Upskilling has been a recurring theme in my life lately. Things change fast enough in the tech industry so much that everyone, in every position, should have a few resources in their toolkit for getting up to speed on changes introduced by new technology as fast as needed. It’s interesting because all other industries are becoming tech adjacent. People who work in those industries eventually find a new path, taking their domain expertise into the service, research, and ideation side of technology. The goal of upskilling is not necessarily to become expert level, but to know enough to have a conversation with a practitioner or software architect without being completely lost as to what they are talking about.

For technical skills, I found these resources to be beneficial to get me some quick exposure:

• Udemy: They have a lot of courses, but these are the ones that were helpful:
  • Cloud Computing with Amazon Web Services by Karan Brar
  • Ultimate AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner [2023] by Stephane Maarek
  • AWS Certified Solutions Architect 2020 by Ryan Kroonenburg
  • Learn Cloud Computing with AWS by Eduonix Learning Solutions
• Linux Foundation: They also have a lot of courses, but these are the ones that were helpful:
  • Introduction to GitOps
  • Containers Fundamentals
  • Kubernetes Fundamentals
  • Service Mesh Fundamentals
  • Cloud Native Logging with Fluentd and Fluent Bit
  • Monitoring Systems and Services with Prometheus
  • Managing Kubernetes Applications with Helm
• Cisco Networking Academy: I took this one:
  • CCNA – Introduction to Networks

I find Linux Foundation’s courses and membership to be an invaluable resource for my professional growth. With the membership, you also get discounted access to conferences and will continue to get communication that keeps you updated with what is happening with open-source software in the industry. They have everything from Introduction to Linux to Linux Platform Development.

For soft skills, nothing beats practice, and this is a never-ending journey. I work in Customer Success, so this is very important for me. Books and courses provide mental models that create good tactics for dealing with specific situations. In most cases, your strategy is going to depend on the type of business that you’re working in. I have found these resources to be useful for my own journey:

• John C. Maxwell’s Leadership Philosophy Training
• The Customer Support Handbook by Sarah Hatter
• Engineering Management for the Rest of Us by Sarah Drasner
• The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
• Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results by Judith E. Glaser
• Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age by Paul Graham
• Farm Don’t Hunt: The Definitive Guide to Customer Success by Guy Nirpaz, Fernando Pizarro
• Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue by Nick Mehta, Lincoln Murphy, Dan Steinman, Maria Martinez

To get a decent compass for where we are going as a humanity with the help of technology:

• The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
• Designing the Mind: The Principles of Psychitecture by Ryan A. Bush
• The Metaverse: And How It Will Revolutionize Everything by Matthew Ball

This is not an exhaustive list, and I will eventually make this post a page to be easily accessible to anyone who wants to use it as a resource.