I initially created the Cloud Resume Challenge [0] a couple of years ago because I was seeing a huge wave of people trying to get "six-figure cloud jobs" off the back of little more than a couple of certifications. This is not sufficient and it contributes to the industry's bad attitude toward hiring and mentoring juniors.

The goal of the CRC was to set people new to cloud a REAL challenge: not to give them a paint-by-numbers tutorial, but to lay out a spec that would require them to open a bunch of search tabs, stay up late, go down rabbit holes, and learn through pain. It self-selects for people who are self-motivated and know how to learn.

If you try the Cloud Resume Challenge and can't complete it, or you hate it, then you'll have learned a valuable lesson about whether you really want a job in the cloud right now - because these are the type of problems that cloud teams really work on.

But if you can complete the Cloud Resume Challenge, you will learn something about:

Front end and back end software development

Cloud services and "serverless"

Cloud networking, particularly DNS and CDNs

Cloud security

DevOps principles (version control, infrastructure-as-code, CI/CD)

And you'll learn by doing, because the spec doesn't give you enough help to figure any of this out without a lot of trial and error. It's a messy way to learn, but reality is messy. That's why it works as a talking point in real-life job interviews.

People sometimes get hung up on the "resume" part of the Cloud Resume Challenge, saying "who would be impressed by a resume site?" Fine, whatever, put something else on your site, it doesn't have to be your resume. (Though I believe personal websites are underrated as learning tools, simply because they give you built-in motivation to keep maintaining and updating the site over time, which gives 90% of the value in any side project.) The important thing is to build something real, something with a purpose in the world - not a toy tutorial. That will give you a baptism by fire that you will not forget.

Last thing: though there is a guidebook [1] for the challenge that you can buy (actually 3, one for each cloud! I just updated them! They're great!) the challenge itself is and will remain free for everyone to do. Happy to answer any questions - the CRC is not my job, it's a passion project and I'm always open to suggestions for how to make it a better experience.

[0] https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/docs/the-challenge [1] https://cloudresumechallenge.dev/book/