The Cloud Resume Challenge Guidebook - Table of Contents

The following table of contents is taken from the Google Cloud edition of the Cloud Resume Challenge Guidebook. Azure and AWS editions may have slight variations. Click on links to read a sample of the text.

How to use this book (Don’t skip this part) 9

Prologue: The greatest resume I’ve ever seen 14

Part 1: Cracking the Cloud Resume Challenge 23

The challenge itself 24

Why does the Cloud Resume Challenge work? 30

Breaking down the challenge 36

Community resources 40

Part 2: Challenge walkthrough 43

Setup and safety (before you begin) 44

Setting up your account 44

Local development setup 45

Billing 46

Cloud hygiene 48

Chunk 0: Certification prep 50

How to approach this chunk 50

Helpful resources 55

Paid resources 55

Free resources 56

Mods 56

DevOps Mod: If you have several years of existing IT experience 56

Security Mod: If you want a cloud security job 57

Developer Mod: If you want to become a cloud developer 58

Developer Mod: If you are about to graduate from college with a computer science-y degree 58

Stacy’s story: From IT Service Desk Manager to Cloud Operations Engineer 58

Pause to reflect 61

Chunk 1: Building the front end 62

How to approach this chunk 63

Helpful resources 67

HTML / CSS 67

Static website tutorials 67

DNS and CDNs 67

Actual CRC sites 68

Jerry’s story: From respiratory therapist to Associate Solutions Architect 68

Mods 71

Developer Mod: Frame Job 71

DevOps Mod: Automation Nation 72

Security Mod: Spoof Troop 74

Pause to reflect 74

Chunk 2: Building the API 76

How to approach this chunk 77

Helpful resources 83

Python 83

APIs 84

Google Cloud serverless 84

Source control 85

Jakob’s Story: From Clinical Research Technician to Cloud Engineer 85

Mods 87

Developer Mod: Schemas and Dreamers 87

DevOps Mod: Monitor Lizard 88

Part 1: Establishing metrics 88

Part 2: Getting notified 90

Security Mod: Check Your Privilege 91

Pause to reflect 93

Chunk 3: Front-end / back-end integration 95

How to approach this chunk 96

How to write your very own smoke test 96

Helpful resources 99

Mods 100

Developer Mod: Playing the Hits 100

DevOps Mod: Browser Up 101

Security Mod: Wall of Fire 101

WAF 102

Backend security 103

Rate limiting 103

Pause to reflect 104

Nana’s Story: From Tech Support to Cloud Native Engineer 105

Chunk 4: Automation / CI 107

How to approach this chunk 108

Google Cloud Deployment Manager 110

Pulumi 110

Setting up your deployment pipeline 111

Helpful resources 113

IaC 113

Docker 113

CI/CD (Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment) 113

Mods 114

Developer Mod / Security Mod: Chain Reaction 115

Initial reading 115

Challenge steps 116

DevOps Mod: All The World’s A Stage 119

Stephanie’s Story: From Bank Manager to Cloud Engineer 123

Pause to reflect 124

Chunk 5: The blog … and beyond 126

How to approach this chunk 126

Include a diagram 128

Make it about you, not about the challenge 128

Consider focusing on your mods 129

Don’t ramble on 130

Tag me 130

Ian’s Story: Writing a Blog That Gets Exposure 131

Helpful resources 133

Pause to reflect 134

Part 3: From challenge to career 135

What is a “cloud job”, anyway? 137

The history of the cloud job 138

The first IT jobs 138

The “golden age” of IT: everybody has their own servers! 138

The emergence of the cloud job 142

What does a “day in the life” look like for a cloud engineer? 145

Is there actually such a thing as an “entry-level cloud job”? 147

Getting unstuck: the underrated skill of asking for help 150

The career-changing art of reading the docs 158

Mapping your path to a cloud job 172

Getting hired without tech experience 172

Building your skill stack 174

When to apply 176

Getting hired with IT experience, but no cloud experience 178

Exploiting your “unfair advantage” 179

Avoiding a temporary step back 182

How to effectively interview for work with a portfolio site 184

Networking your way to a job 193

Resume Roulette: a losing game 193

How hiring happens 194

Network Bets: a better game 195

Owning your credibility 196

Building connections 197

But I’m an introvert … I can’t network! 198

Play the long game – it’s a shortcut 202

Afterword: The side project that made the front page 204

Anatomy of the perfect cloud project 206

Paying it forward 209

Acknowledgements 212

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