Are you looking to build an amazing cloud architect or solution architect career? If
so, this video is for you.
Hi, my name is Michael Gibbs and I'm the founder and CEO of Go Cloud Architects. And we're
an organization dedicated towards building high performance, cloud computing and networking
careers. I've been working in technology for over 25 years and I've been helping others
get their first tech job or get promoted in tech for over two decades now. And it's the
best feeling in the world when someone says, "Hi Mike, I got my first cloud architect job,
my first network engineer job." Best feeling in the world. And today we're going to talk
about three biggest cloud architect, career mistakes or solution architect, career mistakes.
And these are mistakes that I see every single day. Every week I interview 20 to 50 cloud
architects, so I know where people are going right, I know where people are going wrong
and I want to help you. So today we're going to talk about these three really dangerous
cloud to career mistakes and solution architect career mistakes.
The first mistake, and is probably the biggest mistake that I ever see, is not focusing on
the non-tech skills. So here's the thing. When you're dealing with architecture roles,
they're different than engineering roles, engineering roles are technical. Architecture
roles are as much business as they are technical. So one of the saddest things for me is when
I get a really, really smart technology professional, and they know the tech and how the tech works
and how to design the tech, but they can't communicate their knowledge. They can't present
their knowledge. They don't have sales skills. They don't have the business acumen. They
don't have the emotional intelligence or executive presence.
And this saddens me because this person could be the best architect in the world, but you
can't hire an architect that doesn't have these non-technical skills, they're relegated
to just being a cloud engineer. And for people that love to be hands on, cloud engineer is
great. If you like to code, cloud engineer is great. If you like to script, cloud engineer
is great. If you like to automate, cloud engineer is great. But if you're like meat and you
like architecture and you like system design and you like meeting with clients and solving
customer problems through technology, that's architecture work, you must be more than just
a technology professional. You must be 50% business and 50% technical. So work on those
skills. Add to your focus, at least 50% of the job is communication skills, soft skills,
executive presence, emotional intelligence, business acumen. That's the difference between
an engineer and an architect. So if you want to be an architect, don't just learn the tech
skills, learn all of the skills.
Now this next error, and this is a terrible cloud architect career mistake or solution
architect career mistake but it's really common, is thinking you can, could be great at everything.
Let's face it, you can't. The person that flies the airplane typically doesn't practice
medicine on law at the same time. The pilot needs to be an expert on flying the plane,
if I get into a big plane with 500 people in it, I want to know that pilot focused on
being a pilot. If I need surgery, I go to a surgeon that's been an expert surgeon, but
what if the surgeon that's going to go work on my hand, decided that they're going to
have a landscaping business, a home construction business and they're also a part-time electrician.
Would you really believe that surgeon's going to go work on my hand? No, of course not.
You would never think of something so crazy. But when it comes to cloud certifications,
cloud certification providers have convinced everybody you need to learn a little of everything.
And what's worse is HR job descriptions include a little bit of things that are totally unrelated
to what we actually do, and that's what we've got to go straight to the hiring manager or
ask the hiring manager what it is you actually need.
But you can't be great at everything. No matter how hard you try the person that paints is
probably not going to be the best carpeting person. We are what we do. Did it takes 10,000
hours to be an expert on anything, anything. You want to be a great cloud architect, it's
going to take a 10,000 hours minimum to just learn cloud architecture. You want to be a
great data scientist, it's going to take you 10,000 hours minimum to be a great data scientist.
You want to be a really awesome developer, it's going to take you 10,000 hours. You want
to be the maintenance person of technology, which is SysOps, going to take you 10,000
hours to be really, really great. Same thing for DevOps. Now we just talked about architect,
data science, developer, maintenance person, and DevOps [inaudible 00:04:24], that's five
careers. So that's 50,000 hours minimum to be really great at what you do.
Now 50,000 hours minimum, 2,000 hours per year full time, 10 years is 20,000 hours.
20 years is 40,000 hours. We're talking about 25 years to be able to do with this. So the
next time you think you can be great at everything, realize you can't. 10,000 hours to be an expert,
20 to 50,000 hours to be really great at something. I spent 10,000 hours on nothing other than
BGP early in my career. And another 10,000 hours on nothing, nothing, other than IP multicast
and video solutions. You know what? I spent 10 to 15,000 hours designing systems for healthcare.
Oh wait, I also can practice medicine. So now you know why when I go to healthcare customers,
they're like, "Wow, Mike's the architect we need too, he's the healthcare architect."
Because I've got about 10 to 15,000 hours in healthcare and 15,000 hours in cloud architecture.
That's why I have a cloud architect brand and a network architect brand that's designing
systems for health organizations.
So be great. Be the best you can. Be like an Olympian who has a singular focus. Everything
is all focused on being the best, best, best in the world. Do that and you will have the
best cloud architect career, solution architect career, cloud security architect career, enterprise
architect career or anything you want, just go and be the best. Give it all your love,
your energy, your effort, and you will do amazing.
Now the last one is the actual skills. Now I never, ever, ever would've thought that
I have to say what cloud architect skills are or solution architect skills, because
I thought it would've been obvious. I've been an architect for 25 years. Architects are
systems designers. That's it. We basically meet with clients and we ask the clients about
their business goals, their business challenges, their business pain points. We ask about what
they're trying to achieve, what are the competitors doing? What's working and what's not working.
And then as architects we say, okay, with the plethora of technology available to us,
how can we optimize that's organization's business through the use of technology. That's
what we do as architects. We again, business leaders, technology leaders. So we're doing
this end to end system design. And I got to tell you, it takes a long time to learn end
to end system design, I mean, we train it to people.
Now, what do we not do as architects? We don't configure anything. We don't code anything.
We don't deal with infrastructure as code and software release cycles like DevOps and
maintenance, which is SysOps. We design, and then we sell too. We got to design the solution
and convince the customer they need it. We've got to document it in Word and PowerPoint,
we've got to present. That's our job. So don't prepare for the wrong career. If you want
to be a cloud architect, don't study DevOps. If you want to be a cloud architect, don't
study SysOps. You want to be a solution architect. Don't study development, study architecture,
and you'll be a great cloud architect.
So what do we talk about today? We talked about three pretty serious errors that we
see every day. The first one is actually thinking that an architect is purely a technical position
when it's across between technical and business. You must have equivalent business skills to
your technology skills to be a great architect. The next thing we talked about is thinking
that you can be great at everything. I got to tell you, a jack of all trades is a master
of none. Imagine going to a doctor that was part carpenter, part cleaning person, part
dog walker, part plumber and part construction worker and part roofer. How much faith would
you have in that doctor? Not a lot. And do you know how much faith a hiring manner of
has and a 10x AWS certified person? Not a lot, because they think they're studying every
career other than the one they've mastered.
The last thing that we want to talk about is making sure you train for the correct career.
If I want to be a surgeon, I'm going to train surgery, I'm not going to train construction.
Training for the career you want and you'll be there. So if you don't know what the skills
are for your career, ask a hiring manager that hires these people. Ask people with distinguished
in their titles, ask people with VP or CIO in their titles. The people that do the hiring.
We know what it is or ask people like me that have been cloud architects or architects for
decades. Only architects know what architects do.
I want to thank you for watching this video. I hope we've told you how to optimize your
cloud architect versus solution architect career. We look forward to seeing you in another
video very soon. I'm Michael Gibbs, I'm the founder and CEO of Go Cloud Architects. I've
been helping people build their tech careers for over 20 years, and I'm excited to communicate
to with you as often as I can via YouTube. Take care.
It was so nice having you join us for this video today. Let me tell you about some free
services we do for the cloud community. Twice per week we have a free, How to Get Your First
Cloud Architect Job webinar, where we tell you all the things you need to do, and know,
to get your first cloud architect job. In addition to that, once per week we actually
have a free question and answer session on live on YouTube, where you can come and ask
us any questions you want about building your career related to cloud computing or networking
and we'll answer them in real time for you, Because we want to get you to your goals.
Several more times per week, we have guests from industry, industry experts that I have
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subscribe and hit the bell. I look forward to seeing you and I look forward to assisting
you in your technology career. Thank you so much. This is Michael Gibbs from Go Cloud
Architects.