at [THS](https://thehacksummit.com/). During the coffee chat, he asked if I was interested in presenting something. As I enjoyed public speaking more and more, there was only one answer - yes. So for this conference, I prepared a talk called "Secure access to EC2: SSH, SSM, EC2 Instance Connect". Rather technical, with many slides with recorded demo, and implementation in CloudFormation. I got a good rating - 5/5, however, my presentation was conducted almost at the beginning of the conference, very early. 
## November 
AWS Security Speciality exam passed! I used my voucher for it. The exam wasn't very hard after SA Pro, however, required deep knowledge in a few domains, of course, security-oriented. Also I accepted an offer from [Red Hat](https://www.redhat.com/en), so If you know me a bit, for me that's the "dream" company since I was an Intern at [LinuxPolska](https://linuxpolska.com/pl/). 
## December 
I conducted my talk about EC2 access at another conference called [yavaconf](https://yavaconf.com/). The last talk, was on Sunday, during Java-oriented programmers. So I decided to add implementation in Java, with the usage of CDK as a live demo part. I enjoyed this presentation a lot, even if the audience was very small, I had a chance to conduct a talk in the biggest room in my old college building. 
## Summary

So during the last year (2023), I wrote **7** articles on my blog, conducted **5** public talks (one recorded), and passed **two** AWS exams. All of these elements were motivated by the Community Builder program. Without that, I probably would have skipped the exam, had no motivation to speak in public, or write so many blog posts.

Even the number of people I met during this year is outstanding; all of them are great and helpful. Ahh, I almost forgot:

- I also quit my newsletter, as it was too time-consuming.
- Built [AWS Community Builders - content catalog](https://3sky.github.io/awscb-content-catalog/), however, some help will be needed.

So, if you're interested in being part of a great community or getting a real motivation boost, that's a great place to be.