TL;DR I cut my teeth in technology with automation. Built a web app. Now I'm a cloud engineering doing IaC in AWS.Longer version:A few years ago I had some tedious activities at work and wanted to learn how to automate them. This lead me down a self-guided learning path. I initially worked with Visual Basic but quickly switched to Python.After getting a taste for the power and efficiency of code I set my mind on getting into technology/software as a career. In order to train for this I built and deployed a SaaS web app that replaced some analog processes in the company I was at. I did this all on own time and was able to share with my leader, get feedback, and eventually the company scrapped the analog processes in favor of the web app I built. Over three years later that app is still in use and is an essential part of their day-to-day operations.With this accomplishment under my belt, I started applying for cloud engineering jobs and got my first job in the industry. Since then I've gained a high level of proficiency in AWS, designed and improved business critical systems, curated an internal IaC library (Pulumi/typescript), developed a training course and trained 100+ engineers in IaC, and much, much more.
