There’s this Luke Combs song “Doin’ This” and I was thinking of it as I started to write, because this post kinda came about similarly. In it, Luke is talking about what he’d say if he were asked what he’d be doing, if he wasn’t “Doin’ This”?
After I started as Slalom, I was talking to someone about what a bad student I was in college, but how I loved to learn, that I would love to “get paid to learn.” And the person said, “well you kinda do.” That really stuck with me. The thing about technology that I enjoy is there is always something new to learn, some new product, or way to solve a problem.
In past roles, I’ve wanted to learn, but the company’s cultures didn’t often align with that goal. And learning for yourself can be hard. At Slalom, they have this expression about having a “Learner Mindset,” and when I interviewed I was asked about how comfortable was I in Google and AWS, versus Azure where I spent most of my focus. I said I had some AWS experience, but always wanted to learn more. I felt like it was a challenge, and so I did my best in last year to live up, and have now passed 10 certs in a variety of technologies.
Where Do I Start?
I think the hardest part if you are in technology is to figure out where to start. That was why I stumbled so many times before (look back at my blog on learning Python, I must have taken those classes four+ times). I needed structure.
A couple of caveats to start. I am definitely not advocating for taking cert tests just to take them, and don’t take them without understanding the topics just thinking that will pop for an employer, it will cause you both pain.
However, once you have a subject you are interested in, use a certification for that topic as syllabus to help you structure your learning. They tell what they think is relevant to their technology, their ecosystem, and for job roles. Many of the providers have free trainings on their recommend learnings, some have classes to help get you started or tailored to a specific technology or certification. Use those as a starting place.
Next, time box your learning goal. I often said I wanted to learn X, but never put a date on that goal. If you taking a test, that is an easy goal, schedule the test based on how long you think you need to study, and try to stick to it. If you aren’t taking the test, still set a firm-ish goal date, don’t be unrealistic, but also not so far out that there is not a bit of pressure to learn.
Additionally, put some structure around when you learn. I put a calendar reminder for every day for an hour. I may not always study at that time, but it is always there to keep me on task. If I want to study something in particular, I may change to “Azure study time” to help reinforce this. (Remember when I said I was a bad student, if only I had done this in college.)
Another thing I find helpful is to sign up for free sessions on the topic. Maybe Snowflake has a webinar on new python capability. It encourages you to set aside time to focus on that topic.
The last thing I’d do is use the syllabus you came up with as a starting point, not an end. If you find something that you think sounds interesting, dig into it. You can get on most cloud vendors and get free credit time, go build something that you learned (read how I did that with AWS Lightsail). Reach out to people in that community (I would have used to have said on Twitter, but sadly, that’s diminishing, but there are still good places to go, LinkedIn, Reddit, the vendors). If you are in a town that has Meetups, go on there and look for ones in that area, or there are tons of virtual ones.
Last thing…everyone learns differently, so learn yourself and tailor you methodology to yourself, and give yourself credit for starting the journey.
Let me know if you have suggestions that work for you.
Some tech vendor learning sites:
