Paws For Thought

First two days were dedicated to DevOps Foundation Course.
We were taught about the culture, community, tools and practices by QA Tutor Dave Tomlinson. It was useful but intense! Glad we have the presentation's slides for us to keep. I had an opportunity to work in group with two of my new colleagues, which was nice. Both of them seemed very kind and knowledgeable. I'm looking forward to spending more time with them in the future. My main take always are: DevOps is lots of different things: tools, practices, culture and movement; I love the idea of creating safe environment where people can fail fast and develop quicker because of it; agile practices make much more sense then the waterfall one; breaking silos; endless list of DevOps tools (see the periodic table link) and small but often if not continuous changes.

Day 3 to day 5 we delved into the Architecting on AWS course.
I enjoyed the labs and was glad we had someone to ask questions to - Richard Kelly. Information packed three days, I'm glad I was familiar with AWS before we started this course. To make sure I follow and understand each lesson and lab, I've spent some time on creating my own graphs. I am certain this will help me memorise all the security layers and checkpoints and VPC components. I now know and understand what a Load Balancer is! Our teacher went all the way and beyond and even helped me resolve my own AWS conundrum (displaying the cost widget on my AMI user account, despite having attached right policies to my userm I couldn't see it. Richard pointed me to the additional setting that needs to be enabled for it to work). I am hoping to take the AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate exam at some point in the future.

Week one - done! 🥳

Important snapshots from this week:

During fun packed week 2, we were introduced to Python 3.
We covered simple concepts like variables and string handling, progressed to more complex topics such as flow control and collections, and delved into a slightly more advanced area - exception handling. On Friday we had cyber-security tournament! From the points point of view my team lost, but if you look at how much we learned I believe we are the real winners :)
Since I was already familiar with Python, this week was relatively easy for me, except for Friday! I definitely need to learn more about exception handling and security.
Throughout the week, we were assigned numerous coding exercises to complete in pairs and groups of three. This proved to be a fantastic way to learn, spend time in smaller groups, and get to know each other better.
Another exciting development was the division of our cohort into two groups. Each morning, we quizzed each other on the previously learned material, competing for points. I think now everyone has a good understanding of Python now and is ready to start working on our showcase projects, hopefully starting from the middle of next week.
Week 2 - smashed! 😎

Important snapshots from this week:

This week's main themes were cyber-security, Flask and Agile Fundamentals.
I really enjoyed the 2 days "Secure by Design" with Ali, it was all completely new for me. We were given access to a sandbox environment to practice our hacking and hacking-related defensive skills. It is a bit slow but safe.We were cautioned not to engage in ethical hacking without necessary permission, as this would be illegal and could lead to trouble. The importance of changing your wifi router's default password, least privilege rule and to never ever ever trust data.
I have finished coding this blog and deployed it this week. I'm happy with how pretty and pretty close it is to my original design (in Figma).
Finally, our cohort was taught the basics of Flask, and we were given a mini-project to work on while learning how to practice Agile ways of working. I'm really pleased with what my teammates and I have achieved! Below is a snippet of the Little Sky Feedback page; we even made it live by hosting an Apache server on an EC2 instance on AWS. We focused on the basic requirements first, rather than packing it with features and running out of time :) Individuals and interactions over processes and tools with working software over comprehensive documentation.
Week 3 - conquered! 👑

Important snapshots from this week:

This week's focus was on Jenkins and Docker 😌
I feel like we're finally getting into the juicy stuff - DevOps tools!

We also had a Python workshop hosted by a few people from Sky, where we were tasked to build an API endpoint for a book library application! Lots of useful information, some of which I hope to use in our upcoming showcase project.
The week ended with a Google Here workshop! We met a person who works at Google and had some fun with online GCP-related games.
A flare up of my health conditions started this week, hope it will settle by the end of the weekend..🤞
Week 4 - BOOM 🤩

Important snapshots from this week:

We had 3 workshops: CI/CD, monitoring and security! We also started learning Terraform and had some time to work on our projects and presentations for Friday.
On Friday, we were presenting our bootcamp projects, and I think we did great, in fact, both teams did great! We learned lots and had some fun along the way :)
That was also our last week with Victoria, our main bootcamp teacher. She is a fantastic, knowledgeable and great at what she does, we were lucky to have her.

Highlight of the week: tinkering with Terraform
Highlight of the bootcamp: getting to know my new colleagues

Week 5 - all right!
I'm looking forward to seeing what next week will bring us.

Important snapshots from this week:

This week was a fun induction week. We officially met our manager, previous year's grads, had some fun ice breakers and a HACKATHON!
OK, being all new to the team and the codebase and knowing nothing about Go Lang, I didn't contribute much to our project. But it didn't stop me from being part of the team and enjoying meeting new people, shadowing them, and trying to read the Go files. It was great to be thrown into deep waters, but in a safe environment. Deep waters but in life jacket or with floating sleeves??

This week was also the first week for my colleagues to be in the office while I stayed at home. My manager and my colleagues made me feel included and made sure I was able to take part in everything that was planned for this week. That was tremendously important to me and something I was worried about beforehand. I felt welcomed despite my physical abilities, and it feels truly heartwarming.
Still, it's even more important to make light of the situation, so I am attaching a picture puzzle for Power Rangers fans, asking you to find 3 differences 🫣

Next week will be interesting... 👀👀👀👀👀

Important snapshots from this week:

Say whaaat, we were invited to Google office!

On Monday I ventured out to Kings Cross, London. My team and me had some free lunch, and as we were finishing, we were asked to evacuate... Which gave me a chance to meet some lovely doggos, two of them were sniffer dogs working at Google. I asked their handler for permission to say hello and they said yes (: I wish my dog would get a job 🐾
After a thankfully non-eventful evacuation, we were let back in and had great day. We talked about gcp, sustainability, met a few people, enjoyed some more (free) lovely food and snacks and even had a few laughs. Later, I had a chance to go for a drink and a chat with my colleagues.

I took Tuesday off to rest, and for the rest of the week I worked from home.
After learning lots about google cloud offerings and possible certifications, we did a mock exam on Friday.

Even a few years ago, if anyone had told me that I would be invited to Google, I would have strongly disbelieved it. Ha! I still can't believe it!

Important snapshots from this week:

This week, we were divided into pairs and given the task of researching a [CONFIDENTIAL] project. I had the pleasure of being paired with someone I had not worked closely with before, which was perfect. Planning the work and dividing tasks between us and working with him was super easy! We are both good communicators, and I feel like we gave each other space to play to our strengths. Overall, we smashed this week's objectives. I think we managed to get to know each other better and hopefully got one step closer to becoming friends :) .

I managed to get the Terraform file working! The file that I am talking about is for our infrastructure setup for our bootcamp project. There is a load balancer, auto scaling group, RDS and our app image running on private EC2 🫡. We are talking proper bells and whistles here and I'm so happy it works, but I'm sure there are plenty of things I could have done better since this is my first Terraform file. Well, technically, it's my second. The first one was for creating a single resource on AWS.

I will try to make my mission to get some silly pictures for next week. For now, enjoy my home office manager sleeping on the job 🙄

Important snapshots from this week:

On Monday, we presented our findings on the given prospective projects, which was great practice for public speaking. I tend to get too nervous without any real reason for it.
On Tuesday, I watched parts of the Lift as We Climb event. It was amazing and incredibly inspirational to listen to all the speakers talking about women in tech and inclusion.

So, we have our project chosen for the next few months, and I'm really happy with it and my team. And it's AI related 😍!
To kick off our projects we had information packed meeting about card writing - Epics, Stories and Issues. Zenhub seems like a cool tool, it's great that we can see what everyone is working on and how they are getting on.

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On Tuesday I ventured out to London. I finally picked up my lovely rainbow Sky lanyard and ID card.
I spend most of the day chatting with people, having one to ones and getting to know my team better. I've been also given a tour of the innovation building, it's pretty nice.
After work, a few of my colleagues stayed and we played a game :D

Regarding our project - we pretty much finished the research phase, next week will be interesting 🤔
The end of this week also marks the end of our first 2-week long sprint, so far things have been going really smoothly.

Important snapshots from this week:

This week I took part in my first ever meeting organised by and for Women@SRE at Sky.
We talked about objectives for next year and a theme for each quarter. It feels lovely to be part of a community for women, I'm really looking forward to our chats and activities.

Regarding our project - it's still very much research faze 🙃 I think it was needed, it allowed everyone in my team to be on the same page 😌.

Important snapshots from this week:

Another week flew by!
We are past the research and planning stage of our project and getting the solid base. I have spent most of this week on creating UI designs for our application. I'm happy with the results and that I was able to make them interactive.

Week 12 - done and dusted 😎

During the last two weeks, I had the honor of being a sprint leader for our team. It was first for me so I put some extra work into that. First, I researched what it takes to be a good sprint leader and then tried to implement it. I made sure to prioritize people over processes and checked in with everyone on a daily basis. I surprised myself by enjoying it! It was nice to be able to take charge and try to lead us as a team towards a common goal. I think we did a fantastic job in the last two weeks, and I learned a lot. Most importantly, I learned that I can do it :) And judging by the warm words and compliments from my teammates and the management, I get the sense I did a good job of it!
On Wednesday, the one that just passed, I ventured out to London to meet everyone and have — as one of my colleagues called it - a fun day. In the morning, we had a workshop, and in the afternoon, we went out bowling and for a meal. In between, I had some very important one-on-one meetings in person. And I got a jumper! Due to my joint aches and other not very fun things, I sit out the bowling part but nevertheless I had a very fun day filled with chatting and connecting with people.
Pics titled: 'Breakfast at Sky' and 'Peacock Model' 🐶

Important snapshots from this week:

In the last couple of weeks I started learning more about terraform and was guided towards discovering terragrunt too!

I had a chance to take part in, not one, but two! webinar sessions provided by Google GCP - MLOps. I did enjoe the second session more than the first one :D

In the last couple of days we have been informed that the shape of the DevOps Grad Scheme, the one I am currently in, is changing. I hope that any change can be turned into something positive, so I'm looking forward to see what the next weeks bring.

This post's bonus pic is ... filfy Winston and UFO lights!

Important snapshots from this week:

Last Friday, I had the incredible privilege of virtually attending the Women In Tech Summit. It was truly fantastic to listen to all the insightful and inspiring speakers and panelists. A gem-packed event—kudos to the organisers for fitting it all into one day!

I had the pleasure of connecting with over 30 individuals and had my eyes opened several times, gaining valuable insights into topics such as accessibility, bias, double bind, mentors, and sponsorships, to name a few.

Important snapshots from this week: