The Cloud Resume Challenge Guidebook - Table of Contents

The following table of contents is taken from the AWS edition of the Cloud Resume Challenge Guidebook. Azure and Google Cloud 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) 12

Prologue: The Greatest Resume I’ve Ever Seen 17

Part 1: Cracking the Cloud Resume Challenge 25

The challenge itself 26

Why does the Cloud Resume Challenge work? 32

Breaking down the challenge 37

Community resources 41

The Cloud Resume Challenge Discord Server 42

The Cloud Resume Challenge GitHub Repository 42

The Cloud Resume Challenge Video Tutorials 42

The Challenge in Spanish 43

More AWS Challenges 43

Part 2: Challenge walkthrough 46

Setup and safety (before you begin) 47

Access and credentials 47

The original way (if you must) 48

The professional way (my recommendation) 50

Billing 53

Cloud hygiene 54

Chunk 0: Certification prep 56

How to approach this chunk 56

Helpful resources 60

Free Resources 60

Recommended Certifications for This Challenge 60

What’s the AWS Roadmap? 61

Role Based Roadmaps 62

DevOps 62

Developer 63

Cloud Security Engineer 63

Solutions Architect 63

Data Engineer 63

AI Engineer 64

Mods 64

DevOps Mod: If you have several years of existing IT experience 64

Security Mod: If you want a cloud security job 65

Developer Mod: If you want to become a cloud developer 65

Developer Mod: If you are about to graduate from college with a computer science-y degree 66

Solutions Architect Mod: If you’re focused on design and big-picture thinking 66

Data Engineer Mod: If you want to design data pipelines 67

AI Engineer Mod: If you’re aiming for AI/ML roles in the cloud 67

Stacy’s Story: From IT Service Desk Manager to Cloud Operations Engineer 68

Pause to reflect 70

Chunk 1: Building the front end 72

How to approach this chunk 73

Helpful resources 76

HTML / CSS 76

Static website tutorials 77

DNS and CDNs 77

Actual CRC sites 77

Jerry’s Story: From respiratory therapist to Associate Solutions Architect at AWS 78

Mods 80

Developer Mod: Frame Job 80

DevOps Mod: Automation Nation 81

Security Mod: Spoof Troop 83

Solutions Architect Mod: S3 vs Amplify Tradeoffs 83

Data Engineer Mod: Visitor Logs as Data 86

AI Engineer Mod: LLM Resume Summarizer 87

Pause to reflect 88

Chunk 2: Building the API 90

How to approach this chunk 91

Helpful resources 96

Python 96

APIs 97

AWS serverless 97

Source control 98

Jakob’s Story: From Clinical Research Technician to Cloud Engineer 98

Mods 100

Developer Mod: Schemas and Dreamers 100

DevOps Mod: Monitor Lizard 100

Part 1: Establishing metrics 101

Part 2: Getting notified 102

Security Mod: Check Your Privilege 104

Solutions Architect Mod: Choose Your Own Adventure (Layer) 105

Data Engineer Mod: Count the Right Things 107

AI Engineer Mod: Make It Sentient(ish) 108

Pause to reflect 110

Chunk 3: Front-end / back-end integration 110

How to approach this chunk 111

How to write your very own smoke test 112

Helpful resources 114

Mods 116

Developer Mod: Playing the Hits 116

DevOps Mod: Browser Up 117

Security Mod: Wall of Fire 117

Solutions Architect Mod: The Latency Whisperer 119

Data Engineer Mod: Analytics Tap-In 120

AI Engineer Mod: Smart Front-End, Smarter Back-End 121

Pause to reflect 123

Nana’s Story: From Tech Support to Cloud Native Engineer 124

Chunk 4: Automation / CI 126

How to approach this chunk 127

AWS-specific infrastructure-as-code tools 129

CloudFormation 129

The CDK 129

Other infrastructure-as-code tools 129

Terraform 129

Pulumi 130

Setting up your deployment pipeline 131

Helpful resources 132

Mods 133

Developer Mod / Security Mod: Chain Reaction 133

Initial reading 134

Challenge steps 135

DevOps Mod: All The World’s A Stage 137

Solutions Architect Mod: Blueprint Drift 141

Data Engineer Mod: Data Doesn’t Deploy Itself 143

AI Engineer Mod: Ship It Like You Mean It 145

Stephanie’s Story: From Bank Manager to Cloud Engineer 147

Pause to reflect 148

Chunk 5: The blog … and beyond 149

How to approach this chunk 150

Include a diagram 151

Make it about you, not about the challenge 151

Consider focusing on your mods 153

Don’t ramble on 153

Tag Us 154

Ian’s Story: Writing a Blog That Gets Exposure 154

Helpful resources 156

Pause to reflect 157

Part 3: From challenge to career 159

What is a “cloud job”, anyway? 161

The history of the cloud job 162

The first IT jobs 162

The “golden age” of IT: everybody has their own servers! 162

The emergence of the cloud job 166

What does a “day in the life” look like for a cloud engineer? 169

Is there actually such a thing as an “entry-level cloud job”? 171

Getting unstuck: the underrated skill of asking for help 174

What NOT to do: The Well of Despair 176

Three steps to get back on track 176

The career-changing art of reading the docs 182

Reading docs: the wrong way and the right way 184

What do I get out of all this? 192

Do’s and don’ts: AI assistance in the Cloud Resume Challenge 196

Learning like an engineer, AI edition 196

DON’T: treat AI like a wishing well 198

DO: treat AI as a tutor, explainer, and rubber duck 198

DON’T: commit generated code until you understand it. 200

DON’T: generate code without generating tests. 201

DO: Keep widening your own context window. 201

Some final notes on cost and utility 203

Mapping your path to a cloud job 205

Getting hired without tech experience 205

Building your skill stack 207

When to apply 209

Getting hired with IT experience, but no cloud experience 211

Exploiting your “unfair advantage” 212

Avoiding a temporary step back 215

How to effectively interview for work with a portfolio site 217

The three questions interviewers ultimately want you to answer 217

How to show off your portfolio site during interviews 219

Reminder: Interviews are two-way streets 222

Tech takes a backseat to company culture and learning 223

Networking your way to a job 226

Resume Roulette: a losing game 226

How hiring happens 227

Network Bets: a better game 228

Owning your credibility 229

Building connections 230

But I’m an introvert … I can’t network! 231

Play the long game – it’s a shortcut 235

Afterword: The side project that made the front page 237

Anatomy of the perfect cloud project 239

Paying it forward 242

Acknowledgements 244

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