>> Friends, today we'll be chatting with Gwyneth Peña
about how to get started as a Cloud engineer.
She's got a great YouTube channel called Made by GPS
where she's documenting both her journey
and she's making study guides
so you can become a Cloud engineer as well.
All this today on Azure Friday.
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>> Hey friends, I'm Scott Hanselman,
and it's Azure Friday,
I'm here with Gwyneth Peña.
She's a Cloud engineer with
great YouTube channel called Made by GPS. How's it going?
>> It is going great.
Very happy to be here. Thank you for the invite.
>> Yeah, thanks for hanging out.
I was on the Internet and I
was looking for how to become a Cloud engineer
because I just wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing
and I found your YouTube channel.
Your most popular video is called "How to be a Cloud Engineer."
Sometimes, videos get caught
by the algorithm and then people show up.
I thought it was really cool because everyone is like thumbs up,
nothing but positivity in the comments.
When did you get started making YouTube videos?
>> It's been about four months, I think.
I almost didn't start.
So a big shout out to my girlfriend who told me,
"No, you have to do this."
Yeah, like three, four months ago,
I was just really documenting things that I've learned,
and here I am now.
Just hit 1,000 subscribers.
So it's all very exciting.
>> That's great. When you hit 1000 subscribers,
you get a custom URL.
So now you're youtube.com/madebygps
so that's step one.
>> Yeah, definitely.
>> When you're putting stuff out on YouTube,
when you're deciding to put content out,
like we put out content on Azure Friday,
sometimes we get a little bit of
analysis paralysis where we
don't want to make a show because we're like,
"Well, maybe this has already been talked about before."
Have you worried at all about
talking about things people have already said
or do you just put content out as you want to?
>> At the beginning of the first month,
I think I worried a lot about what I was putting out there
and definitely had that question as to,
"Is it even worth putting it out because
it's been done so many times?"
But I got over that pretty
easy because I think everyone who creates content
or puts themselves out there,
they have their own spin to it,
their own uniqueness to it that can
bring different value to different people.
Yeah, I don't really have that issue anymore
but I know when you're starting out,
it's a big thing in the back of every creator's mind, I believe.
But yeah. Get over it and put yourself out there for sure.
>> That's really cool. One of
the other things that you talked about
is getting a Cloud engineering job without a degree.
I know that a lot of people think about
certifications and certificates rather than degrees.
I also know that the degree that I got in the '90s,
the Cloud didn't exist.
So how have you found that,
navigating the world of Cloud engineering without a degree?
>> I think like for most people without a degree,
you have very similar hurdles getting past that HR requirement.
But besides that, in terms of actually educating yourself,
really there's no better time than right now with
all the available information and
resources out there to just learn.
Certifications hold a very special place in my heart because I
found my job and I was actually
given an offer because I had an AWS certification.
I think they're great ways to define a learning path for yourself,
and get studying, and
get a little hands-on in some high level information.
I really don't think having a degree
is a necessary requirement anymore because
certifications and just online material,
they're just out there and a very useful resource.
>> A lot like the material that you've been creating.
One of the things that you've been doing
which I think is pretty cool,
is you're studying for a 300 level Azure exam.
>> Right.
>> In public though
which I thought was very interesting.
You're actually showing how you're
thinking about your study process
and you're documenting it.
That seems a little scary for me.
I don't know if I'll be able to do that.
>> Yeah. So each video,
I actually think it's a great job
of providing a certification outline really.
It's pretty defined.
I just use the outline and each video
I'm synthesizing my notes, and it's great.
It's a great way to learn because
not only are you looking and researching the material,
you're also coming up with what you're actually going to share.
You're not going to share all your notes
because that would take hours.
Or maybe you could, I don't know.
But I'm really trying to keep them short, concise,
but explaining everything that I've learned
and I'm doing this all really as I go.
I haven't taken the certification yet
but I hope to be able to do it within a month or so
and have all that knowledge just on YouTube
and wherever I post the actual notes to.
>> Yeah, I think that's great. I think the idea of study with me
is such a really cool idea.
I want to go ahead, and share my screen here
and bring up your YouTube channel.
You can see here,
these are your uploads over the last couple of months.
You've done a lot, like this has just been four months.
>> Yeah. Try to be consistent. It's fun.
It's fun to keep up
and it's a lot of work
but there's so much value to
putting the content out there and listening to the feedback
and people start to ask you questions
and you are able to also
meet different people because of just content.
Sometimes it goes viral and opens certain opportunities for you.
It's been very rewarding.
>> Do you think that in a year or two
you're going to have this massive chunk of content here
and start making playlists
and you'll become like the Khan Academy of the Cloud?
>> I'm not going to lie. That is definitely my goal,
is to put more of Cloud resources out there.
And just make them available for YouTube, for free.
Because, the more that's out there,
the more people can learn.
That's an ultimate goal for me. Yeah.
>> That's awesome. One of the other things that you told me about,
was this 100 Days of Cloud, this Community Challenge, what's this?
>> Yeah. Well, if you're familiar,
Alex Kallaway is the author of the a 100 Days of X Challenge.
You might be familiar with a 100 Days of Code.
Basically you're committing yourself to a 100 days of
learning something and for us,
100 Days of Cloud is, we're committing
ourselves to this Cloud computing.
If you're new,or if you're already in the field
and you want to pick up maybe a different certification,
or you want to try something new,
100DaysofCloud.com is where.
This is open source, it's being built by volunteers.
Outside of our day jobs, outside of whatever other
responsibilities we have, we're building this out.
It's really a space for people to learn.
We've got a GitHub going with a template
that you can utilize to document in your own learning.
We've got a couple of guide videos.
Yeah, you've got the website open.
There's a little bit of information on how to get
started there. We have a discord.
We've got about, I want to say over 400 members,
and there's people from Microsoft,
and there's people from AWS in there answering questions.
There's people from other, like not one of these major companies,
but who have lots of experience
in Cloud and answering questions.
I'm in there all the time.
Yes. It's been fun,
very rewarding listening to the community
and just helping each other out
and seeing people like, "Yeah, I want to get this certification,"
or, "I have this question," and such.
Yeah, 100DaysofCloud.com.
I am very proud of how far we've come along
and it's brand new, pretty much.
I want to say it's been around for a month or so.
>> That's great. This is really great for new-comers.
Your video, How to be a Cloud Engineer in 2020,
I'm curious how you think about being a Cloud engineer
because sometimes people, they manage Virtual Machines,
and now they're managing Virtual Machines in the Cloud,
and they like, "I'm a Cloud engineer."
That's not how I think about it.
How do you think about the differentiation?
>> Yes, so for me,
it's not enough to be able to deploy solution into the Cloud.
It's deploying a solution that takes
advantages of what the Cloud offers
and building a native solution,
or architecting a solution,
or being able to administrate a solution in the Cloud,
and really use the benefits of what the Cloud offers.
Not just, "Hey, I deployed a VM in my Cloud engineering."
I don't think so.
But yeah, being able to handle a solution that's in the Cloud
end-to-end, I think that's what makes you a solid Cloud engineer.
>> Right. I've also noticed on your YouTube,
your focus on Serverless
which is really a thing that is
a Cloud specific thing, is really clear.
You really like Azure Functions.
>> Definitely.
>> Anything as a service and not basically VMs.
>> Right. I am a huge fan of Serverless
because it empowers developers
and I know how to develop but
I'm not necessarily developer.
I think the more power we have that bridges the developers
and the operations or the developers in the Cloud Teams,
the better it's going to be for everyone.
My goal with this all of Azure Function videos is really
just to get you getting started with a specific topic.
Whether it be like output bindings
or using SignalR in Azure functions
or utilizing durable functions and such.
Just to get you started
and empower you to create your own apps end-to-end really
because Serverless abstracts the need
to maintain any infrastructure.
Serverless is the becoming the future
or the present, and yeah, I'm a big fan.
>> That's great. Then I noticed that you also started a podcast
recently called Disrupting the Cloud with Labrina Loving
who is another Cloud engineer who works for Microsoft?
>> Yeah. We started that about,
was it two, three weeks ago?
It came about so natural.
Labrina just messaged me on Twitter
and it was like, "I have this project would love to run it by you."
We hopped on a Teams call
and we spoke for about two hours.
We really had a lot of comment.
We really had a passion for wanting to
provide resources for people who want to break into it
or who want to even just know a little bit more about the Cloud.
We were like, "Let's start this podcast,
let's talk a little bit about it."
You can find us on Twitter if you want to listen to us
and I hope you do. Yeah.
>> That's fantastic. So we've got Disrupting the Cloud.
There's a link tree that'll take it
all the different locations like Spotify app podcasts.
Then your YouTube is at youtube.com/madebygps.
I think this is really great because it's
what I want Azure Friday to be.
A place for people to learn,
to get started, to get excited,
and then jump off
and do whatever their next exciting thing is going to be.
>> Yeah, that's my goal.
Gets you a good little starter kit
and then the rest is up to you.
Where you take it, It's up to you.
>> Fantastic. Thank you so much,
Gwyneth Peña for chatting with me today.
It's Azure Friday.
>> Fine. It's been a pleasure.
>> Hey, thanks for watching this episode of Azure Friday.
Now I need you to like it, comment on it,
tell your friends, Retweet it,
watch more, Azure Friday.
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