Are you looking to build a great cloud computing career? Don't get 10x AWS certified
Hi, my name is Michael Gibbs, and I'm the founder and CEO of GoCloud Architects. And
we're an organization dedicated to bundling high-performance cloud computing and networking
careers. Personally, 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 two decades now.
And it's the best feeling in the world when someone calls you and says, "I've got my first
cloud architect job, or my first network engineer job." Best feeling in the world.
And today, we're going to talk about the four reasons why getting 10x AWS certified will
damage your career. The first reason we'll talk about is the expert versus the generalist
salary. The next thing we're going to talk about is your professional brand. After that,
we're going to talk about what hiring managers and recruiters feel about, so you can get
cloud architect hired or cloud engineer hired. And then we're going to talk about the opportunity
cost of learning the wrong things.
To begin, let's talk about experts versus generalists when it comes to salary. Whether
you're in medicine or whether you're in tech, experts get paid more. Experts rise faster,
they get promoted faster, and they get paid more. When you build this generalist brand,
which is like a Jack of all trades and a master of none, no employer has confidence in you.
Because employers know that it takes a long time to build this kind of knowledge. It's
not something you can do in a year or two. In fact, it takes 10,000 hours to be an expert
at anything minimum.
For example, I spent 10,000 hours working in just BGP. Just the routing protocol. Just
BGP. You know what? After 10,000 hours, I was good at BGP. And you know what? Employers
were willing to pay me pretty much anything to be able to figure out their internet routing
architectures, or connect to multiple, multiple organizations, and do it in a safe and secure
manner because I had a skill. I want you to be experts. I want you to be great at something.
Find something you love. My recommendation is be the best you can be in that. Learn about
it, be great at it, communicate about it, and then build a brand about it. And that's
what we're going to talk about in a minute. Building that perfect brand.
But remember, Jack of all trades and a master of none is good for a small business, because
you're wearing a lot of hats. But in these bigger organizations that have the ability
to pay you more, we're going to have much more career progression. Being a Jack of all
trades and a master of none is sabotage for your career. It will result in less opportunity
and lower pay, so we don't want to see you get 10x AWS certified. We want to see you
build an expert brand.
Now, let's talk about an expert brand. An expert brand is someone that is capable of
solving customer's problems. Someone that the entire industry says, "Wow, I need this
person on my team." And it doesn't matter of your area of expertise. It could be big
data. It could be machine learning. It could be data science. It could be cloud architecture.
It could be cloud engineering. It could be DevOps. They're all really great careers.
But be great at your career, not somebody else's.
I want you to look at this. I've got a person. I've got 10x AWS certified. They know Alexa,
and they know the maintenance world which [inaudible 00:03:19]. They're developers.
They're database people. They're doing these automation of software release cycles, DevOps.
Now, is that person going to be able to sit in front of the CEO of a 50,000, or a hundred
billion dollar company, or a trillion dollar company, and be able to say, "I can solve
your cloud security problems?" Of course not, because they don't know enough about security.
Those organizations need people that have deep, deep, deep knowledge in security, and
the cloud, and cloud security. That is a specialty. There's lots of specialties, but that's the
brand.
My brand was very simple. I've had two brands in my career. One of my brands was the routing
and switching guy. I have ICCIE, I have two master's degrees, and I did nothing other
than routing and switching for many years. And I worked for these great tech companies
such as Comcast, and MTO, which is now Verizon. And I worked on Wall Street designing networks
for bags. I had that, and then I've consulted to all the internet service providers, and
most of them spread throughout the world in some way, shape, or form.
I had an expert brand for routing. And you know what? A couple of years later in my career,
I built a different expert brand. I built a healthcare architecture brand, where I would
design end-to-end systems for the world's largest health organizations and governments.
Why would I be able to build that brand here with my brand? I'm a nurse practitioner with
a master's degree in nursing. I've practiced internal medicine. I've worked as a nurse
prior to that. I was an EMT paramedic prior to that, and ... oh, wait. I'm a CCIE. I'm
a Google professional cloud architect. And of course, I'm AWS certified as well.
But the point is that everything that I have is focused is on healthcare, or it's focused
on building, designing the infrastructure component of what's needed for healthcare.
So, that's my brand. And because of that, people request me to travel every day of the
week. I used to travel 300,000 miles a year plus just consulting on this, as well as reviewing
designs and architecture from the world. Build an expert brand, you get paid more. And guess
what? When you have an expert brand, the person's like, "I need you." They're going to go out
there, and they're going to call you. You're going to hear from recruiters almost every
day when you're an expert. The world needs you. That's when you know you've built your
right brand.
Now, let's talk about the next problem that's associated with having all these funny little
certifications that are totally unrelated to each other on your resume. When you meet
with the hiring manager, they're going to look at your resume. And if it looks like
you're washing dishes, walking dogs, doing nails, doing hair, and ... oh, by the way,
you're a cloud architect? It's not going to look so good. Now, if you did work in that
in the past and then build a cloud architecture career, that's going to look fine. But the
point is is I don't go to a cardiologist to work on my heart when the cardiologist didn't
work on the heart. They studied eyes, ears, nose, and throat. I go to somebody for the
heart.
When you've got all this stuff on your resume ... The hiring manager looks at this resume
and says, "Huh, Sysops maintenance, DevOps automating software release cycle developer.
Hmm. There's no architect here. There's no cloud architect. There's no cloud engineer
here. We've got all those other skills." What happens is the hiring manager looks at it
and tosses the resume aside. The recruiter looks at it and tosses the resume aside. Now,
there are certain times where a bunch of certifications are good. There are certain managed service
providers and consulting companies that like to show you've got a lot of certifications.
But still, get them exactly in your career. Not someone else's career.
Let's look at this. Let's say you've got someone that wants to be a cloud infrastructure architect,
and they're a Cisco certified internet expert. And they're an AWS certified solution architect
professional. Look at that. It's only two certifications. But look at that. You've got
the world's strongest networking certification in CCIE, and you've either got a Google professional
cloud architect, or an AWS certified solution architect professional, or an Azure expert.
One of those three that shows you know the cloud. Because these exams basically show
you have somewhat of a competency on the cloud.
But if you combine that and you combine them up with the CCIE, look at the brand. Now you've
got an expert brand. Heck, add an MBA to that brand. Now, you've got the business acumen
for the enterprise architecture or the high-end architecture jobs. Don't want to get the MBA?
That's okay. Do a TOGAF. Do a CCIE, and the certified solution architect professional
... again, an expert architect or designer brand. Build the brand for your career. Not
somebody else's career. Don't create brand confusion.
Now, the last thing I want to talk about is opportunity cost. For those of us in business,
we always evaluate, "If I spend my money here, I can't spend it here." Because money is a
finite resource. You know what the most precious resource of all is? It's time. If you spend
a year learning everybody else's job other than your job, two things happen. One is you're
not going to get hired for your job because you won't have this skill. Let's say we're
talking about cloud architects, because that's our world. The average cloud architect in
the U.S. earns about $600 a day. A good one can easily earn double that if they've got
great emotional intelligence, business acumen, and communication skills on some experience.
If it's costing someone $600 or about $155,000 a year to learn the wrong things, that's an
expense. Now, if you learn the right things, look what could have happened to your career.
You could have been hired already, so you've earned more money. But it's not just that.
As you want to build your expert brand and make your career rise like a rocket ship,
you got to be great. And if your time's wasted on all the things that are not related to
your job, you won't be great at your job, you won't get promoted, your salary won't
go up, and your career won't do this. It's going to level off at best. Don't be that.
Be the expert. Be the best in the room. And you can only do that by focusing on one thing.
So, how do you build a great tech [inaudible 00:09:05]? First, find your focus. Pick something
you absolutely love, and be the best you can. Try to be the best in the world at it. Be
great at it. Then make sure everything you study is focused on that. I say this again.
Everything you study is focused on that. See, if you want to be a cloud architect like me
... I'm not a coder. I'm an architect. I don't code. I'm not going to learn Python scripting.
I'm a designer. Designers don't code. I'm not going to learn DevOps, and I think DevOps
is an amazing career. But I'm an architect. I'm not doing software release cycles, so
I'm not going to study that. But I'm going to study architecture. I would study the network.
I would study the data center. I would study the cloud services, how the cloud works. I'd
be building clouds. That's an expert brand. Be great at it.
Then optimize your soft skills. There's nothing that will affect your career more than soft
skills after technical competency, so go work on it. Make sure you communicate well, build
the right attitude, energy, enthusiasm, passion, and love for what you're doing. Nothing will
help your career more than that. Emotional intelligence, by the way, is the best predictor
of long-term career success. So, focus on training that. Focus on sales skills, presentation
skills, business acumen. Become an expert at your tech, and then add the business components,
add the communications components, and become a thought leader in the industry. Shape the
world. Shape the industry. That's why you're building an expert brand. That's why experts
get paid so much more and experts are respected so much more, because they are an expert in
a small area. So, go be an expert.
Don't wander around. Don't waste your time, your effort, and your money learning a million
and one unrelated things. Learn to be an expert. Be great at everything you do. Be one of the
best out there at what you do. Put all your love, passion, and focus to achieving what
you want to achieve, and build that career of your dreams. I promise you if you put all
your time, all your effort, and all your focus into being the best at something, you'll be
great at it. And you'll reap wonderful, wonderful rewards and have a wonderful career. This
is Michael Gibbs. I'm the founder and CEO of GoCloud Architects, and I've been working
in this area for over 25 years. And it's my privilege to come share my knowledge with
you to help create the next generation of technology leaders. I look forward to seeing
you in another video. 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 the industry. Industry experts that I've
known for decades that are movers and shakers that have changed the world that can give
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live, because we want you to all have the best skills for the best career. So, please
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 GoCloud Architects.