Re:Ask HN: Help out an old data center tech monkey which job...
by Goesby on Thursday July 02, 2020 @10:52AM
(#23713837)
This.
If your company is migrating to AWS, go with AWS certification. You need to go horzintal in your learning, i.e broad and wide in term of knowledge and certifications. After getting some experience or extensive labbing, you can go vertical, i.e deeper and more specific knowledge.
Find whatever projects your company is planning, read more about those projects. Then understand where your passion is and what value you can add. Start learning, then contact the people owning those projects. Say that you want to contribute and that your main job will not be affected, as you will be doing it on the side. Your transition will not happen overnight, and you need a lot of work to get there, but if you are persistent you will get there.
There are courses on AWS certification for 9$ on udemy. You can also get a free account from AWS and start labbing.
Find out what cloud provider(s) your employer is migrating to. Learn those, get certified, get involved in the migration. You have two to three years to learn some new things that at least relate to what you do now. Don’t stand around waiting for the ship to sink, as you put it. Get on the team, learn about cloud hosting, networking, security. Make yourself valuable to your employer rather than standing there watching your job evaporate.
You can read books and articles but the best way to learn is by doing. Most likely your employer will go through some trial and error figuring out the migration, which gives you an excellent opportunity to learn by doing.