Hello Reader,

Happy Holidays! In today's newsletter, I am going to share three tips that helped me and many of my students switch careers to the cloud and get high-paying jobs. I will also share an update about the upcoming January cohort of the AWS SA Bootcamp.

Tip 1: Leverage your IT experience

Your existing IT experience is NOT throwaway. Don't think you can't reuse components of your existing knowledge in your cloud journey. For example, my student Abhisekh has deep knowledge of the telecom domain. He associated his cloud knowledge with telecom use cases. He learned how other telecom companies use AWS, learned the related concepts, and started augmenting his existing knowledge with AWS learnings. And soon, he got a telecom cloud architect position. Another bootcamper, Mughees, came from software engineering background without any SA experience. He showcased how to develop, test, and deploy his code on the cloud. And after he learned the associated AWS components for interviews, he was able to get a cloud architect job with a significant salary hike.

In my case, I worked with SQL databases and COBOL on the mainframe for 10+ years. I learned what SQL databases are available on AWS, the differences between them and DB2 (Mainframe SQL database), how to migrate data, etc. To my surprise, the approach to cost-optimizing DB2 is the same as that of RDS: check utilization, adjust underlying VM sizes, tune queries, and some additional AWS concepts. In the same way, I learned how we can modernize legacy workflows to Step Functions and did projects on that. Because I am not showing these use cases in a vacuum, instead building on top of my existing expertise, it's more appealing to recruiters, and I can handle interview questions better. If you are currently a tech lead who has to influence many team members in a certain direction, you can leverage it for Solutions Architect roles.

I have many such examples from my SA bootcamp, where candidates used their existing experience to switch careers to the cloud.

Tip 2: "Delight" recruiters and interviewers

A lot of you reached out to me and said that recruiters are not picking you. You’ve given multiple interviews, but you’re failing. What are you doing wrong? What it comes down to is that there is so much competition in the market. You have to set yourself apart at every stage. You work hard, and you do a lot of projects, but being good is not enough! You have to prove you’re good to the recruiter and interviewer.

How do you do that? Think about how you can set yourself apart. For example, instead of saying, “I have done cost optimization on AWS,” which is too generic, say, “I saved over 30% in costs quarterly using tools like Compute Optimizer, spot instances, and reserved instances.”

Similarly, for a question like, “Can you tell me about a microservice you’ve designed on AWS?” avoid generic responses like “I used an application load balancer with EC2 auto-scaling.” A better answer could be: “I designed a microservices system with Route 53 directing traffic to a load balancer, using path-based routing to independent, scalable microservices. Each microservice used different technologies and scaling criteria, ensuring flexibility and minimal interdependencies.”

Tip 3: Be focused on a path

In 2021, my friend told me that if I invested in crypto, I'd make money, so I bought a bunch of altcoins. Another friend told me to learn day trading. Another told me that real estate is the only way to become rich. I tried them all at the same time, and nothing worked out. Similarly, sometimes I see when a student comes to me, he has his hands in everything in the fear of FOMO - Gen AI, analytics, data engineering, ML, SRE, AWS. As a result, he succeeds in none. We saw above that to get a job, you need to delight the interviewer. And to delight, you have to go beyond surface-level answers. There are so many people with surface-level knowledge on the market; anyone focusing on one thing is beating the folks trying different things. Pick a path based on your interests, and which augments your existing experience. True story - 10 years back I read hedge fund quants make lot of money, so I tried to become one, and that was wasted 6 months because neither I like advanced ML, nor I was deep enough to crack quant interviews. A person with a passion for a specific domain will always beat someone who is studying different things. And the student I talked about, after he focused on one path, got great job with 50% salary hike!

SA BootCamp Update

I run AWS SA Bootcamp with Live Classes covering Technical, Behavioral, Mock Interviews, 1:1, Hands-On, LinkedIn/Resume Improvement, and more. Past students got high paying jobs including at AWS.

• If you’re interested, I encourage you to attend the webinar on January 4th, 12 Noon EST on my YouTube channel. You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions, learn more about the program, and decide if it’s the right fit for you. I’ll share the webinar link and details in the next email.
• I pride myself on building personal connections with each student, which I believe is key to their success. To maintain this level of engagement, spots will remain limited for the January cohort.
• The program continues to offer a 30-day full money-back guarantee. There are no catches, no questions asked, and no partial refunds. If you feel the program isn’t right for you, you’ll receive your full refund.

Please recharge your batteries this week and enjoy downtime with friends and family. We will be back at it in full force after the holidays. Here is a picture of me being Santa for a holiday party with kids. Happy Holidays 🎄🎅❄

Keep learning and keep rocking 🚀,

Raj