“Young People Should NOT Work From Home!” | Why Cloud Computing? | with TechToby

[00:00:00] Why Cloud? Why did you see Cloud as that option where, you know, you thought you could see a future

[00:00:05] working in this area for a long period of time?

[00:00:09] I think one of the biggest selling points for me was that when I was working on Prem,

[00:00:13] I hated going into data centers and especially because a lot of companies will have data

[00:00:18] centers miles away. And then the biggest con is that unless you're working for a technology

[00:00:25] specifically like unless you're working for Fang or a technology company a bit below Fang,

[00:00:30] securing internal pay rises is incredibly difficult. The thing with job hopping is I've

[00:00:36] obviously done it in the past. There's a ceiling you hit job hopping that people don't really talk

[00:00:41] about. It's not something that you can continuously do unless you're considering moving into

[00:00:46] management. You need to be skilling whilst job hopping. You can't just job up junior,

[00:00:50] mid senior. You actually have to be a good engineer and you'll reach that ceiling where you'll get to

[00:00:55] like that salary point and realize you can't job hop anymore.

[00:00:58] What advice would you give to someone who is trying to enter the cloud computing space?

[00:01:04] I think the first point is to acknowledge it's not going to be easy and if it was,

[00:01:08] everyone would be doing it. Everyone would be working in tech but they aren't.

[00:01:12] I emphasize quite a bit or have been recently because I feel like people underestimate

[00:01:17] and they're like, okay, yeah, I'm learning the tools and I know this stuff so well.

[00:01:22] But like even from the point of an interview, if you can't communicate it doesn't matter.

[00:01:27] It doesn't matter much about what you've done. If you can't bring that across to a hiring manager

[00:01:33] or whoever's interviewing you, it's not, you're not in the best position to get that role.

[00:01:44] Hello and welcome to the Tech Certified podcast. I'm your host Caleb Ernie

[00:01:51] Certified and this is the podcast where we interview tech professionals and tech creators

[00:01:56] who inspire us on our journeys in the tech industry. I'm so pleased to have today's guest

[00:02:02] on today's podcast episode. We have a special guest on the podcast, a well-known face in

[00:02:08] the cloud computing space. We have Toby who is a cloud consultant and content creator.

[00:02:14] He shares incredible insights on TikTok and YouTube and his other platforms

[00:02:18] and we finally got him on the podcast. Toby, how are you doing today?

[00:02:22] I've been doing very well. Obviously, thank you very much for having me. It's really good.

[00:02:26] This is my first podcast that I've actually been on so it's a great opportunity to speak

[00:02:31] to someone in debt who's also working in a similar line of work and actually

[00:02:35] inspire some other people to try to get into the industry.

[00:02:37] Thanks so much and we'll start off by getting an introduction to Toby. Who is Toby?

[00:02:43] And yeah, just tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:02:46] Yeah, absolutely. So I've actually been working in technology for 10 years. A lot of people are

[00:02:52] surprised when I say that obviously because I'm in my 20s but I actually started when I was 17.

[00:02:57] So when I left school I didn't really want to go into further education that much. It wasn't

[00:03:04] something I was interested in. I was very much sort of hands-on and wanting to get into work.

[00:03:07] So I did unfortunately not able to secure an apprenticeship at the time so I went to

[00:03:13] college to continue studying a technology placement and after six weeks of college I

[00:03:19] managed to land an apprenticeship. So immediately left college and that role was actually starting

[00:03:24] in the January so if any people in the UK we know like the school term sort of starts around

[00:03:29] September. So I kind of had like two months off to just live my life at like 16, 17 years old

[00:03:34] and then ever since then it's been kind of leveling up consistently in technology for

[00:03:40] different roles. So that was 10 years ago was actually the first time I ever worked on anything

[00:03:44] cloud-based as well which is you know 10 years back it's very not so much cloud heavy.

[00:03:51] And then I finished my apprenticeship and went to go work for a global organization of like 15

[00:03:58] VAs and people on a help desk and that was supporting around three VAs and members of staff

[00:04:03] and eventually moved on to desktop support and then infrastructure engineering which is where

[00:04:07] I got more very much hands-on with networking, virtualization, storage, identity and access,

[00:04:13] all that sort of stuff and gradually that kind of moved sort of hybrid cloud and then I kind of

[00:04:18] realized well if so many companies and I'm migrating to cloud environments and I'm still

[00:04:23] working in hybrid and cloud salaries are much higher than on-prem and hybrid roles.

[00:04:29] It's probably about time whilst I'm doing some of the work I put in a lot of effort to try

[00:04:34] to focus on cloud and just jump ship and that's exactly what I did. I did a video on that one

[00:04:40] of my first videos on here and how I'd set out a three month plan to study cloud computing

[00:04:46] and during that three months all I did every evening for about two to three hours was study

[00:04:51] cloud and other leveraging technologies like Terraform, CI CD pipelines, all that sort of stuff

[00:04:56] and eventually managed to land a cloud role and ever since then my past two roles in current

[00:05:01] role have all been 100% cloud, fully remote, don't have to worry about going to offices,

[00:05:06] data centers or anything like that so yeah it's been great. It's interesting how you went from

[00:05:12] you know you started with the apprenticeship so talk to us a little bit about the apprenticeship

[00:05:18] because from my understanding of apprenticeships obviously that's different from university,

[00:05:23] you work and study at the same time right? Is that how it works?

[00:05:29] Yeah so there are quite different nowadays to what mine was like 10 years ago so

[00:05:35] 10 years ago there weren't many degree apprenticeships it was very sort of

[00:05:39] not a lot nowadays most of them are all degree apprenticeships mine was actually equivalent

[00:05:43] to A level so it was two years I went to have to go to college one day a week on a Thursday

[00:05:49] from 9 a.m till 8 o'clock at night so it's a really long day I used to have to get the

[00:05:54] bus for around an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back so I'd leave my house

[00:05:59] 7 a.m get home maybe like 9 30 10 o'clock on that day and then yeah the remaining four days I was in

[00:06:06] the office and it was very much it was what a lot of apprenticeships do now and even back then

[00:06:12] is you rotate during apprenticeship on different types of roles but because this was a small

[00:06:18] company I kind of had to do that naturally anyway so there were some elements of programming

[00:06:22] networking support field installation work there was some hardware work running cabling as well

[00:06:29] it's very much in depth at the point where I could learn as much as I could but it wasn't

[00:06:35] going to take me to the next level because I was working on bespoke systems which were

[00:06:38] electronic point of sales machines so touch screen till oh that's pretty cool and

[00:06:43] and it's interesting to hear a bit about apprenticeships and yeah how those work and

[00:06:48] and so another thing that was interesting about a walkthrough of your journey is how

[00:06:54] at some point during your journey started to recognize the potential for working in the cloud

[00:07:00] and you came to a point where you said do you know what this might be a great area to go into

[00:07:08] it seems like a great area to work the salaries are high all this all this kind of stuff

[00:07:12] and so to move on to the next question I wanted to ask why cloud why why did you see cloud as that

[00:07:20] option where you know you thought you could see a future working in this area for a long period of

[00:07:27] time I think one of the biggest selling points for me was that when I was working on prem I hated

[00:07:33] going into data centers and especially because a lot of companies will have data centers

[00:07:37] you know miles away in the UK it's obviously not as bad as it is in some place like America where

[00:07:43] there can be hundreds of miles away you know we can drive pretty comfortably in a UK to reach

[00:07:46] a data center but it's just the idea of going to one messing around with hardware I wasn't really

[00:07:51] that enthusiastic about it and I always wanted to be the person who was in the office doing

[00:07:54] the stuff on a computer instead and when you kind of get to the idea where if AWS or

[00:08:01] if Microsoft are going to do all of that for me it eliminates such a large aspect of the job

[00:08:06] role and it's that was the most area I disliked of working on prem so it's kind of like okay well if

[00:08:14] I can do all that and never have to worry about going into a data center I'll be much more happy

[00:08:19] and that's what it was and not only are you more happy I think the biggest turning point for me

[00:08:24] was seeing junior cloud engineer salaries were higher than on prem infrastructure engineers who

[00:08:29] weren't juniors which was kind of mind-blowing the skills are so in demand in the UK and

[00:08:33] they still are which they just keep the salaries going out no that's that's that makes a lot of sense

[00:08:40] and I think it would be great to touch as well on something you mentioned which is just about

[00:08:47] the ability to work remotely throughout your roles and I think it was obviously working in

[00:08:53] the cloud space everything you need to do is cloud based so there is no hardware that you've

[00:09:00] got to deal with if you're if you're fully working on cloud completely there is no

[00:09:07] switches you need to plug anything into or or that sort of thing and and depending on the company

[00:09:13] you know they might ask you to come in for collaboration or stuff like that but your role

[00:09:19] you can do everything remotely without any physical contact with machines or not having to

[00:09:26] to go in in person so how have you found that experience and what and what do you prefer like

[00:09:33] do you prefer like a hybrid sort of working where you do go in sometimes or do you like that fully

[00:09:39] 100% remote sort of roles absolutely so since COVID I've probably been 90 I would say 95%

[00:09:48] remote I think since COVID I've probably visited an office maybe 30 to 40 times which is

[00:09:55] not as much as towards probably like on average like less than once a month

[00:09:59] and I'm really not against going to the office I find now that I've worked from home for so long

[00:10:05] it can actually get quite boring and if you've about the three years down in life since COVID

[00:10:10] I've probably done everything possible to entertain myself at home during the office hours and on

[00:10:15] lunch breaks you could probably think of and I think that element of being alone

[00:10:20] is good if you have your family members with you but like when my partner goes to work

[00:10:24] she needs to go to the office so it's just me and I think the element of actually being able

[00:10:30] to speak to people daily is so much more beneficial for you than just being stuck at home and I

[00:10:35] actually think young people nowadays will suffer a lot more than someone like myself did who spent

[00:10:42] the first five years in an office and I do believe that there are opportunities that

[00:10:48] young people will miss out on if they just stay at home and I actually encourage people

[00:10:52] if you are very young go to the office at least once or twice a week and if you don't want to

[00:10:56] go weekly go every two weeks because in my last place we had graduates and the people that sat

[00:11:03] at home they were not given the work that people were given in the office naturally when

[00:11:08] you're in the office you're having these conversations all this is coming up this is

[00:11:11] coming up and that person if they're already there I'll take that on that's another skill

[00:11:16] set they can add to their CV if it's another big project where the other I think enterprise

[00:11:20] organizations who really have young people right where they want them right now working from home

[00:11:25] the inquire not causing a fuss in their eyes it's amazing they can work from home not go to an office

[00:11:31] save a lot of money on travel and food but I think that will eventually hold people back

[00:11:36] and bring salaries that's a really interesting take and I'm glad we're able to touch on that

[00:11:41] because that is really interesting and yeah I think most people don't really think that way

[00:11:45] because it's more of a yeah this is cool you know I get to stay at home wake up like do what I want

[00:11:53] as long as I've done the work that I need to do and this is ideal but you seem to have a really

[00:12:00] different take on that on that sort of thing which is really interesting I think at the

[00:12:05] point where I am now where I'm in like a senior engineering position and it's a bit different

[00:12:10] where I currently am because we're all remote because it's consulting a previous company had

[00:12:15] an office in my city current company doesn't I don't really have that much of a requirement to

[00:12:19] visit anyone unless there's a client but you know it's something I've just picked up noticing really

[00:12:25] I've probably said the last sort of 12 months plus where there's definitely a reluctancy for

[00:12:31] people in tech especially who are more young than not go to the office let me mentally

[00:12:35] ask you can be can be damaging for young people very interesting and that leads us on to

[00:12:41] the next question I wanted to ask and this is just a question about

[00:12:46] the biggest pro and the biggest con of working in this industry as you have been doing for a while now

[00:12:54] so so we can start with the biggest con that you would say about working in the cloud space

[00:13:02] but the tech industry in general or whichever way you'd want to go with it but what is the

[00:13:06] biggest con and the biggest pro about working in this industry and the biggest con is that

[00:13:14] unless you're working for a technology company specifically like if unless you're working for

[00:13:19] Fang or a technology company a bit below Fang securing internal pay rises is incredibly difficult

[00:13:27] and let's say someone's working for a finance company their technology department is not as

[00:13:33] valued as it would be if you were working for a designated technology company now what will happen

[00:13:41] in those situations is people tend to get annoyed and they threaten to leave or they do leave and if

[00:13:46] they do leave they go get an extra 10 20 percent more money and then the company is then left to

[00:13:52] hire someone else on more money than the person that already had so if I wanted a 10k pay rise

[00:13:57] and I worked in industry and I left and I got 30k more to replace me they're going to have to

[00:14:02] hire someone for an extra 15 or 20k so that company loses money and it's a never-ending cycle of

[00:14:07] musical chairs and technology especially in the UK I could assume it's pretty similar in the US as

[00:14:12] well if you're working in the industry where people leave for more money but then the company's

[00:14:17] higher people are more money to replace them and then there's that never-ending cycle of

[00:14:20] training those people up and so on and so forth I think that's probably the biggest con

[00:14:27] when you work for a designated tech company it's kind of different you're a lot more valued

[00:14:32] usually you're going to get rsu's as well so yeah it's a bit different but you know swings

[00:14:37] around about if you work in industry you're more than likely going to have a much bigger pension

[00:14:41] contribution if you work for somewhere like a bank then you would a tech company but

[00:14:44] if you're any more money in tech companies it kind of balances out I can kind of relate to

[00:14:50] that I mean being in the industry a few years and and moving on to another place you can see

[00:14:56] that like people who have been there for a while get those really slow incremental increases you know

[00:15:02] they're 5% a year or whatever and in the way to well the way people advise to really up your

[00:15:11] salary or up your income is to job hop is to move around every one or two years to really get

[00:15:17] those those jumps so that's a really it's so true and I can even say for myself and my career

[00:15:24] if I if I was in my first cloud role till now I would be earning so much less than I was earning

[00:15:30] if I didn't jump which is just a fact throughout the industry and we so do you want to add

[00:15:39] something to that yeah I was just gonna say that there's also the thing with job hopping

[00:15:44] is I've obviously done it in the past there is there's a ceiling you hit job hopping that people

[00:15:50] don't really talk about it's not something that you can continuously do unless you're considering

[00:15:55] moving into management because senior engineer salaries you know across the board are fairly

[00:16:01] similar unless you come across a lucrative position so you need to be skilling whilst

[00:16:06] job hopping you can't just job pop junior mid senior you actually have to be a good engineer

[00:16:13] and you'll reach that ceiling where you'll get to like that's that way point and realize you can't

[00:16:17] job hop anymore so you need to make sure your final job pop is a good company you actually

[00:16:22] want to stay there otherwise it's just going to be sideways moves to other places for well

[00:16:26] have you have you seen this in other people where they they job hop to the point that

[00:16:37] yeah they can't job hop off there just job hopping sideways or even lower and taking pay cuts

[00:16:42] I think where I currently am I couldn't job hop again to another role that would pay me that much

[00:16:49] more unless I relocated cities or managed to get a remote job from an American very interesting

[00:16:54] okay so let's talk about the biggest pro now the best thing about working in this space

[00:17:01] for you I think it's a flexibility to own your own workload

[00:17:06] I think once you get to those more senior positions you're very much more trusted you don't have to

[00:17:13] rely on other people to help you you just know what you're doing and you crap on with it and you're

[00:17:17] given your own dedicated time I know a lot of people don't tile particularly like work at

[00:17:23] certain frameworks like scrum and agile or waterfall because they end up in situations where

[00:17:28] micro managed to different spirits and stuff like that but if you can understand how long a

[00:17:34] piece of work is going to take to deliver and you can communicate that effectively you can pretty

[00:17:40] much go at a real steady pace to get the job done and there is elements of downtime as well

[00:17:46] like because I've been a consultant in the past three years there's something called the bench

[00:17:50] whereas if there is no client for you to work for at the moment you just get paid to

[00:17:55] essentially do nothing well you can do nothing but you get very bored at home doing nothing so in

[00:18:01] that spare time I have on the bench I'm just learning new things perfect and that's what yeah

[00:18:06] when you do have spare time of whichever role that's a perfect time to upskill and use that

[00:18:11] time wisely so and there's probably no other industry I'm aware of like that I mean even

[00:18:18] if you work in consulting not in tech you'll still have the opportunity for bench but if

[00:18:22] you're someone who's maybe working in like mechanical engineering or if you're a doctor

[00:18:27] you'll never get that downtime as as you would technology and so and so let's talk about

[00:18:34] someone who'd want to get into this cloud computing space and I've watched your channel

[00:18:40] and seen all the great advice and insight that you give on getting into cloud computing roles

[00:18:47] and different cloud computing jobs and so generally what advice would you give to someone who is trying

[00:18:55] to enter the cloud computing space I think the first point is to acknowledge it's not going to be

[00:19:02] easy and if it was easy everyone would be doing it everyone would be working in tech but they

[00:19:07] aren't and when people are in a situation where they want to change their career that's amazing

[00:19:13] and they do tend to typically go to YouTube to understand how to do that and speak find information

[00:19:18] from people within the industry I think you need to find people who are trustworthy and actually

[00:19:23] research those people because there are a lot of people on YouTube and other social media platforms

[00:19:28] that are just trying to sell your course and they're either not working in industry or they've

[00:19:33] exited and this is the way they make money now and they're telling you that you can line a job

[00:19:37] in you know three months six months whereas for the people that actually do that the percentage

[00:19:43] is very low if someone with zero experience landed an engineering job in my opinion it's got to be

[00:19:50] less than five percent so I think acknowledging that it's not going to be easy it's going to take

[00:19:54] a long time there's a lot to learn we'll reassure you a lot more because if you try to rush something

[00:20:02] you're not going to learn as well and it probably isn't going to happen. Yeah that's so true and

[00:20:05] one of the things I like about utobies you keep it real like even with even with watching your

[00:20:12] your stuff on your tiktok and YouTube you're someone who's very honest and there's no cap or

[00:20:17] fakeness about you and you tell them how it is it's not going to be easy like this isn't something

[00:20:23] that yeah so go ahead. I think I think this also is a problem I've noticed people don't like

[00:20:29] that who are seeking that inspiration and I was watching um I was watching a clip from Ali Abdaal

[00:20:36] the other day on one of his podcasts I can't remember the name of the guy who he was talking to

[00:20:40] about he was talking about impressional people and they were kind of talking on a similar line

[00:20:44] about youtubers selling courses to people and he said he was looking into journaling before

[00:20:50] and people would comment um what pen do I need to journal it doesn't matter go buy a pen start

[00:20:58] writing stuff down and it happens in technology you know what laptop do I need to write codes

[00:21:03] what website do I need to learn from it doesn't matter just buy a laptop if you can you can

[00:21:08] write code on any laptop you can do anything you know there's so many free resources out there

[00:21:15] that are available and I don't think people need to pay for anything and the way I look is if

[00:21:21] someone like myself has been in technology for 10 years so it's never paid for any course in their

[00:21:25] entire life and it's just learned everything for free whenever I've been even though this has been

[00:21:29] funded before me from a company why does someone else need to pay for that who's trying to get

[00:21:34] into the industry it doesn't particularly make sense I can understand creators you know kind of

[00:21:40] selling like small ebooks I have one as like a sort of guidelines and things to refer back to

[00:21:47] but unless someone is like really well positioned in the industry I don't think people should

[00:21:52] be spending five six thousand dollars on a course just to try and get into tech

[00:21:57] like you might 15 pound ones unusually no it's true it is true and yeah um there's a lot of there's a

[00:22:05] lot of courses out there we've just launched a free cloud engineer assessment to evaluate and

[00:22:10] assess your current skills on your path to becoming a cloud professional now when you

[00:22:15] take this assessment it provides some incredible recommendations for your path and remember this

[00:22:21] completely free it costs you nothing it only helps you on your journey so if this interests you and

[00:22:26] you're an aspiring cloud professional definitely take this assessment I'm going to leave a link

[00:22:31] to it here's an example of me taking it myself and getting some pretty good recommendations

[00:22:35] for my own assessment so guys check this out and I hope this is really helpful thank you guys

[00:22:40] for watching and I'll see you guys later I think doing your research on on on these courses

[00:22:45] for one but also like you've got to think about why you're why you're going to spend that much money

[00:22:53] on a course because for some people the reason they would go and get some creators course on

[00:23:00] on tech on this is because they they want to hear it from that creator and they're like this

[00:23:05] this is the person that I want to hear this stuff from because he teaches the best and

[00:23:11] the way he yeah the way he teaches resonates so much with me and I've been following him for so

[00:23:17] and so and so time so I need this course from this person I'll pay so and so thousand for it

[00:23:22] and that's and that's and fair enough if that's your reason but if someone is telling you that

[00:23:27] you will get into this space for like in 30 days if you take my course there is something

[00:23:34] wrong if it's too good to be true it probably isn't so I think really doing the research on the

[00:23:40] courses you're getting regardless of whether your favorite creator told you to get it or not is

[00:23:45] super important and what our advice to anyone who's who's um who is yeah looking to get into the

[00:23:50] space and doing these courses yeah buy a creator's course if you want to you want to support them

[00:23:55] and you think they're very good at explaining things but don't buy it from someone who's

[00:24:00] telling you you're going to get a job in 30 days or a couple months especially in this job

[00:24:04] market it's probably not going to happen it's tough we talk about the job market and um

[00:24:09] that kind of leads us nicely into our next question where I just wanted to ask you what we

[00:24:14] have you about the most important skills to have in the cloud industry I mean it's probably a

[00:24:21] difficult question because every cloud role is so different and the cloud is so much broader

[00:24:28] than people realize you know people think cloud engineer means one thing means you do one

[00:24:33] certain thing with a cloud but there are so many services that you work with and there are so many

[00:24:40] different roles within the cloud um but I wanted to know from your perspective Toby um what you

[00:24:48] would say are the most important skills to have in the cloud industry and those could be soft

[00:24:53] skills or hard technical skills but what would you say to to that question let's say the number

[00:24:59] one is terraform um after you've learned the cloud provider if you can learn terraform use it effectively

[00:25:07] it's going to be primarily depending on the role a lot of cloud engineers most used tool in my opinion

[00:25:16] you know no one uses the GUI no one really does click-ups work everything is automated so if

[00:25:22] you can learn terraform and then learn a CICP pipeline tool like Azure DevOps or GitLab for example

[00:25:31] that will really set you up in a good stead um I recently done a video on this and kind of said like

[00:25:37] you don't need to know everything to become a junior you need to know the fundamentals and

[00:25:41] the course of work so if you're going to learn cloud learn terraform learn a pipeline tool

[00:25:48] that's as far really as I think a junior really needs um and also preferably have like an automation

[00:25:54] tool like a bash power shop or python I think that is a really core for a junior amazing it's

[00:25:59] going to set them up nicely those are some great tools and great examples of places to you know

[00:26:05] I think if you have a great understanding and and if you've done all the projects and work with

[00:26:11] with certain thing when you go into interview or whatever the case may be this is something

[00:26:15] you can present that yeah I have done this this this with terraform I understand this this this

[00:26:20] and are you able to discuss certain tools that you've learned and and worked with that is a big

[00:26:26] plus for anyone trying to get into the industry um from from uh yeah from from zero or from not

[00:26:32] knowing much or from whatever background you're coming from so that's a great point there and

[00:26:39] and so what about soft skills what would you say are soft skills that are super important

[00:26:44] or soft skills that you've had that have helped you get to the the senior positions you are today

[00:26:51] or have helped you move up and and that sort of thing so I actually think empathy is one of the

[00:26:59] most underrated so if you're a frustrated client um whoever's in industry or working in

[00:27:06] consulting being able to actually listen to what they need understand what their requirements

[00:27:12] are and portray it back to them as effectively as you can is probably the most underrated trait

[00:27:18] since I've been working in consulting I feel like my communication skills have just blown up

[00:27:24] massively and even from creating content actually just talking to a camera can make you actually

[00:27:29] talk better in person without ever realizing it like before I did um content I worked in

[00:27:34] consulting like I was not as good as a communicator as I am now so I actually think

[00:27:41] communication is probably the most underrated now I think people have this stigma of engineers

[00:27:45] and people that work in tech is that they're all introverted um that is pretty true to a

[00:27:50] large extent like a lot of engineers are introverted but the key noticeable thing is the people that

[00:27:56] go on to senior positions in management they aren't introverts they're people who have

[00:28:01] learned how to communicate and I said actually said this in my recent video that being an

[00:28:06] engineer isn't just writing code being an engineer is writing code knowing what product is

[00:28:10] how to sell a product how to communicate a product and all these different things so if you can learn

[00:28:16] how to communicate and understand the people's requirements that's probably the best course

[00:28:20] of skill it's so true and this is something that like I I emphasize quite a bit or have been

[00:28:26] recently because I feel like people don't people underestimate and they're like okay yeah I'm

[00:28:32] learning the tools and I know this stuff so well but like even from the point of an interview

[00:28:39] if you can't communicate it doesn't matter yeah it doesn't matter much about what you've done if you

[00:28:45] can't bring that across to to a hiring manager or whoever's interviewing you it's not you're not

[00:28:51] in the best position to get that role and someone with less technical skills who is able

[00:28:57] to communicate really well and communicate what they've done really well would be ahead of you

[00:29:02] if you don't if you don't have that or if you haven't worked on that area as well as the technical

[00:29:08] side of things and if the way to look here is that if you were a hiring manager what do you look for

[00:29:15] who is me I'd want I'd want to hire someone I actually want to work with which is really what

[00:29:21] an interview boss down to and so many interviews don't flow well and that's like not something

[00:29:27] you should be annoyed about if your interview doesn't flow well the interviewer could be a bad

[00:29:31] communicator I've had so many interviews with people who are in like senior or lead positions

[00:29:36] and in my opinion they're terrible at communicating and then the interview flows terribly

[00:29:40] and sometimes it's not just that as well as your personalities if you're hiring if you're trying

[00:29:46] to go for a job and the hiring manager is a completely different person to you and maybe they

[00:29:50] don't have the same sort of hobbies or anything like that your interview can just be flat from

[00:29:54] from the get-go usually it's one of the first things you discuss like tell us about yourself

[00:29:58] if they don't really care what you're interested in you're not really going to care what they're

[00:30:02] interested in and the interviewer just doesn't really flow that well I had that recently when I was

[00:30:06] doing my last hiring ranks and within the first two minutes I knew I wouldn't get the job

[00:30:13] it was it was that bad it felt like I was interviewing them almost because I was trying

[00:30:19] to get more information at them for the questions because they were just terrible

[00:30:22] questions that you would never ask anyone to interview you. That's incredible so so when we talk

[00:30:28] about like soft skills I think back to like how did I develop soft skills or be able to speak and

[00:30:37] it's just you know everyone starts from somewhere and some people start better than others right

[00:30:42] naturally some people are better at talking about stuff than others but there are also

[00:30:48] ways to to practice that I feel like to even just if you're not in the industry

[00:30:52] you know things like mock interviews are really helpful but if you are I think you know certain

[00:31:00] pieces of work that I've done in the past that have involved speaking to a customer or speaking to

[00:31:08] or tech support kind of tasks or job not that I've worked in tech support but still within

[00:31:16] my role I've had different areas where I've had to do some tech support or do some incident

[00:31:21] response and and those have really helped me with with communication because now I have to think about

[00:31:28] how I'm speaking to the person that has this issue oh this is so and so is happening to my

[00:31:33] computer I have to ask them certain questions I have to hear their responses and be like okay

[00:31:38] yeah this is how we go about it if I still can't figure it out I have to to manage this in a way

[00:31:44] that I'm speaking to them and assuring them and all this stuff and I felt like I was never

[00:31:49] really taught this but I had to kind of figure it out and then after that content like you see the

[00:31:58] way I'm speaking now and then you look at my first video they're like damn there's a massive difference

[00:32:05] is um it's black and white and so it's all this to say that communication is something

[00:32:12] that is developed and grown as well as you know some people have it and some people don't

[00:32:17] even if you don't that is something that you have to develop as an engineer especially

[00:32:22] hmm I think especially for young people as well you know because like these have killed communication

[00:32:27] really like how many times if like someone called you and you've looked at and you like

[00:32:32] I won't answer it I'll text them instead in five minutes you know that sort of stuff you

[00:32:36] don't realize how much that sort of stuff portrays into your career a lot of people don't

[00:32:42] you know someone calls you randomly on teams like people get annoyed like oh god why are

[00:32:46] they calling me you know just send me a message like that sort of stuff is portrayed into working

[00:32:51] environments now people don't really want to get on the phone they don't want to talk they

[00:32:54] don't want to have meetings they just want to type out to each other and I think the young

[00:32:58] people who are growing up now will suffer a lot more from that than like people like us so we've

[00:33:03] already been through it so it's definitely something that they should acknowledge um

[00:33:07] so true they're talking to people because you know people think in tech you don't talk to

[00:33:13] anyone but it's a client based industry yeah exactly and let's let's move on to the next

[00:33:21] question because I'm really interested to hear about this from you and you know I always say

[00:33:28] this like on every episode right this question I ask to everyone I ask this one question to

[00:33:36] everyone and the question is what is a really interesting career story that you have if

[00:33:42] you have one and it could be like something went really well or something went terribly

[00:33:48] throughout your career what is the number one story you tell on a really interesting story

[00:33:55] that you've had in your career I've always say so in the very early days when I moved from

[00:34:03] desktop support to infrastructure engineering I was in that junior phase of infrastructure

[00:34:08] and I got given this ticket one day and there was a shared drive that was found by the security

[00:34:15] department that wasn't secured so this is just a normal far share on a windows domain

[00:34:18] had no permissions on it at all so anyone could go in and read write to any of these files

[00:34:26] and no one knew what it was and it was a far show that was created in 2003 so it was even

[00:34:33] more alarming that it hasn't been noticed since 2003 and this was about six years ago when this

[00:34:38] happened my job was to secure this so nobody knew what it was we sent out a ton of communication

[00:34:44] to ask people and no one got back to us so I was kind of instructed to just secure it lock it down

[00:34:51] create a group and whoever shouts about it shouts about it at the end of the day if

[00:34:56] they lose access to stuff turned out it was a far share that one of the main applications

[00:35:01] for the company was writing files to and because I secured it it knocked out the use of the application

[00:35:07] so thousands of people couldn't use this one application and the worst part of that is if

[00:35:14] you use windows and you're trying to secure a far share on domain you have to wait until it

[00:35:20] finishes and there were so many files in there so it took about four hours to secure

[00:35:25] and then I had to unsecure it so it took about eight hours of bang time until the application was

[00:35:31] back up and in my mind like I was really young at the time when I was like oh my god I've just broken

[00:35:35] this like I'm gonna get fired but thankfully I had quite good management at the time and the

[00:35:39] people in the tech department were very much adamant that this isn't really our fault

[00:35:45] so much that I've done this years ago so that was a bit more relieving but that's a good

[00:35:51] like point is that like if there is a major incident and you close it there's what you should

[00:35:55] there's always some form of rollback may take time but it does happen you know look at the

[00:36:00] crash strike global it is the person who calls that I bet they had the worst week of the

[00:36:05] life yeah what happened with crowdstrike I mean the person responsible for that is not just

[00:36:12] responsible for what happened in the company it's like the world crazy um but but but I wanted to

[00:36:19] you know just touch on that story um thanks for that and and and what was the the kind of blowback

[00:36:24] from the people within the company did did you receive any word of you know people complaining

[00:36:30] they can't use this application or is it something that went to help desk how did you

[00:36:33] how did that happen and how did you feel when you started receiving yeah so initially I went

[00:36:38] to help with us kind of they figured out it was me who owned the ticket and then frustration

[00:36:42] was sort of moved to me and then once once it was acknowledged it was a much bigger issue

[00:36:46] than people thought it was it went straight to management and they argued about it so I think

[00:36:52] that's one of the good things about technology is that if something does go really above yourself

[00:36:56] and you do call something huge management or that's all I didn't really hear much about it

[00:37:01] since that point apart from when it's just don't do it again yeah

[00:37:08] and I was like okay I mean we put I did much you diligence and asked everyone but

[00:37:14] yeah that's what I get a good story no way there is just no way some of you guys have been watching

[00:37:21] this far and have not subscribed to the channel others have yet to even like the video and for

[00:37:27] the people watching on Spotify and Apple podcasts some of you have not even rated the podcast

[00:37:32] thanks so much for watching guys if you got any value like subscribe and rate the podcast on

[00:37:38] whatever streaming platform all right let's get right back to the video um let's move into to speaking

[00:37:43] about content a little bit and so tech toby tick tock and youtube when did you start creating

[00:37:51] content and how long has it been so far finally I love I actually first started creating content

[00:37:58] when I when I was like 16 17 um and it was when I was waiting to start my apprenticeship

[00:38:04] and someone found it and I got like really just delete it or we've never done it again

[00:38:11] and then yeah during during covid I started twitch streaming and playing like warzone and

[00:38:18] FIFA and stuff like that and it kind of never really took off and there's so much

[00:38:21] manpower she has to put into the stream and to build any sort of community up and then

[00:38:27] covid kept and then then on tiktok came around I remember my partner was like she

[00:38:31] was on furlough and I was working through covid from home and I would hear her laughing every day

[00:38:36] at her phone and I was kind of like what why are you laughing at she's like oh tiktok and I was like

[00:38:41] it's a dancing app and she was like no no not anymore like there's loads of different people

[00:38:46] on here like creating content and funny stuff and like I didn't really buy into it and then a

[00:38:50] month later I downloaded it and I was just sat at my desk like laughing every day like

[00:38:54] in meetings my phone mute I was just obsessed with tiktok like how so many people were

[00:38:59] during covid it was either tiktok or youtube and then I started making football content

[00:39:04] that never really took off and then there was this big boom of technology creators primarily from

[00:39:11] america filming days in their lives and they weren't doing anything apart from riding around

[00:39:16] like google campuses like drinking coffee having like avocado and toasts and I was like this is just

[00:39:21] this is complete bullshit this is not what technology is and like it kind of went viral and

[00:39:27] people in the UK started doing it and they were copying the americans and I was like

[00:39:33] I'm just gonna make content and give people the reality and that's kind of what happened

[00:39:36] but I think people liked the idea that it was real what I was saying like this is how you

[00:39:41] actually get in this is what you need to learn who's all my days look like and it kind of took

[00:39:46] off from there and my plan always was really I always wanted to do youtube so the idea was

[00:39:52] build up enough community on tiktok and try move over to youtube but reality now what I've

[00:39:58] realized is I should have just started youtube straight away because the the audience on youtube

[00:40:03] it's way bigger it's way bigger if you're on tiktok naturally how it works is the algorithm

[00:40:08] pushes your videos to people in your country whereas youtube doesn't do that it pushes it

[00:40:13] to america it pushes it to india pushes it to australia pushes it to places in africa so

[00:40:19] if tiktok pushes you to the uk where there's like what 65 million people you're missing out on 300

[00:40:27] million in america and a billion in india so i think people who do love tiktok it's a great place

[00:40:33] for people but certain content especially tech it's hard to really gauge that audience on tiktok

[00:40:39] because you need time to talk about things where tiktok doesn't really give you that

[00:40:42] people want short form they have the 10 minute option on there now and over a minute

[00:40:47] no one wants to sit on tiktok and watch the video longer than 30 seconds really

[00:40:51] so for the content we make i think youtube is the best place and i can see like from from your

[00:40:59] tiktok and coming on to youtube and like you just you've just told the the true stories and

[00:41:07] this is how you do it um genuinely putting out content to try and help people which is

[00:41:13] which has been amazing to see and and tiktok yeah like i'm the same as you because when i first

[00:41:19] found out about tiktok i was like what is this this dancing is and then i feel like there was

[00:41:25] a point that everyone was everyone just went on it like i went on it everyone went on it and then

[00:41:31] the reason like i'm not on tiktok like with content is like i think the app itself is

[00:41:42] too much for me it's too much and and when i when i say it's too much i think it's just

[00:41:49] it's because the difference between youtube and tiktok is that youtube for the most part

[00:41:54] apart from shorts of course your it's content that you've looked for or that resonates with you or

[00:42:02] something like that and and there's the same with tiktok there's an algorithm whatever but yeah

[00:42:07] flipping through tiktok you could just anything could pop up like and then it is so funny and

[00:42:12] it's so great it's so interesting all this stuff and i just i'm just on it and can't get off it

[00:42:18] and so the only the only way i'd put like kelevone certified on tiktok and start making content

[00:42:24] on there is if i had someone managing it for me i'm like i don't i don't want to be on it because

[00:42:33] i will just not be productive really um so yeah that yeah go ahead and i think the most of

[00:42:40] the most recognizable thing is that content doesn't work the same on every app so if you

[00:42:46] have someone making short form content and they're uploading to tiktok youtube and instagram

[00:42:52] you'll notice the amount of followers they have will always be different they will never be consistent so

[00:42:57] your content may do well on rails so it may not do well in shorts and it may do well on tiktok

[00:43:03] it's that's what i've noticed yeah yeah no it's really interesting so so true and yeah and so

[00:43:10] let's just touch on you know what inspired you to create content and what your goal is

[00:43:17] with with content as well what are you um yeah just what inspired you really to start creating

[00:43:26] i think i think just making sure people aren't legislating on their journey because

[00:43:33] realistically a lot of people that watch us so people that want to get in the industry

[00:43:36] or it's people that are in junior positions and they want to know how to earn more money or get

[00:43:41] some more senior positions so if i could help people not be led astray that will make me

[00:43:47] happier and the amount of people that message me saying i've just got a job i've just got an

[00:43:51] interview um i've just got a pay rise is is almost was almost weekly and that's been happening

[00:43:58] for the best part of two years now and i'd probably say at least 50 people from my community

[00:44:03] have either landed jobs pay rise or changed jobs whether that's from junior positions they're

[00:44:09] already working in the industry and they've tried to switch from a different role to another role

[00:44:12] is you know it's great to see and when you see that those messages come in amazing amazing and

[00:44:18] yeah i feel i think that's why for me like i i'm having more and more people just come on

[00:44:26] and doing this podcast really because i really want to be able to expose the audience or

[00:44:32] whoever's watching to people like you who you know who keep it real and who's able to actually put out

[00:44:38] genuine content that can help people to to move forward and grow in their careers or achieve

[00:44:44] wherever they're going to achieve and just based on the knowledge that you've gained in the industry

[00:44:51] they'd just be in a better position hearing from you which is amazing and that leads me to

[00:44:56] another final thing i wanted to ask you which is for your career or for life in general

[00:45:03] where do you see yourself in the next three four five years time it's uh it's such a

[00:45:09] cliched question because i think if i look back at 25 and then if i look back at 20

[00:45:15] i'd never thought i'd be where i am now like working earning a living uh making content as

[00:45:22] well it was never sort of in the plan and i think the biggest hurdle to me is as you grow older

[00:45:29] life becomes more expensive you know you move out of your your parents home you get your own home

[00:45:35] there's things you have to pay for and as you realize life gets more expensive i think that kind

[00:45:39] of gives you that motivation to realize okay i need to level up in my career now i need to earn

[00:45:43] more money that's kind of what happens i think right now i'm like in a really good position

[00:45:47] like i earn good money i like where i work i like working and consulting and creating content is fun

[00:45:55] at the moment i still have struggling to balance the time to actually do it i kind of find

[00:46:01] i needed like a day to record a lot of content but what kind of happens is i just end up recording

[00:46:06] one video so in five year time i'd really like to still be making content if i can drop

[00:46:13] down the amount of days i work to try focus on that that would be amazing um but i still like

[00:46:19] working in tech you know i can't really ever see myself out of the industry um and there's people

[00:46:24] that work in in this industry who have gone on to make youtube and actually get job opportunities

[00:46:29] from it that people who've been hired from fang just from watching them on youtube which is

[00:46:33] really impressive as well amazing no thanks for that and um tobi thank you so much for for

[00:46:40] being on this episode of the tech certified podcast we are so grateful to have guests like you on here

[00:46:45] and before before we close off just wanted to ask you if you had anything you wanted to share or

[00:46:52] shout out or or promote yeah sure i would obviously come check out the youtube channel if you want to

[00:46:58] if you want realistic honest tech career advice some of the fellow who's worked in the industry

[00:47:03] for a long time i've been in you know many different various engineering roles and worked

[00:47:09] my way up through the ranks from help desk all the way up to senior consultant um the clients i work with

[00:47:14] are you know footsy 100 organizations they're huge clients so i know what i'm talking about

[00:47:20] so yeah come check out the youtube i'm trying to upload as much as i can at the moment it's kind

[00:47:25] of like once every couple weeks sometimes this sometimes flows once a month depends how busy

[00:47:29] i am with work and personal life but i am much more regular on tiktok and on instagram stories

[00:47:35] as well tit dog i kind of use now as if someone wants to ask me a question i'll quickly reply to it

[00:47:42] and just record the video instead of just making like content over there the content is kind of for

[00:47:46] youtube now cool cool thanks so much toby and um all of toby's socials will be linked in the

[00:47:51] description of this video so you guys can just go to the description check out tiktok or or

[00:47:56] instagram or his youtube which will be linked there toby thanks so much for joining us thank

[00:48:02] you for being on this episode of tech certified podcast thank you everyone for watching and i'll

[00:48:07] see you guys on the next episode