Cloud Certification Spotlight #5

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👋 Hello, Cloud Learners! It’s always a pleasure to connect with this vibrant community of cloud professionals and aspiring experts. Whether you’re just starting your certification journey or advancing to the next level, we’re here to provide fresh insights, motivation, and practical guidance to help you succeed.

Today, we have a Full Stack Developer from Naples, Italy, sharing his inspiring journey into cloud computing. Without giving too much away, let’s hear from Antonio as he walks us through his path to AWS and Azure certification.

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Personal Background 

Geographical Location:  I’m originally from Naples, Italy, but I’ve been living in England for almost ten years now. I left my home country due to lack of opportunities at the time. The UK feels quite different nowadays compared to when I first arrived, but it allowed me to pursue all sorts of opportunities, so I will always be grateful.

Educational Background: I obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literatures, with focus on English and German, from Naples Eastern University. No formal tech background, apart from tinkering with basic HTML/CSS in the old Internet days.

Family Life: I come from a very working class family. Both my mom and my dad grew up in extremely poor suburbs of Naples and neither of them received an education beyond elementary school. They always stressed how important it was for us to do well in school and get an education, so that we could hopefully avoid what they had to go through. Our house was always filled with books, music etc. We weren’t pushed into a specific field, but the attitude for learning was instilled in us from a young age.

Professional Journey 

Current Role: I currently work as a Full Stack Developer for a small London-based start-up company. I really handle most of the software and IT responsibilities, from writing apps to provisioning and managing our AWS infrastructure.

Career Path: As previously mentioned, I don’t have a formal tech background. For a long time, I didn’t know what I wanted to do and what I was passionate about. My first job was working as a barista and, from then on, I made a point of constantly improving, trusting that my passions and strengths would naturally become clearer over time. I first went on to work in banking and then for pharmaceutical companies. The latter roles were quite digital and data-oriented. I particularly liked automating things and realised I wanted more of that.

I started learning programming in my spare time, using platforms like freeCodeCamp.org and creating small projects. In 2021, I enrolled in the School of Code online bootcamp and in 2022 I got my first tech role. During my studies, I was naturally introduced to cloud and started pursuing AWS certifications, earning my Cloud Practitioner cert before I got the role.

Professional Level: I guess I could probably call myself a mid-level now. I work very much independently and I’m completely responsible for the IT/Software Development side of things. This allows me to get a lot of practical experience and pushes me to learn new things.

Outside Interests 

Hobbies and Passions: I love working out and I’ve been playing guitar for a very long time. Both these passions taught me the value of developing a structured and consistent schedule, to be disciplined and to keep the focus on the goal ahead even when it seemed I was making little progress. All these qualities came in very hand (and still do) when learning tech and cloud.

Community Involvement: As for tech-related things, I sometimes mentor learners on the platform Exercism.org. It’s great to help newcomers develop important habits like writing clear and coherent code and breaking down problems effectively. It’s helped me develop my empathy and tactfulness, being able to put myself in other people’s shoes. It’s very enriching to learn how to deal with students’ different personalities.

Apart from that, I’m a registered Digital Search Hero with the Missing People charity, but I hope to increase my involvement with them in the near future. Hopefully helping them with the tech-side of their operations.

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Learning and Development 

Learning Techniques: I try to mix things up as much as possible: hands-on labs, side projects, reading blogs and documentation, online courses, flashcards. Practice is always king. Building actual projects and referring back to the docs will build your skills quickly. Courses can be an excellent introduction, flashcards will help where some rote memorisation is required.

I find ANKI very useful for flashcards, but Quizlet is also good. For learning materials, these days there’s so much good stuff available. Courses like those from Stephane Maarek, Adrian Cantrill, Neal Davies or the exams from Tutorials Dojo are excellent sources.

Passion Projects: I don’t have a big personal project I’m working on at the moment, as work absorbs most of my time and provides plenty of opportunity for practical learning. Some time ago, I started the Cloud Resume Challenge and completed the first part of it. It was quite helpful and I would highly recommend it to those taking their first steps in the world of Cloud computing.

Cloud Certification Pursuits 

Motivation for Certification: When I started transitioning into tech, it became immediately apparent how this was an incredibly vast world that you could get lost into quite easily. Certifications provided a way to follow a structured path that made things easier to absorb, while enhancing my credentials in the process. I immediately started working on the AWS Cloud Practitioner, but over time I also earned some CompTIA ones.

Specific Certifications: Over time, I’ve managed to earn all of the AWS Associate certifications. I don’t quite feel ready for the Professional or Specialty ones, so I’ve decided to tackle Microsoft Azure in my effort to become Multi-Cloud and broaden my skill-set. I’m starting from the AZ-900 and hope to progress to Azure Administrator. I want to be confident architecting and developing solutions on all the major cloud platforms.

Study Resources: For AWS exams, I’ve mainly used Adrian Cantrill, Stephane Maarek, Neal Davis and Tutorials Dojo, to varying degrees. I’ve helped myself with flashcards where required, using Anki.

I generally study a course and take notes. I created flashcards from notes and start reviewing, while also taking practice exams. I identify areas where I’m weak and will either review them using the same course or a different one. Hearing the same concept explained from different people helps me understand it better. Once I’m scoring 85-90% in practice exams and confidently answering flashcards, I book the exam. It’s been working quite well so far.

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Experiences and Insights 

Certification Journey: I’ve obtained all the AWS Associate certifications and also the CompTIA Cloud Essentials. None of them were mandatory for my role, but they’ve all been extremely helpful in increasing my knowledge and enhancing my credentials, resulting in promotions and salary bumps.

It’s quite challenging to prepare for an exam while studying full time, keeping hobbies and trying to have a social life in the process, but I’m a firm believer that it’s all doable if you structure your day wisely and realistically. You won’t always be able to do everything every day, you will have to set priorities and sacrifice or put certain things on hold. A little bit each day is better than doing ten hours once a week.

Helpful Strategies: Flashcards and practice exams have made all the difference for me. That is, beside hands-on practice, which should be obvious.

Other Advice: Lofty goals (e.g., “from zero to certified in one month”) are great, but make sure they don’t hinder you rather than helping you. We all have lives to live and sometimes dedicating a lot of time to your studies won’t be a realistic goal. Instead you might be able to only do half an hour per day or every other day. That’s still fine! Comparing yourself to other people, who usually live very different circumstances from yours, is rarely helpful. You have to make the best out of YOUR situation. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Future Aspirations 

Post-Certification Plans: My current plan is to keep on learning, gaining more certifications and applying what I learn in my role. Aiming for higher salaries is definitely on the list, but so is absorbing more responsibilities which will allow me to grow more as a person and professional. I wouldn’t mind working on some personal projects as well, but that will depend on any spare time left.

Long-Term Goals: The world is changing so rapidly that it’s become really difficult to predict what is going to happen six months from now, let alone five to ten years. I see myself as a much more competent professional in a more leading role, hopefully with a team of Juniors and/or Mid-level I can mentor and support in their growth. Cloud and certifications will always be an integral part in all of this and will help keep my knowledge strong and up to date. I hope to also have contributed to open-source a lot more than I have so far.

Additional Thoughts 

Community Impact: The Learn Azure/Learn AWS community has been quite helpful in helping me getting a better perspective on other people’s, and my own, careers and on what’s happening in the industry. As the world changes ever more rapidly, it’s difficult to keep an eye on what really matters in our industry. How to distinguish between an important development and the latest fad? Communities like can help with that. Separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak!

Feedback: As others have said before me, continuous learning is truly paramount. Gone are the days when you could learn one thing and do it the same way for the rest of your life. Our lives ten or fifteen years from now are probably going to be quite different.

It’s important to be up to date with learning platforms and material. Anything that can optimise our growth.

That was great, thanks Antonio. Another inspiring spotlight to certification (and learning)!

We’re looking for more inspiring certification journeys like Antonio’s to feature in our spotlight series this March and beyond! If you’d like to share your story and inspire our community, simply reply to this email. We’ll provide you with a simple template to guide you through the process. Your experiences make a huge difference, and the feedback from our readers has been incredibly positive!

Until next week, keep learning and building.

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