A few weeks ago I posted about Starting a New Corporate Job and not surprisingly that all went tits up not long after I made the post. Being out of the Corporate Development space for 9+ years has meant that I have a lot of catching up to do. The project I got involved with had a lot of challenges and a fairly steep learning curve....so it wasn't a great fit for me because I couldn't hit the ground running. What I've realized is that I really need to get my skillset up to date before diving in head first like that...
One of the biggest developments in recent years has been the emergence (and dominance) of Cloud Computing. At a simple level it just means moving your Application Hosting and Infrastructure into the Cloud so that someone else can take care of it for you. However, there is a bit more to it as I am now discovering. Some if it is pretty cool and I think a decent opportunity for Corporate Developers. I was previously fairly specialized in the Microsoft Technology Stack, so was using dotNET and SQL Server daily. That means the obvious choice for a Cloud Platform for me to learn is Microsoft Azure.
While I hate the idea of being a Microsoft guy (again) I acknowledge that it is what it is and bills gotta get paid. The technology itself is pretty impressive and it's come a long way since I left Corporate all those years ago. The opportunity for developers today is significant because for legacy Corporate applications it's not ideal to just be shoving out old code into the Cloud. To get the best out of platforms like Azure it's best to actually re-architect the legacy applications to take advantage of the new features the cloud offers. What this means is that there currently appears to be a LOT of jobs available for Devs who know how to use Azure properly and (unlike when I left Corporate) a lot of these roles are now able to Work from Home.
I'm considering getting some Azure Certifications which might help me plug the 9 year hole in my Resume, but maybe I can just learn the tech and get past the interviews with some old school charm and strategic use of jargon. We will have to see. It does feel a bit like I am back to Square One here, but that's how life goes sometimes.