What's your job about?
CMD Solutions is a #1 AWS Consultancy in Australia and New Zealand. It is a cloud and infrastructure company. Being a graduate and coming from a web dev background, I transition to cloud engineering. At the moment, I work on an internal project, an application that is used by my colleagues to help our clients. Every day I write code. I learn to build on AWS using my skills. Twice a week we do a stand-up, a short meeting where we tell our team what progress we have done and what will be doing next. If I get blocked or stuck on something, I reach out to my teammates who have worked on a project a bit longer. When I write a bit of code that works properly, I push it to Git, where it becomes available for other team members. It is like piecing a puzzle. Everyone does a bit of code, puts it in the same place, and we get more and more features of an app working. I also have learning sessions that I attend with other graduates, where we learn about new tech tools or brush up on something we learned before. I also have just finished a 3-week bootcamp, where my colleagues were teaching us how to use cloud services. Every week I do catch-ups with my People Guide, my senior colleague who helps me to adapt, learn and navigate this new professional path. From time to time we run pair coding sessions, where he shares his knowledge with me. I also can reach out to anyone in the company even our CEOs, if I have questions. Everyone is friendly and willing to help.
What's your background?
I was born in Siberia, Russia, spent most of my life there and then moved to Belarus where lived for 4 years. From there I moved to Ireland, and then to Australia.
I’m a career changer. I used to work in digital marketing before I moved to Australia. Unfortunately, Covid has made finding a job in marketing impossible for me, and after a few months of unsuccessful attempts, I had to re-think what I am going to do next. I got an opportunity to jump on a funded web development bootcamp, where I studied JavaScript. This is when I started my IT journey and I never looked back. After 3 months of very intensive study, I applied for another study at She codes Australia. I got accepted again, and it gave me an amazing opportunity to study web development in person. After finishing my She codes Plus study, I was looking for a full-time job. During this process, I figured out, that cloud is my true passion, and this is what I really want to do. So like it often happens, once you make it clear what you really want, it becomes a reality. I saw a job ad on LinkedIn, applied and got a job offer in 2 weeks. I’ve been with CMD for 3 months now.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, absolutely. We have people coming from software engineering, networking, infrastructure, support, and data science backgrounds. I started my career in cloud engineering with coding fundamentals, version control and an understanding of Agile practices. Attitude is critical, you should be hungry to learn.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
It feels powerful to spin up a dozen or more cloud resources in a few commands. And when I run them in a terminal, it looks like a part of a sci-fi movie.
What are the limitations of your job?
Being a career changer from a non-IT background, I often feel like an imposter. I’m surrounded by peers who have recently graduated from uni with an IT degree. They have learnt it for several years, and I have only 1 year of hard work. It was daunting for me in the beginning. And I still often feel shy among them.
3 pieces of advice for yourself at the start of your tech career?
Don’t be afraid and never listen to those who tell you that you won’t be able to do it. Failing is part of the process. Each failure brings you closer to wins. And the wins will be breathtaking. You are capable of even more than you think. Dream big and do baby steps toward your dreams.