Cloud Noob to Cloud Native
Tags: cloud, beginners, opensource, career
Published: 2022-09-12 20:50:47

My first 6 weeks at [amazee.io](https://www.amazee.io/).

I recently joined [amazee.io](https://www.amazee.io/) as part of the [Lagoon](https://lagoon.sh/) team in July as a Junior Software Engineer with little prior experience in almost anything cloud-related.

Prior to this, I worked with Nintendo Australia as a front-end developer for just over two years, before branching into full-stack development focusing on Rails & React. At this point, I had a little exposure to various cloud technologies in the organizations I was working for (Vercel, Docker, AWS S3), enough to pique my interest in this space.

This is where amazee.io comes in. I was fortunate enough to join the Lagoon team and begin my cloud native journey proper. I had a lot to learn (and still do), the scope of which was both intimidating and incredibly exciting - but that was exactly what I was looking for.

Onto the actual learning pathway - I had been provided a guide on what I needed to achieve within the first weeks and months, all of which seemed achievable. These goals ranged from the setting up of my local environment through to owning and delivering a standalone piece of work.

Within the first week, we walked through building one of the many [Lagoon examples](https://github.com/uselagoon/lagoon-examples) on my local machine - In this instance I got to dive back into the wonderful world of Drupal (something I had not touched since high school). This was a fantastic introduction to images and containers, and how they work within Docker. 

For the first two weeks, I spent a good portion of our team stand-ups Googling the terms flying out of my colleagues’ mouths - EKS, RDS, K8up, QoS, Taints? 

Over the following weeks, I was taken through the various components that make up Lagoon and how they fit into the cloud ecosystem, and we worked on getting a full Lagoon install running locally. This has been one of the best ways to learn - while feeling well out of my comfort zone at times, I have found that to be the best path to growth.

To supplement these sessions, I currently try to dedicate at least a couple of hours per day to the suggested courses, lots of reading, breaking things in my local environment and then a lot more reading. (Resources listed below)

As to where I’m at now, I’ve completed the Linux Foundations KCNA Essentials course and am preparing to take the certification exam. I'm also working on updating existing Lagoon services in the codebase, writing tests and scoping out my standalone piece of work.

I can’t overstate how amazing the amazee.io team have been during the past 6 weeks! The scope of what I have to learn was daunting to begin with, but with the guidance from this amazing team I’m understanding more about this ephemeral ecosystem every day.

Here are some of the resources I found helpful - what have you used in your cloud journey to learn and grow your skills? Comment here, on twitter, or join us on Discord! 

https://training.linuxfoundation.org/training/kubernetes-and-cloud-native-essentials-lfs250-kubernetes-and-cloud-native-associate-kcna-exam-bundle/

https://kubernetes.io/docs/home/ 

https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-to-cloud-infrastructure-technologies

https://www.udemy.com/course/docker-mastery/ 

https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-associate-architect-developer-sysops-admin/