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From the US Marines to AWS: A DevOps Career

Post author By Mindquest
Post date 24th September 2021
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From US Marines to AWS, a DevOps Career. Jake Furlong is a Technical Lab Developer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) and a self-taught DevOps expert, Site Reliability Engineer and cloud architect. He tells us how he went from being in the US Marine Corps to DevOps Career and to becoming an all-around DevOps specialist. And shares DevOps career tips and insights.

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Interested in DataOps? Learn more about a career in data science.

You spent several years with the US Marines and your educational background is in business. How did you transition into tech and devops career?

I got out of the US Marine Corps and, honestly, I just took the first job that I could find. I started training new employees on how to use an Avaya telecom system; which I myself had no idea what that was. I did that for a few months and then they moved me into another role; as director of admissions systems and analytics. I had access to some free courses. So I took calculus and some computer architecture classes because that was kind of was interested in.

Then I stumbled across a CompTIA certification road map online and picked up an A+ book. I started reading through that and I stumbled across a book called Automate The Boring Stuff and started learning some Python. And most of my job was done through CRM and a lot of Excel, a lot of functions. I just started converting it to Python to automate my job and then I automated my friends’ jobs. And before you know it, it was all just running Python.

And I was talking about it while playing World of Warcraft, of all things. I had a friend in my WoW guild who worked for an SAP company and said “hey, we’re hiring if you want to switch into tech”. I talked to my family about doing a complete and total career switch.

The interview went horrible, but they were very very nice. I was willing to learn and they had seen how much I had learned in such a short time at my previous job and gave me a chance. I got an offer and that was the beginning.

You have quite a portfolio of certifications. Is that how you learned the most?

As I said, I read through that A+ book, but mostly for the knowledge. Based on what I wanted to do in IT, I didn’t really want a hardware-related certification. Because I think that, for hiring managers, sometimes it’s easy to misconstrue a person’s skills based on what certifications they have. So I wanted to make sure I was marketing myself in a way I thought was relevant for the things that I wanted to do.

That’s when I found AWS and I kind of looked at the state of IT at the time and figured that cloud was really the way forward. I got AWS certified and then my company was getting really hands-on with GCP. So I got GCP certified and all of that was through free online courses and a paid Linux Academy subscription. I thought about getting an IT degree but it was just too expensive and there wasn’t enough hands-on. It was mostly theory. So I kind of took the theory from the books that I had, and then once I found Linux Academy, I just did every course.

Anything operating systems, Windows, Linux, database programming, web stuff, web development, cloud — whatever I could find. Then I found a site called Open Source Society University, and they have a GitHub page that basically gives you a list of courses from edX, Coursera or other free online tools that teach you the equivalent of a computer science degree.

That was very, very helpful. Then I just took that information and volunteered for every project at work. I took any ticket and tried to automate it, stuff like that. And the whole time, I was told that certs aren’t important to all the people that I worked with. But I think that hiring managers and HR might disagree. And let’s be honest, it’s kind of hard to get jobs without proving you have the knowledge and.

Since I don’t have a degree in anything technology related, I felt I needed to kind of differentiate myself a little bit. So I got those to kind of compensate for not having a degree.

What’s your opinion on free courses vs bootcamps or official certifications?

I always go with free stuff or at least like the inexpensive Udemy sales. I think bootcamps are great for entry-level, but they don’t really allow you to work past that and most of the content online will get you through the basics. Try to solve a problem or find a problem to solve and really get your hands dirty with development or cloud engineering.

Certs are fine if you need them for a specific position or career goal. But I wouldn’t do one to learn. I might take the study guide and use that, but I think certs are a huge market and there’s a lot of money to be made from people that are looking to get certified.

I honestly just went to a lot of meetups. And I pretty much changed my podcasts to tech podcasts and just listened to those all the time.

I also focused on vendor documentation as opposed to online learning. Whether that’s the Kubernetes administrator guides or AWS or GCP documentation. Because you’re getting it straight from the horse’s mouth, and, as a musician (I studied jazz) we always go back to who was the original musician and study their technique and their ideas. So I kind of took the same approach to tech. Where did JavaScript come from? Where did Python come from? And try to study the root of where that came from.

How was the experience of being with the Marines. What’s your biggest takeaway from your time with them?

I had a great time in the Marine corps. Believe it or not, I thought it was a lot of fun.

My biggest takeaway was really about how to work on a team. As much as there’s a lot of technical things I learned and things like that.

There’s just something about being humble and being a life-long learner and always striving to be better. About knowing your weaknesses and seeking self-improvement and being self-reliant and self-disciplined.

In tech, you have to because nobody is going to force you to hone your skills or learn a new programming language or how to administer Docker containers. You know, just that whole self-reliant aspect of being a continuous learner.

You design and implement technical labs, which are training programs for AWS customers. What does that involve?

I work on the training and curriculum team, and we deliver content to our AWS customers. We have an awesome team.

I work with them to help build and design labs and lab instructions. So, if you were to go to AWS, and want to take a course to learn how to be an architect, for example, we have designers and curriculum developers, architects, managers and product managers that we worked together with to formulate a plan to build a course.

And my job day-to-day is to go through and support them so that, when they get to the hands-on portion, that a student can click start lab and that everything underneath the hood is provisioned and ready, works every time, and is repeatable across multiple devices or operating systems. I also ensure that the lab instructions are clear and easy to understand, from people who may have a lot of experience to people for whom this is their first time working with the cloud.

So it’s a technical role, but there’s a lot of human aspect to it. Understanding how people learn and how people learn technology – as a person who is basically self-taught, I use that a lot in this role.

First in DevOps career, now DataOps. The DevOps philosophy seems to be permeating all areas of IT. What do you think is the success behind this way of thinking? What will be the next “Ops”?

I will start by saying that I don’t think DevOps is a real thing. As a community, we can’t even agree on what it is. We’ve been doing this since the 70s, the 80s? Really since the 60s. With Deming, and all of the work he did toward continuous improvement, total quality management, things like that.

And I think what we’re going to see is that we’ll revisit value stream mapping. How can we best automate and streamline value stream maps. Right now, we’re automating everything, and it’s all about pipelines and getting the developers close.

I think that’ll be short lived. We should have always been doing that, and I think connecting development to automation and ops problems is good. I think DevOps, the core of it, we want the developer problems and ops problems to kind of be the same problems, right? Where ops informs development workflows.

Developers use that workflow to produce either new tools or better tools, or even more consistent infrastructure. But sometimes ops doesn’t want things to change. And, as somebody who’s worked in the ops world, I totally respect that and I completely understand. As somebody who’s worked on the devish side of DevOps, I understand needing to get new versions of things out and upgrading things and patching things so that there’s a balance between it.

But I think what we’re really going to see is that, as you get to DataOps and really anything that needs to inform ops, is that everything is going to be data-driven. But it’s going to have to be value streamed.

So, what is the most important? What do you get the most benefit from as far as value? How much money are we really making or saving by approving X project or making Y operations a department priority?

I think, eventually, and once you start finding an efficient way and accurate way to attach dollars or time to these things, you may have some time and value attached to them as it pertains to the business and not just how many commits you made last month or something

DevOps career: What’s the day-to-day of a DevOps team like

A lot of it is requests for automation, declarative infrastructure, tons of monitoring, moving into containerization or modernizing orchestration tools, stuff like that.

I think a lot of it is also developer advocacy and just DevOps evangelism. Because it’s been around for a while, but it’s still relatively new. It hasn’t really permeated all the cultures yet. So, while a lot of people have a DevOps team, the cultural side I think needs a lot of work. So a lot of time is spent explaining why we’re doing this.

It sounds like the value is obvious, but it still takes up a lot of time to describe why we need resources, why we need time, why we should be doing certain projects.

A lot of the time is spent researching new tech, building up labs on your workstation or in the cloud somewhere, and testing a deployment meeting with ops teams to discuss their pain points.

And then, of course, all the pipeline things, so it’s a very collaborative job. You’re not going to see a DevOps person in a silo.

On a given day, you never know what you’re going to do. But it’s always going to be automating something or fixing something or updating something or monitoring something, justifying what it is that you’re doing.

What’s the best career advice you have ever been given?

Ironically, it actually came from a conductor of a music organization. He said “find something you love and do that because, no matter what you do or where you go, you’ll always be doing something that you enjoy.

Just do what you know is right and provide value to everyone around you and don’t worry too much about certifications. If you have the knowledge, it will all come together.

Just always be learning.

For more tips about DevOps career, make sure to follow Jake on LinkedIn.

Check out more of our interviews in our podcast episodes.

Tags AWS, behind the screens, DevOps, interview, jake furlong, podcast

About us Podcast Interviews

Being a Buoy and Other SAP Project Management and Career Tips

Post author By Mindquest
Post date 18th September 2021
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Sap project management tips — John Micale, Customer Experience Account Manager at oXya, shares tips for efficient SAP project management SAP career advancement.

SAP project management expert John Micale is Customer Experience Account Manager at oXya, a Hitachi Group company delivering leading SAP run management, consulting and cloud hosting services.

John is tasked with ensuring that a consistent, high-quality service is provided to all of the company’s customers, overseeing client relationships, project management and business development.

He tells us about his career beginnings and shares tips for efficient SAP project management and career advancement.

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Interested in SAP careers and SAP project management? You might also enjoy this interview about another possible career path for an SAP consultant.

How did you get started in tech? How did you start working at oXya?

I’ve been using computers, playing video games and using technology since I was a kid. When it was time to choose a university, I decided to pick one that specialized in engineering and technology. I earned my degree in computer engineering, and that kind of led me on to this track of IT and how I wound up at oXya. And it’s kind of a funny story.

When I was in school, I was looking for a job in my last year. I was doing interviews and did an interview with oXya. I had no idea who they were or what SAP and Basis were, but they were really compelling, and they said that they could teach me.

I actually got a job offer from them. But I still had one semester of schooling left, so I couldn’t take the job. But they said “try again in the springtime. And so, I applied for the job again in the spring and they hired me. I really appreciated that opportunity from them.

What are the advantages of working at a specialist consultancy or service management company like oXya, as opposed to working in-house for a sole company?

Number one is definitely diversity in experiences. So, having the exposure to different industries, different customers using different products. You gain a lifetime’s worth or even multiple lifetimes worth of experience and background in just a few years. And I think that was incredible for me and for many of my colleagues working at oXya.

Number two is diversity in projects and technologies. So, touching every kind of operating system and version, every kind of database product, every kind of SAP product. Many companies say “OK, I’m going to use ECC, or I’m going to use Linux.” And that’s it. That’s the decision they made and maybe, every 10 years, they change products and you’re stuck with the same thing. Having that diversity keeps you sharp.

Another thing is that clients who typically use SAP are large and very corporate customers. And, if you are working with them, you’re automatically included in a very corporate environment. Being part of a smaller company like oXya, we have more of a startup-like vibe. So you kind of get the best of both worlds. You get smaller teams and a tighter community, and you move more rapidly, but you can still support this product, SAP, which is this huge corporate tool.

What about the challenges?

The learning curve is really steep. For example, I didn’t know what SAP was, or I didn’t have a lot of strength in database technologies, and to take all of that in at once is quite a lot. If you stick with it, you can catch up at some point, but the learning curve is really steep.

And the projects don’t ever end. That can be a good thing too, that can be in the good category. It depends on what kind of personality you have, but there’s no respite. You are working for a big corp, and they have this upgrade project that lasts two years. And then that’s it for them for a while, whereas, on our side, we’re doing a new project every three months, and it hasn’t stopped in 10 years for me.

After two years in a technical position, you transitioned into a more managerial role. What advice would you give to other specialists looking to take that step?

Being a manager is a job. It’s not just an extra task that you have to do. It took me a long time to realize that, and I see that mistake happen often with new managers. To do it correctly, you have to prioritize that role. It’s not just about having to approve someone’s time off or something like that. The investment in training and people is a full job. If you’re mixing this job as a manager with your technical job, for example, that’s often a recipe for disaster where you choose one priority over another and one of those two will suffer.

Internal company relationships are really important too. That’s an important part of being a manager. It’s not about being a brown-noser or saying nice things to your boss. But management roles are based on trust and execution. There’s not a binary output most of the time, so you have to be a reliable person, and you have to make sure that you are sharing your reliability and your credibility with your managers and with your team.

What are the keys to effective SAP project management?

Understanding the project. I think that’s like the number one. It sounds like a silly thing to say, but I think often folks come in and they say “OK, here’s a project and I’m going to follow a checklist.” But you have to really understand why. Why are we doing this project? What is the real purpose?

Normally there’s a CIO or CFO at some company who has to make some decision, and that trickles down eventually to many projects. And, if you’re not aware of the big picture, then you might not really understand what kind of impact you’re trying to make. So first, you really need to understand the project.

Secondly, coordination in SAP project management is incredibly important, the synergy. And not just internally with your teams and your company, but with your customers or with their third parties. Every customer now has 5-10 vendors, and there’s an expectation that vendors can work together, that there can be synergies and there is not a weak link.

Also, keeping commitments is really important for project management. Everything is essentially a stack of dominoes. If you miss a target, that’s going to affect the whole project. And that doesn’t build trust and or credibility. So, if you’re making commitments, they have to be realistic and you have to keep those commitments. Everything else falls right into place once you meet that.

The deadline to migrate to S/4HANA is rapidly approaching. What do you see as the biggest challenges for a smooth transition?

It all starts with a kind of a legacy mindset. Most customers that are on ECC today say “it’s been working this way for 10 years, 15,20 years. Why do we need to change it?” They say “they will move the goalposts again. Why do we need to make this transformation?”

But the web of external interfaces that connect to ECC makes any concept of transformation really challenging for most customers, especially these really legacy customers. S/4HANA is designed to solve that problem. It’s designed to eliminate the complexity, simplify the code base, simplify the connectivity to it, and kind of futureproof SAP customers from that kind of problem in the future. But making that transformation is still really painful and usually very expensive.

I think the value proposition is really what isn’t obvious for most customers. If you can communicate the future state of the company, not what it will look like in one year or two years after some migration or upgrade, but what it’s going to look like in 5, 10, 15 years; if you can make them see how S/4HANA or cloud-based tools can reimagine their supply chain or things like that, I think that’s when they have the a-ha moment.

It’s not about taking your car and just changing the tires. It’s about turning it electric. It’s a total redesign of the whole concept.

What’s the best career advice you have ever been given?

I would say I had two great career advices. One was to stay humble and have humility with your peers, have humility with your customers. If you’re scoring all the time, it feels good to think that you’re a champ and everything goes right. But then you’re exposing yourself to vulnerabilities or blind spots. So, stay humble. Wins are wins, which is great, but sometimes you need to have an open perspective.

And the second best advice I have been given is: be a buoy. What do I mean by that? Like a buoy in the ocean. Sometimes you want to just be like a Godzilla and knock stuff around and shake things up, especially when things aren’t going well. But, almost all the time, people are looking for stability. They’re looking for reliability, accountability. And, I’ve realized over the years that people will flock to you naturally if you’re stable, if you’re consistent. So be a buoy like in the ocean.

Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

I want to help radically change what customers experience from SAP outsourcing. That’s like a super bold claim, but I think that outsourcing as a concept has always had a bad rep. And I think that a partner can be more empathetic, less transactional. We can be an equal in their organization and be a real partner.

And I’m seeing with my customers that, when they’re treated this way, we get a different experience. They treat us like people, they treat us like partners. They even have more flexibility with us, which says a lot. They don’t have to give us any kind of flexibility, but they do it.

So, I would really like to make that kind of change, and I really want to help train others in this kind of methodology.I want our industry to be more empathetic and more partner-focused. In the real sense. Not in the corny corporate sense, but in a real in a real sense. To really make a difference. Because, otherwise, what are we doing?

For more tips on SAP project management, careers and consulting, make sure to follow John on LinkedIn.

You can also explore our S/4HANA careers guide for a comprehensive overview of how to embark on this promising career journey.

Check out more of our interviews in our podcast episodes.

Tags behind the screens, career advancement, customer experience, John Micale, oxya, S/4HANA, SAP careers, sap cloud, sap consultant, sap project management

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Reskilling From Auto Body Mechanic to Web Integrator

Post author By Mindquest
Post date 10th September 2021
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My name is Thomas Mercier, alias “TomCodeur” on Youtube, and I am 24 years old. Almost a year ago, I began a reskilling journey to become a web integrator/web designer.

Looking to transition into web development? Check out the story of how a stay-at-home-mom became a full-time developer.

We are at the end of October. It is a little after 4 p.m., and I am in the office of my employer’s accountant in order to finally sign the termination of my contract.

I say “finally” because this transitional moment had been hard to accomplish. To undergo this reskilling, I had to find a way to finance my training.

My plan was simple: call on Fongecif, an organization accessible to employees wishing to retrain without having to terminate their employment contract.

Rather attractive, isn’t it?

Yes, except that I never managed to benefit from it. And I wasted over a year trying to put together cases that were all turned down.

So, I decided to change my plan and discuss it with my employer. Luckily, my boss was understanding and offered me a mutually agreed departure. The advantage? It provides access to aid for getting back to work, which includes financing for training.

Well, there was still an important step left:

Convincing the French governmental employment agency Pôle emploi of the seriousness of my reskilling project and show that this decision was not taken on a whim.

I told you that I wasted a year before starting my training. In reality, it was not completely the case: during this year, I took the time to inform myself and I discovered multiple web development training courses within the Haut-de-France region.

This research greatly helped me when I had to demonstrate to my government unemployment advisor that I was highly motivated and determined to carry out this project.

During this “lost” year, I also completed a few self-taught development projects. They were greatly appreciated by my advisor and it really made a difference.

My effort and serious commitment paid off in the end. My financing request has been accepted.

So, here I am in the accountant’s office. All the documents have been signed, the withdrawal period has passed and my month’s notice is over. I am finally leaving my company and my current position, on the way to developer training!

Want to know what happened next?

In the three months after I graduated from Pop School, a 6-month boot camp to become a Web & Mobile Web Developer, I had five interviews. Out of those five interviews, I received two offers. This proves that there is work for the reskilled profiles.

(Discover How to Prepare for an IT Job Interview)

So, what do I take away from this whole story? Reskilling cannot be done overnight. It takes a long time, a time in which we doubt and we are afraid of failure. But it is all well worth the effort.

You just have to believe in it and don’t let go!

If I had to give four tips to someone who, like me, to completely change their career and start working as a developer, I would say:

1. Prepare to learn: your brain will be your best friend in this new adventure. So help it receive all the information you are going to feed it.

2. Set up a routine that suits your lifestyle.

3. Eliminate all distractions: organisational tools and lo-fi music … give yourself every chance to stay focused and be productive.

4. Test your future job: you must ask yourself if it is possible … but know that there are different ways to do it and that this initiative will teach you a lot about your future job.

The final word? Stay motivated and don’t give up!

For more advice on how to get started in your web developer career or transition into development, make sure to follow Thomas on YouTube and through his website.

Join our community and find your next job or expert in IT

Tags behind the screens, career change, career tips, interview, reskilling, web integrator

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How To Learn Python With Rune

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 3rd September 2021

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Rune of Learn Python With Rune tells us about his career story and how one should go about mastering this powerful programming language.

Rune holds a PhD in Computer Science and works as a freelance Python consultant specialising in big data and back-end development. When the pandemic hit, he kickstarted the learning platform Learn Python With Rune to teach others how to learn Python and apply it. He tells us about his career story & how to learn Python, how one should go about mastering this powerful programming language.

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You might also enjoy this interview on how to code well.

How did you go from doing a PhD to working in tech?

Back in the days when I started university, I actually didn’t think of doing a PhD in the first place. I was just starting but I thought learning is awesome, so I immediately decided I wanted to get a PhD.

But while I was studying for my PhD, I realised it wasn’t really for me because it wasn’t really deeply about science. It’s more about publishing papers and getting funding to continue your career.

So after I finished my PhD, I started as a developer mainly in the security area (I’ve been working a lot in the security business.) I realised that the one thing that I liked was getting things done, getting projects done. So, I slowly became also a manager type person and worked a few years as a manager. Then I continued working in a SaaS company as an engineering manager for architecture and back-end teams and stuff like that.

But then you went back to development. How is that? When did you decide to kickstart Learn Python With Rune?

I realised I missed programming a lot, and that’s actually where my journey with Learn Python With Rune started.

I wanted to learn programming again. As a manager, you slowly lose touch with programming because you’re not really doing any professional code anymore. And I kind of missed that.

So, a bit more than a year ago, I got the idea. It was actually when the coronavirus pandemic started. I had more time and was working from home, and I was like “I want to program again.” So, I started this small project. I started producing small projects, publishing them on a web page, and one thing led to another. And it just escalated.

Now, I work as a freelance consultant and they hire me and I do programming again in a freelance manner. And the reason I like that is because you kind of get more freedom. So, if you want to have some vacation, you just do it. It’s more freedom.

Why Python? What makes Python so great?

I had to start somewhere, right? I hadn’t been programming that much in Python professionally, but I’ had been programming in C a lot. C is a really low-level programming language and it’s very effective, but you can make so many errors, pointers and stuff like that. It’s just a pain when you don’t know much because you can just do what a processor can do.

But Python is abstracted away. And what happened with Python over the last maybe 10 years is that it has so many libraries. So you can do everything efficiently. It has been developed a lot, for instance, in data science and big data and stuff like that (I myself work with Python in the big data and back-end side of things.) And you can do all this processing now because you have the libraries that can do all the heavy work, but you just manage it in Python code so it can get beautiful.

It’s easy to understand, It’s readable. It’s almost super code. That’s the main reason I love Python. But there are also some things that I’m not so fond of.

Like what? What is Python not so great at?

It does hide some of the things away, some of the objects and how they are represented. When you are programming in C you know everything exactly on a byte level. In Python, it’s kind of hidden away.

And I see a lot of beginners having a hard time and struggling with what an object is and what object-oriented programming is, for instance. Because we say that, in Python, everything is an object, but really, is it?. I don’t know. It depends on the implementation. And then they confuse object-oriented programming on top of that.

So, I think it does a really good job, but there are some areas that are not easy to understand in Python. But the pain you get from that is way less than the efficiency and productivity you can get from writing code in Python.

How should one learn Python? What are your main pieces of advice?

Nowadays it’s difficult to start actually, in some sense, because there’s so much information out there. So my first advice is to ask yourself: what is it that you want to achieve with Python? What is it that you want to learn? What is it you want to code?

If you just start thinking “I want to program in Python,” then you start a little bit here, a little bit there. All the information is available. The problem is that it’s unstructured. So you get excited about this little bit here, and then you do that, but they are different types of using Python.

If you want to program back-end like I’m doing, then that is one kind of doing. If you just want to do data science, that’s a different way. You don’t really need to master programming that well, you just need to use some libraries and understand a little about math and so on.

So it really depends on what you want to achieve. I think people often go around too much. So, advice number one is figure out what it is that you want with it.

Then find one teacher, one style. It’s just easier. If you take a little bit of this tutorial on the Internet, then a different tutorial, people can do things very differently and it can be difficult to have a cohesive approach.

The third issue is about managing your expectations about how fast it is to learn. When you learn a new language, you can listen to it and understand it. But when you have to express yourself, it’s different. It’s difficult. You don’t know how to say things, but you understand it. And it’s the same with programming.

Suddenly, when you see the solution, how people solved it, you go “yeah, I understand it all and that makes total sense.” But when you have to write it, you might have no idea how to solve problems. And that’s kind of the same problem you have right when you start. You understand Python, but you cannot express yourself in it.

So, I think that would be my three main pieces of advice for beginners.

One: figure out what you want to do. Two: find one tutor or one style of programming, one book. Three: manage your expectations. It takes a bit more time to learn to write Python than to read it.

What’s the difference between a senior Python developer and a junior one?

There are actually some aspects I think people overlook.

One of them is that, when you have a junior in a work environment, you need to help them. If you take somebody straight out of college, for instance, there are a lot of things they don’t teach in college. You know, how to do metrics, monitoring, how to ensure everything is healthy in your system. They don’t teach them that, so that’s one thing they’re lacking. It’s the experience.

Another thing that juniors tend to do is focus on building small systems. Most college-educated and self-taught people tend to do small projects because they’re easier and you have greater chances of success.

But there is an enormous difference between having one tiny system with one tiny server and a distributed system with tens and sometimes hundreds of systems that need to interact with each other and you need to figure out what to do.

What happens when you make changes to this small thing here? How do you rebuild it when it breaks? How do you build systems that scales in features and amount of users and volume of data?

Juniors usually can solve small-scale problems, whereas a senior developer can handle bigger scale problems.

Another aspect I noticed over the years is that juniors are often a bit afraid. When starting in a team, when starting to develop, a junior will not be so quick to contribute to it and will want people to check the code more often and to help them more, because they are a bit afraid.

So, when things go wrong, they don’t really have the confidence to just do stuff. and break stuff and put it back up again. They like that kind of experience and confidence.

My advice for new people is to build something bigger. Build something with somebody else.

You might have done tiny projects in college, or you may have worked together with other people for a bit. But try to make something bigger because you need to be able to build interfaces that interact with each other., where somebody builds one piece and somebody else builds another piece. That will teach you the kind of architecture design principles behind all of it.

I still think that’s a less important part today because there’s a tendency to go to all these microservices or services that are small in framework. And that makes them easier to understand, easier to debug, easier to maintain by other people.

So it’s not as difficult as back in the day when you had this one big monolith that was running everything. Right now, you have small services that are easier to understand, but it also moves the problem somewhere else. How do you find where the problem is when the system goes down? You need to have really really good monitoring to find things nowadays.

So you actually move some of the complexity over to the infrastructure guys or the SREs (Site Reliability Engineers). That’s why they are paid a higher rate now than they used to be. A good SRE is so valuable when you need to find problems in big systems.

For more tips on how to master Python, make sure to follow Rune on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

He’s working on a new course portfolio focusing on how to use Python for financial analysis, so stay tuned!

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

Tags behind the screens, Data Science, how to learn python, how to learn python with rune, interview, podcast, programming languages, Python, rune

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About us Podcast Interviews

“After 5 Years as a Freelance UX Designer, Things Are Going Well. Help! What’s the Next Step?”

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 27th August 2021

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My name is Nolwenn Nasri, and I am a freelance UX / UI designer. In 2020 I completely questioned my freelance activity. Here's my unfiltered experience.

My name is Nolwenn Nasri, and I am a freelance UX / UI designer, as well as the founder of Freelances Travel, a small company which dedicates to the organisation of coworking stays with other freelancers. In 2020 I completely questioned my freelance activity. Here’s my unfiltered experience.

Ah, 2020… a year that was very unique for all of us.

But I think it might have been especially special for me because in 2020, I became a mother.

Becoming a mother is wonderful. But it’s also a huge upheaval. My daily life was completely turned upside down, and I launched into an intense introspection of various aspects of my life; with the desire to do things differently.

This introspection focused in particular on my activity as a freelance UX / UI designer.

Let me give you a bit of background: I have been freelancing for 5 years, and my activity as a freelance UX / UI designer has been going well for some time. The projects followed one after another, I didn’t have too many problems getting new assignments, the clients were satisfied. In short, everything was going well.

But I was no longer sure where I was going, how to choose my assignments, how to guide the development of my activity. How should I manage my time? I was satisfied with my income but I felt an urge to do more and more, I constantly felt guilty about not working “enough.”

In short, I was a little lost.

Agreed that this is a “rich man’s problem.” A lot of freelancers struggle to find assignments. But it still caused me a lot of frustration.

So I decided to hire a leadership coach.

It was a big decision because it was quite an expense. But I felt I needed it. And it turned out to be an investment that paid off.

What did the coaching sessions consist of?

I imagine you are about to say: “but Nolwenn, what has this to do with your freelance activity?”

These exercises had the aim to take me out of my comfort zone. To make me gain confidence in myself. To make me make decisions and take responsibility for my choices.

I realised that I had two alternatives:

either maximize my working time and grow my business as much as possible to generate more income, or
set a target income to achieve and devote a minimum of time to it, enjoying all my remaining time to develop my sides projects and take care of my daughter

I chose the 2nd option.

After 5 years as a freelancer, my goal is not to earn more, but rather to reduce my working time.

This decision was a big step for me.

But it was still necessary to take concrete measures to move towards this goal. For me, this was done in 3 main steps:

1. Define my priorities for my freelance activity

Today, I consider that I wear two hats: on the one hand, my activity as a UX / UI designer, which allows me to generate the bulk of my income, and on the other hand my Freelances Travel project, which I approach more like a playground.

Whatever the project, I realised that what interested me the most was to forge rich relationships with people, to bring value, to share my knowledge, and to create strong connections.

This is the reason why I decided, in addition to keeping my two hats, to save time to cultivate these connections by either interacting with members of my network on LinkedIn, or by creating content for my Youtube channel.

2. Define concrete objectives in terms of income and working hours

I used a very simple calculation: my ADR (average daily rate) is currently 500 euros; my monthly turnover target is 4000 euros excluding tax per month (no need to specify that, but after charges and taxes, I have about half left net).

4000 divided by 500 equals 8.

Conclusion: I no longer seek to increase my customer volume, on the contrary. I’m just looking to “staff myself” over 8 full days, on assignments that interest me.

Discover Time Management Tips in remote for IT Professionals

3. Seize my time and stop feeling guilty

I have adopted a fairly compartmentalised weekly organization. Tuesday and Thursday are my “production” days. I’m off every Friday to take care of my daughter. And, the rest of the time, I take care of Freelances Travel, my Youtube channel, and I chat with members of my network. Without forgetting of course to keep me a little time to manage my accounting and prospecting.

I also learned to detach myself from the eyes of others. Many people around me do not understand why I do not seize all the mission opportunities that present themselves to me. Why am I not looking to generate more income? But it’s my choice and I accept it!

And you, how do you see your freelance life? What is your definition of a successful career as a tech & IT freelancer? Where do you draw the line between income and working time?

Read our article The IT Jobs Market of Today

Follow Nolwenn on Youtube, LinkedIn and on Freelances Travel.

Tags behind the screens, freelance ux designer, it freelancer, nolwenn nasri, ui designer, ux designer

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About us Featured Podcast Interviews

A Data Centre Migration Is About Technology and People

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 20th August 2021

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Sarah Lean (Techielass), Cloud Advocate at Microsoft, discusses getting into community relations and shares tips for a successful data centre migration.

Sarah Lean, aka Techielass, is a Scotland-based IT infrastructure, ops, and sys admin expert and Azure community evangelist. The founder of the Glasgow Azure User Group, Sarah works as a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft and blogs, tweets and has her own YouTube channel. She discusses, cloud careers, how you can get into community relations. What makes a successful data centre migration, and how Data Centre Migration is about technology and people.

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Interested in cloud careers? You might also enjoy our interview about how to become an Azure MVP.

How did you get started in tech?

I started off in a Sys Admin role, so I was a helpdesk engineer doing morning password resets for everybody, fishing out bits of broken paper from their printers, and stuff like that. I worked my career through those various different roles. In the UK, we call helpdesk roles first-level roles and then second-level is the support engineers that go out to people’s desks. Third-level is when you get to design systems for customers.

So, I basically went through those support levels within my career and just built up lots of experience both internally and externally. I was in companies where they just had a small IT department and they didn’t understand what IT departments did and how crucial they were. And then I also worked for managed service providers, dedicating myself to various different customers, etc.

How did you eventually become a Microsoft cloud advocate and a prominent figure in the Azure community?

I kind of fell into the community role because I wanted to learn Azure and there were no user groups in Scotland. I think the closest user group to me at the time was in London. Which is obviously not something you want to do it you finish working on Wednesday night; go down to London to user group and then come back up to your work the next day. It’s obviously not logistically feasible, so I basically started the Glasgow Azure user group to fulfil my need. Basically, to learn Azure and find out where everybody else was fitting this into the on-prem and cloud worlds.

And yeah, I kind of fell into running the user group and then started speaking at events. People were like “you need to speak at events and share your story and journey”. Which I didn’t want to do. But then I fell into it and; before I knew it; I was getting headhunted to become a cloud advocate at Microsoft.

It definitely hasn’t been a planned evolution in my career, if I’m going to be brutally honest about it. But one that I’m really enjoying and has given me some excellent experiences of travelling to different parts of the world and doing some amazing stuff and meeting some amazing people in the community as well.

What does the cloud advocate position entail?

My role can be quite varied. A summary of my job is to help others find out how to use Microsoft Technologies. Whether that be by telling the story in a simplified manner, maybe in a blog post or a video that kind of connects the dots between. For example, what your on-prem system looks like and what your cloud system would look like.

I’m sure we’ve all read some official documentation on various different products. Not just Microsoft products, and not understood what they were talking about. Being able to digest that into a way that makes sense for everybody. Whether that be someone who’s a project manager or someone who has 100 years of experience in IT, and being able to get that story across to them is something that I do. So, my day can be quite varied.

It can be creating videos, creating blogs, doing podcasts… Or it can be just playing with technology, or creating new Microsoft Learn content as well. There are lots of different facets, and there are lots of different things I can do throughout the day. So it can be quite fun. And obviously, Covid has stopped me from travelling, so that would have been a big part of my job had we not had a pandemic. But we’re making it work.

Besides being a cloud advocate for Microsoft, you also have a personal blog and do a weekly update on YouTube as Techielass. How do the two intertwine? Do you usually post work-related stuff, separate both worlds, or a mix of both?

I think it’s a bit of both to be honest. Because a lot of people know me as Techielass and from before I was a cloud advocate, through my blog. Some things like my weekly update on YouTube was something that I actually started in anticipation for this job. Because I knew I would have to be on camera or I knew I’d have to do some presentations for this job.

I started that weekly update nearly two years ago now, to basically get more familiar with looking at the camera and being able to connect to it and doing all the things that go around video production and so that that’s kind of interlinked. Although it’s become a kind of side project because I just enjoy doing that kind of medium as well.

My blog is sometimes intertwined with my job. You’ll find me, you know, blogging about random things that I find. I’ve been supporting my husband and working from home lately. So there’s some random support ticket type questions he’s asked me that I’ve blogged about, because I know he’s going to ask me in about 6 weeks’ time. And I’m not going to remember how I did it, so yeah, there’s various different things on my blog.

So yeah, my blog kind of intertwines with my job, but it’s not necessarily always about my job.

Is there anything in particular that you like to blog about within the world of Azure?

I think I’ve tried to specialise in data centre migrations. I think we’ve probably all been involved in an on-prem data centre migration. And I’ve tried to take some of that experience and that knowledge and transfer it into how you would actually migrate to the cloud.

So, you’ll find me talking a lot about migrating. I tend to talk more about the processes around that nowadays rather than the technology because I think that’s a part of the journey that a lot of people struggle with. We can understand the technology quite easily, I think. But trying to put that into practice; how you think about things like training your staff; and how you change that culture within your organization; how do start the project for your migration…

So, I talk a lot about data centre migrations and, although I talk a lot about the culture and the process around it. You’ll find me talking about Azure migrate quite a bit and intertwining that into how you actually do your data centre migration. So that’s kind of my specialty, what a lot of people reach out to me and ask about.

What are the biggest mistakes being made in this data centre migration to the cloud, especially now that some companies might be rushing their transition because of the pandemic?

I think lots of people forget to actually assess what they have inside their on-prem data centre right now. They want to get to the actual delivery part. They want to get to put some resources in Azure, and they want to prove the value and say “we’ve completed that project”. And, like you say, some have been rushing because of Covid and the challenges that it’s thrown up.

I always try and say: take a step back, have a look at what’s in your environment. Try and understand not only the technology in your environment, but also what your staff needs are. So, your technology is going to have a bunch of needs when you move it to the cloud. Things are maybe not even going to be able to be moved to the cloud because they’re legacy. Or they’re far too complex, etc.

But what about the the staff within your environment as well? Do people know how to use Azure once you’ve moved into that? I think it that can often be a stumbling block as well. I’ve seen some customers who bring in third-party companies to do the migration. They move all the technology and then that third-party company leaves. The staff don’t have any clue on how to support the things that are now in Azure.

And before you know it, they’ve got into this situation where they think that the cloud is rubbish. Because the staff haven’t been able to support it because they themselves haven’t been supported in learning it. That’s why I always say that a data centre migration is about technology and people, so make sure you’re investing in the staff within your IT department.

Also, make sure you’re looking towards the end users, the people that use these applications that are in your data centre. Do you know how they use them? Is this an opportunity to ditch some of the ones that they hate? Is it that time to look at new solutions?

So, technology and people are the things you should be thinking about in your data centre migration.

Join our community and find your next job in IT

What advice would you give to other IT specialists who might want to get into community relations and advocacy?

If you want to get into the community space, try and do it in your spare time. I know that’s a big ask, because we probably don’t have a lot of spare time, (I definitely don’t have a lot of spare time myself), but it’s definitely a job you have to have a passion for because it’s very different from the technology world, from being a consultant, from being an engineer.

There are so many facets to it. I do things in marketing, I do video editing, I do image creation. I’m a bit of a designer occasionally. I’m also a technical writer. I have to be a presenter.

There’s a ton if things before I even get to the technology. Sme days might I don’t even touch any of the technology because I’m in things like Adobe Creative Cloud, so that’s a big change.

If you’re not ready to give up the toolbox, if you’re not ready to give up playing with the technology. Then it’s not something for you right now, and that’s why I say do it in your spare time, because, if you find that and you enjoy doing these things, if you enjoy doing podcasts, if you enjoy doing videos you enjoy doing the blogging, you’ll naturally find that you’ll progress more and more to that and away from being hands on the tools as such.

I see a lot of people wanting the glamour, but they don’t realise that there’s a lot of time where you’re actually not touching technology. But it is a great job. It has offered me fantastic opportunities , but I think a lot of people need to be aware of the fact that there’s so much to it and it’s not just talking about tech all the time.

And your advice for the larger IT community?

Besides that, just support people who are creating content, whether that be people like myself that do it as a job or whether it be people doing it as a hobby. It definitely means a lot, even if it’s just a small like on a YouTube video or a retweet on Twitter. That means a whole load to us as content creators.

So, definitely support people when they do that, because it can make a massive difference. That 10-minute video could have taken me like 3 days to create so that small little like on a YouTube video means the world to me and it means that I actually spend my time valuably.

Support the content creators out there.

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

For more cloud careers and Azure tips, make sure to follow Sarah on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn or through the Techielass blog.

Tags Azure, azure community, behind the screens, cloud advocate, cloud careers, community relations, data centre migration, interview, microsoft cloud advocate, podcast, sarah lean

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IT Decision-makers Talent strategy

Summer: The Time To Work on Your IT Recruitment Strategy

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 13th August 2021

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When was the last time you took a deep look at your IT recruitment strategy? Summer downtime is the perfect opportunity to build your talent pipeline.

When was the last time you had a chance to properly work on your IT recruitment strategy? Summer brings with it a slowdown in activity for most businesses. Employees, clients and external partners out on vacation; ongoing projects are momentarily put on hold. But good news: you will finally have some time to reflect on how things are going and update your route map.

One of the key steps in this process is conducting a thorough review of your department’s talent strategy. Here are some tips on how to best anticipate your personnel needs and build a solid IT talent pipeline for the months ahead.

Take inventory of your team and outline IT recruitment needs

Firstly, where are your projects in relation to the objectives set? What skills are missing from your team? What specialists can you foresee you will need for the coming months? Take the time to chat with your staff and other department managers, then define your ideal team and the profiles to target based on your available budget.

Talking with individual team members will also provide you with more insight into their personal and professional needs and goals. Another friendly reminder: ensuring that your existing employees are comfortable and have enough room for development is as important as incorporating new talent.

Evaluate potential IT recruitment strategy partners

Summer can also be a good time to prospect recruitment partners and review existing ones for your IT recruitment strategy. It is also important that you take the time to do a deep analysis and avoid making choices in a rush. Choosing the right IT recruiting partner is crucial in today’s ultra-competitive talent market.

When meeting with potential recruiters, make sure you touch on all the technical specifications of your projects and provide as much information on your business as possible. Although a good recruiter will have a good base understanding of your industry and needs, the better you communicate, the more productive your relationship will be.

Think also of the kind of professional that you need. If you are looking for mainly freelance technical profiles, for example, you are better off orienting yourself towards a specialized player who knows well the talent market you are targeting.

You can also read : How to Assess the Technical Skills of IT Candidates

Take advantage of a less competitive talent market

Okay: many candidates are on vacation. But recruiters too! This means fewer companies competing for top talent.

Moreover, it is a good idea to start your search in the months of July-August, especially if you are looking for rare or “short-term” profiles. These positions tend to be fewer in number and will require more time.

In the case of freelancers, many independent consultants are looking for assignments to start with the school year (or even before) and are likely to be in active search during the Summer months.

Short or Long Assignments: Which Ones Are Best When You Are an IT Freelancer?

Plan your onboardings before for the start of the school year

In addition, keep in mind that things quickly pick up the pace at the end of the Summer. The September rush will probably not give you much time to prepare the reception of future members of your team. Therefore, take advantage of this in-between period to review your onboarding process as a whole and outline a cohesive standard procedure.

Whether they are permanent or temporary employees, new recruits must be properly introduced to the company and integrated into the team. Do not neglect the transmission of information and the provision of all the necessary equipment, tools and resources.

Discover ours articles :

Remote Hiring is Here to Stay: a Fresh Take on IT Recruitment and Interview Tips: 5 key questions to ask to an IT freelancer during an interview

You can also download The definitive CTO career guide

Join our community and find your next job or expert in IT

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Tags IT freelancers, it recruitment, it recruitment strategy, summer downtime

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About us Podcast Interviews

Leadership Failure: The Real Human Element Behind Cyber Attacks

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 13th August 2021

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Dr. ir Johannes Drooghaag talks about the real human element behind cyber attacks and his work helping educate children and parents about cyber security.

Dr. ir Johannes Drooghaag; CEO of Spearhead Management and founder of Internet Safety for Kids; recently sat down with us to talk about the real human element behind cyber attacks. His work helping educate children and parents about cybersecurity.

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You might also enjoy our interview: A Career in Data Science: Unlocking The Power of Data with AI

How did your career in tech start? What do you do these days?

My career started in applied information technology and I my interest was first in the technical part of that. But I lost interest when I noticed that technology keeps rotating and innovating and reinventing itself so fast that it’s very difficult to keep up. And I started to get very interested in how can we build bridges; with the people using the technology and how they can they keep up with this enormous pace of technology.

That was more than 30 years ago and, since then, the pace has only increased. But we have not really done a lot to improve how we educate people with technology. So that became my mission. I focus mainly on the human element of technology, and I do that in the field of cybersecurity, of agile management, for digital transformation. We say it is all customer-focused, which in most cases is true. But, in many cases, we forget the people within the organisation who have to work with all that technology.

How do you advocate for this human-centred approach to technology?

I founded a company called Spearhead Management, in which we literally take, first of all, the people. We start with education and coaching, and we do that based on an approach that we could call a gap analysis. Where are we today? Where do we want to be tomorrow? And yes, there will be technology involved. But how can we enable and empower the people in the organisation to make that happen and to become part of that innovation and that digital transformation. And we do that through training. We do that through consulting, through coaching.

I also use my voice on social media. I started to actively use social media three years ago. I’ve been growing fortunately very fast in the last three years. I use that a lot to point out what the human element behind cyber attacks is. What has gone very well? What has gone not so well? And what has gone really, really bad?

And one of the things I do with my team is that, once a year, we publish a report called The Human Element in Cyber Security, and I do podcasts and keynotes around it under the title “The Human Elements in Cyber Security: And It’s Not What You Think.”

Why is it not what we think?

Because when we look at the IT community, there’s a lot of focus on the user error. So you might get the impression that the user is responsible for all cyber incidents. And when we look at the media, we get all the information about the bad fenders, about the vulnerabilities, about how somebody was hacked and everything went wrong.

But when we look at the technical information about these cyber breaches, we see that more than the human element caused 80% of them in the configuration and the management of technology, so the technical responsibility behind that technology. Now we should not take that and do the same thing by saying, the IT experts are to blame because that’s not fair nor correct.

A lot of that is leadership decisions. We know in a corporation nothing happens without approval and budget. So, the IT guy can sit there and say “I have to update those machines, I have to replace that software because it’s EOL”. But when that person doesn’t get approval and doesn’t get the budget. I assume they’re not going to pay that out of their own pocket, right?

So the human element is a lot more than just the actual making failures. The majority of that is leadership. The majority of that is completely failed risk management. If we don’t change the way we manage and lead, we will continue to have these issues.

Join our community and find your next job in IT

What would be a textbook example of leadership failure impacting cybersecurity?

There is this beautiful case of the colonial pipeline, a very high-profile case that was recently all over the media. It started with all kinds of theories about what would have been the case. And this theory immediately emerged that people were claiming that a user had opened an attachment. Other people claimed that there had been a case of social engineering through which all kinds of other theories popped up. Things popped up and they were all over the media and social media.

But then the actual experts analysed it. They found that a VPN account, which lacked basic security measures and was not in use for a very long time got compromised. Some one shared that compromised account, including the ID and password, on dark web forums. And used that account for the initial breach of the network and through that they were able to escalate.

Now there’s one thing that we have to keep in mind. There’s an FBI director who made a very interesting statement. There are two types of companies. The companies who have had their network breached by malicious actors. And the companies who do not know that their network has been breached by malicious actors. And that’s the reality that we have to assume at the moment. That we are compromised and that we must implement all potential and available countermeasures based on that assumption.

The colonial pipeline case shows us two things we should focus on. Firstly, abandoned technology. That VPN connection that we are not monitoring, not taking care of and that hasn’t been used for a long, long time: it is still open and available. Secondly, the almost mandatory segregation of network access and segmentation of the network itself to make sure that you cannot simply hop from one privilege to the next one. All that was not available. Your active monitoring, through which you keep an eye on what happens in your network. If, after five years, you suddenly see a VPN connection pop up, you should react to that. Never happened.

For me, that is a schoolbook example of knowing what should be done and not doing that. An example of having all kinds of interpretations that are not factual at the beginning of the incident and, as soon as the actual analysis is publicly known, is once again the basic step.

And that is what we see in the majority of our research as the real human element behind cyber attacks. When we follow the three basic elements of cybersecurity (patch management, access management, segmentation and segregation), we can prevent more than 90% of all cyber incidents.

You are the founder of Internet Safety for Kids. Can you tell us a bit about this initiative?

We create videos and content to enable parents and children to use the Internet in a secure and responsible manner. We do that with videos and cartoons. The kids love it. We get wonderful feedback, and the most interesting part is that parents write us to tell us that they’re learning from the videos, which they thought were intended for the kids, but we make them on purpose for the kids and the parents. It’s a beautiful project. I love it. It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth every hour that we invest in it.

What sort of cybersecurity advice do you provide in these videos?

Well, there was one episode for which the kids made the entire script from beginning to end.

They said “We have some wonderful advice: we need to inform our parents about what we do, and we should never hide what we do, and we should always explain why we want to do it. But can you please be so kind as to tell the parents that they should listen when we want to tell them something? And if we want to show them something, that they should actually take a couple of minutes?”

So we did this episode created by the kids alone and we didn’t allow the parents to criticise any of it, just focused on saying “Hey parents: yes, we can tell you what the kids should do, but you should have time for them when they want to do what we tell them to do.”

I love that so much. We had so much fun creating that. We encourage parents and kids to learn this together. It’s not that parents give these videos to the kids and say “well, be busy and learn this.” Sit down together, learn this together and use it as an input for discussions with each other. What we’ve learned with the kids is that they’re really actively involved, so they come back to the parents and they say, “hey, I watched this video and look, I’ve done this and it looks good.” And that’s the coolest thing.

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

For more on the human element behind cyber attacks and IT in general, make sure to follow Dr. Drooghaag on Twitter, LinkedIn or through his website.

Tags behind the screens, cyber attacks, cybersecurity, human element, internet safety for kids, interview, johannes drooghaag, podcast

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ERP & SAP Job Descriptions

CRM Consultant: Job Description

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 6th August 2021

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What is the role of the CRM consultant or expert? Discover in their job description their missions, skills, training and salary.

Use our template to create a compelling and comprehensive CRM Consultant job description to attract top talent.

What is the role of the CRM consultant or expert? How to become a CRM consultant? What are the required skilled and the salary expectation? We tell it all in our CRM consultant job description.

Are you looking for IT mission opportunities in the Tech and IT sectors on a freelance or permanent basis? Mindquest can help you find your next IT mission opportunity. Find CRM missions by browsing our freelance and permanent vacancies available on our digital recruitment platform.

CRM consultant: the job description

A CRM (Customer Relationship Management) consultant; otherwise known as a CRM expert; is a specialist in customer relationship management software and customer relationship itself. When creating a call center, this professional assists in optimizing the relationship with customers. But also in making decisions relating to the choice of IT tools. Usually, a CRM expert works for an ESN or a BtoB agency. They can work in a large group or in small structures and is mainly required to work in collaboration with customer service, as well as with the marketing and web-marketing service.

The role of the CRM consultant is to define, configure, implement and manage the CRM software while promoting its positive impact on the company’s strategy. CRM Software is the backbone of any call centre. Indeed, the CRM software makes it possible to keep all the history of exchanges with customers and to manage the call lists on a daily basis. In choosing which CRM to implement, they can choose between independent CRM software or an ERP (including other business management modules). They manage the CRM software on a daily basis. That is to say, they take care of monitoring developments and finding new improvement strategies. Furthermore, they also collect data concerning customers and their life cycle, and carry out reports.

Discover more about what is ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)

The CRM consultant is also focused on determining the best strategies to increase customer loyalty and engagement. This professional thus sets up loyalty campaigns and works to understand which are the dissatisfied customers (detractors) and satisfied customers (promoters) by calculating the NPS score (Net promoter score).

Required Skills

How to become a CRM consultant? The CRM consultant must have a perfect command of software packages dedicated to CRM. He or she must also possess solid knowledge in the areas of sales and marketing. Specializing in customer data analysis, it is important that he or she has knowledge and skills in data mining and brand optimization on search engines and social networks. The CRM consultant must demonstrate good analytical skills and be responsive to any changes they need to be able to detect. This professional must know how to approach a project as a whole.

A true specialist in customer relations, it is important that they know all the technical and strategic aspects. In addition, the CRM consultant must have a taste for contact, good listening skills and a sense of service. It is essential that the CRM consultant has a great spirit of synthesis and good adaptability.

Also discover our Job Description: IT Business Analyst

Salary

How much does a CRM consultant make? The salary of a CRM consultant varies depending on the experience of the consultant. But also depending on the scope of their position and the size of the company. Indeed, some CRM consultants only work on the software aspect, while others will be responsible for a large part of the customer relationship.

Within a large group or small business, the salary range for this professional is wide. Generally speaking, a CRM consultant can earn close to €35,000 / year at the start of a career. At the end of his career, he can hope to earn more than €65,000 / year as a senior. The average salary of this professional is around €45,000 per year. The average daily rate for a CRM consultant developer is generally between $400 and $900.

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Training and education of the CRM Consultant

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On Learning Azure IoT and Being an Active Member of the Community

Post author By Mindquest

Post date 6th August 2021

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John Lunn, aka Johnnychipz, discusses the benefits of being an active member of the Azure community and how he learned Azure IoT.

John Lunn, also known as Jonnychipz, is a Welsh Azure MVP and MCT working as a technical architect at BT Enterprise. An organiser of the Welsh Azure User Group and an avid vlogger, John discusses the benefits of being an active member of the Azure community and how he learned Azure IoT.

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What made you go into Microsoft Technologies and cloud architecture?

think when you go into business you predominantly work with Microsoft Technologies, more often than not. I kind of cut my teeth in IT on that side of the fence, which was very much Microsoft focused. So, I guess that, when I took that additional career step into the world of consultancy and kind of specialized in a particular area; in my case it was unified comms when I first started in that world; Microsoft was a natural steppingstone.

I’ve dealt with it for a number of years now. I knew my way around it. I was comfortable with it. So developing those softer skills like peaking to customers and other clients and helping other people understand the technology, or yeah, or being parachuted into a completely burning disaster of a problem. You soon learn the technologies at quite a deep level. You learn quite quickly what you can and can’t do.

So, yeah. I suppose I kind of edged myself gently into the world of consultancy and architecture. Now I find myself as a technical architect working on predominantly Azure and Microsoft focused solutions for customers. It’s been quite a long career and I’ve delved into a number of different areas. But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I’ve learned so much throughout that time.

Cloud careers are evolving very rapidly. What’s your approach to keeping up with emerging trends?

As an individual, I’m constantly thinking: where are we going with technology? What’s next? Not just for my own interests and keep the passion and the interest in my career. But also: where can I add the most value? The company that I work for — how can I help them see and visualise those innovative ideas, projects and solutions?

For a number of years, I’ve been speaking internally with my management team, talking about where we’re going as an industry, and, clearly, for some time now, it’s been around IoT, edge data, machine learning, AI… All of those kinds of technologies that are going to drive innovative solution design.

So, I’ve been on a personal quest. I’ve dabbled in areas over the years. I’ve done bits and pieces and I keep telling people I know enough to be dangerous. That’s my stock answer. I know enough to dig in and make a little bit of noise. But I take it at my own personal development journey to try and dig into that in a bit more detail. IoT was one of those areas that I jumped into.

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Why Azure IoT in particular? How did you go about diving into the area?

I guess I wanted to understand right the way from that physical thing. That physical device and object, the microcontroller that is inside that device, to the LEDs and resistors and buttons. How do those things get made and then what is the code that sits on that microprocessor? How do I develop that code to then enable me to take that sensor information?

Maybe there’s, you know, some optical, temperature or humidity sensor. The common things that you find in IoT projects. How do I take that, read it with some code and send that up to this thing called the cloud? And then what do I do with that?

So, I took it upon myself to try and look at some pet projects to build this, to start looking at microcontrollers, put them in, etc. I literally got myself a 3D printer and started printing off all these random designs I made myself.

There’s the engineering mentality if you’re really starting off at the maker side of things. So, I went on this journey of learning all of these kinds of disciplines. It’s really about understanding all of these little components that go into what makes an IoT solution. And I’m really trying to understand how you join the dots between these various features and components within Azure to make those solutions.

And it’s been, more of a labour of love than anything for work. I’ve met some fantastic people out in the community that have helped me understand things, that I’ve learned from, that I’ve taken ideas from.

And going down on that journey, you learn so much about those areas of Azure that maybe you’re not using on a frequent basis. You know, you start with this high-level view of the world. I try and dig down deep as much as I can in as many different areas so that hopefully I get a little bit more of a clearer picture as to how and why you can use these things.

Do you think a hands-on approach to learning new technologies is better than a theoretical or certifications-based one?

I mean everybody is different. I think for me hands-on works well. Certification is a great way to go, especially if it’s something relatively new and unknown.

So, for example, the AZ 220 exam is the Azure IoT developer speciality exam from Microsoft. And that’s what I was going for at the time.

There are certain ways people can study for exams as Azure IoT exam AZ 220. It’s very much theory-based where you read the Microsoft docs and understand things. And you know, if you do enough Microsoft exams, you can kind of work out which questions they are going to ask you. You get to learn in an almost parrot-like fashion the areas that particular exam is going to cover. And that’s great, there have been exams where I’ve kind of just done in that way. You go in and you’ve learned something over a crammed week or two.

But the problem is that, later down the road, if you’ve not actually done anything physical or hands-on or done it yourself, I found that I forgot it.

For the Azure IoT exam, I took it relatively slowly because I wanted to absorb it and be part of it for a while. Basically, because it was so much fun. I was just having so much fun doing this tinkering and making and, like I say, it hasn’t stopped.

So yeah, I think certification; as Azure IoT exam; is definitely a great way of identifying the areas that you need to learn. But how you learn those is up to you. Everybody’s got their own style and, for me, slow and steady and hands-on sinks in more and I’m able to retain that information for longer and apply it to other things.

You are an active member of the online Azure community. You go by the nickname of Jonnychipz, and you blog and host a weekly vlog covering Azure-related news and topics. How did you become such an active part of the community? What were the beginnings like?

I had always been on the periphery, the edges of the community. And I guess I never really understood what community meant. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to go to some great Microsoft events globally, and I’ve met some brilliant people. But I had never really been actively involved in the community.

But then COVID hit, and we were all locked up in our houses. I got the time to actually focus and build myself a little bit of an office space. Before, I was always out on the road, driving up and down motorways in the UK or running the kids around.

So, as we all had this additional time, I thought, OK, this is an opportunity for me to try and focus on public learning and the community a bit more. In hindsight, I didn’t really know what I was doing when I first started. I set a blog up and it was jonnychips.com, you know? And I started putting out some blogs. I started doing the 100 days of cloud, just trying to show my public learnings and hopefully give a bit back.

What does your new role in the community bring into your life? What have been the best moments so far?

Well, it sounds a bit cliched, but there have been so many different situations that were super fun and where I thought I would have never been I had not turned to the community. Things like joining and setting up and helping organise a user group – part of what I do is helping organise the Welsh Azure User Group, and we run that as a monthly virtual session.

We’ve had so many fun moments over that, just from the guys and gals that help organise the weekly or biweekly calls that we have, through to the events themselves and just the fun engagement from other people in the community. There’s been so many comedy moments and just good general laughs over things.

IoT has been one of the standout things for me. The people I’ve met in in the world of IoT, from members of the community through to the advocacy team at Microsoft themselves, I’ve managed to speak to one or two of those over the last few months. They’re all super people. Really clever, intelligent, passionate people just putting stuff out.

You forge these new friendships without you realising it. You’re virtually speaking to people across Twitter and you’re having that banter, you jump on a live Twitch stream and have a little bit of fun.

So, it’s probably safe to say that there’s not really been one best moment so far. I think the best is yet to come. I’m really looking forward to getting back to the face-to-face meetups, getting back out there to two events where I get to meet some of these great people and hopefully have a coffee or a beer and a bit of lunch or something with them. I see that being a super fun time.

Check out more of our interviews from our podcast episodes.

For more cloud careers, Azure and Azure IoT tips, make sure to follow John on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube or through Jonnychipz.com.

Tags azure community, azure iot, azure mvp, behind the screens, cloud careers, interview, john lunn, johnnychipz, podcast

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