Replay - Creatively Giving Back to the Cloud Community with Forrest Brazeal
On this Screaming in the Cloud Replay, we revisit our chat with Forrest Brazeal. When this episode first aired, Forrest was the Head of Content at Google Cloud, but today, he helps run Freeman & Forrest, an influencer marketing service focused on enterprise tech. In this trip down memory lane, Forrest goes into detail on how he is working to give back to the cloud community. Forrest discusses his time at A Cloud Guru, his time as an AWS Serverless Hero, and the technical excellence he brings to his vast-ranging and prolific content. Forrest is also a successful author of a newsletter and multiple books, including a children's book about the cloud! Needless to say, Forrest is an incredibly varied personality in the cloud community, tune in for a chance to get to know him better!
Show Highlights
(00:00) Intro
(1:10) Backblaze sponsor read
(1:36) Starting a new job as the Head of Content for Google Cloud
(2:32) Forrest’s background as a cloud consultant
(3:57) Writing endeavors and The Cloud Resume Challenge
(6:30) Being authentic and helpful in the cloud
(11:43) Forrest’s experiences with Google Cloud
(13:18) Being a thought leader in the cloud community
(16:44) The interview process for Google Cloud
(20:24) Creating online cloud content
(25:51) Having creative freedom at Google
(29:07) The viability of Google Cloud
(31:52) Where you can find more from Forrest
About Forrest Brazeal
Forrest is a cloud educator, cartoonist, author, and Pwnie Award-winning songwriter. He’s also led some of the world's most innovative developer content and community teams at companies like Google and A Cloud Guru.
Links
The Cloud Bard Speaks: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/the-cloud-bard-speaks-with-forrest-brazeal/
The Read Aloud Cloud: https://www.amazon.com/Read-Aloud-Cloud-Innocents-Inside/dp/1119677629
The Cloud Resume Challenge Book: https://forrestbrazeal.gumroad.com/l/cloud-resume-challenge-book/launch-deal
The Cloud Resume Challenge: https://cloudresumechallenge.dev
Twitter: https://twitter.com/forrestbrazeal
Original Episode
https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/creatively-giving-back-to-the-cloud-community-with-forrest-brazeal/
Sponsor
Backblaze: https://www.backblaze.com/
The Evolving Role of a Software Engineer with Forrest Brazeal
Forrest Brazeal, Head of Developer Media at Google Cloud, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss how AI, current job markets, and more are impacting software engineers. Forrest and Corey explore whether AI helps or hurts developers, and what impact it has on the role of a junior developer and the rest of the development team. Forrest also shares his viewpoints on how he feels AI affects people in creative roles. Corey and Forrest discuss the pitfalls of a long career as a software developer, and how people can break into a career in cloud as well as the necessary pivots you may need to make along the way. Forrest then describes why he feels workers are currently staying put where they work, and how he predicts a major shift will happen when the markets shift.
About Forrest
Forrest is a cloud educator, cartoonist, author, and Pwnie Award-winning songwriter. He currently leads the content marketing team at Google Cloud. You can buy his book, The Read Aloud Cloud, from Wiley Publishing or attend his talks at public and private events around the world.
Links Referenced:
Personal Website: https://goodtechthings.com
Newsletter signup: https://cloud.google.com/innovators
Song Encoder: Forrest Brazeal (Interview)
Welcome to Song Encoder, a special series of The Changelog podcast featuring people who create at the intersection of software and music. This episode features Pwnie Award-winning songwriter Forrest Brazeal.
Join the discussion
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Featuring:
Forrest Brazeal – Website, GitHub, X
Jerod Santo – Website, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, X
Show Notes:
168 AWS Services in 2 minutes
The Ransomware Song
That Sinking Feeling (The #HugOps Song)
Serverless v Containers
Look At You Now (The Google Cloud Song)
Kingston Trio-Merry Minuet
Big Tech ((It’s Probably Fine))
The AWS Elastic Load Balancer Yodel Rag
Song Encoder: $STDOUT
Something missing or broken? PRs welcome!
Creatively Giving Back to the Cloud Community with Forrest Brazeal
About Forrest
Forrest is a cloud educator, cartoonist, author, and Pwnie Award-winning songwriter. He currently leads the content marketing team at Google Cloud. You can buy his book, The Read Aloud Cloud, from Wiley Publishing or attend his talks at public and private events around the world.
Links:
The Cloud Bard Speaks: https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/the-cloud-bard-speaks-with-forrest-brazeal/
The Read Aloud Cloud: https://www.amazon.com/Read-Aloud-Cloud-Innocents-Inside/dp/1119677629
The Cloud Resume Challenge Book: https://forrestbrazeal.gumroad.com/l/cloud-resume-challenge-book/launch-deal
The Cloud Resume Challenge: https://cloudresumechallenge.dev
Twitter: https://twitter.com/forrestbrazeal
The Cloud Bard Speaks with Forrest Brazeal
About Forrest Brazeal
Forrest is an enterprise cloud architect, speaker, and community advocate. Currently a senior manager at A Cloud Guru, he spent years designing applications for the cloud at Infor and Trek10. One of the original AWS Serverless Heroes, Forrest was also named one of Jefferson Frank's Top 7 Global AWS Experts in 2019. His first book, "The Read-Aloud Cloud", is coming from Wiley in September 2020.
Links Referenced
Book: https://www.amazon.com/Read-Aloud-Cloud-Innocents-Inside/dp/1119677629
Cloud Irregular: https://cloudirregular.substack.com/ works. Note that this is the link behind some text that is “forrestBrazeal.com/mailinglist” which was not a working link.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/forrestbrazeal
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/forrestbrazeal/
Personal Website: https://forrestbrazeal.com/
Article “Why Central Cloud Teams Fail”: https://info.acloud.guru/resources/why-central-cloud-teams-fail-and-how-to-save-yours
Episode 18: Sitting on the curb clapping as serverless superheroes go by
What’s serverless? Are you serverless now? Is going from enterprise to serverless a natural evolution? Or, is it a “that was fun, now let’s go ride our bikes” moment? Is serverless “just a toy?” Is it a wide and varied ecosystem, or is it Lambda plus some other randos? What's up with serverless vs. containers?
Today, Forrest Brazeal is here to answer those questions and discuss pros and cons of serverless. He was a senior Cloud architect prior to joining Trek10. Forrest spent several years leading AWS and serverless engineering projects at Infor. He understands the challenges faced by enterprises moving to the Cloud and enjoys building solutions that provide maximum business value at a minimal cost.
Some of the highlights of the show include:
Bimodality: Backend development going away and being replaced by managed services; undifferentiated items are being moved to the Cloud
Serverless is application designs with “Backend as a Service” (BaaS) and/or “Functions as a Service” (FaaS) platforms; everything is managed for you
AWS Lambda: Is it today’s trend or a bias that everyone is using it; Lambda makes up 80% of current FaaS adoption
Serverless Ecosystem: You can build it however you want, and you’re doing it right; but don’t take that at face-value; no two Lambda environments are alike
Cloud services at this scale have not been knitted together to form applications that are serving major workloads; best practices need to be established
Native Cloud providers will consolidate, and individual frameworks will be created with components of application stacks tied together to build systems
Serverless vs. Containers: No need for disparity - we can learn to get along; people use containers because it is easier than going serverless
Serverless Heroes series features people thinking out-of-the-box and helps identify emerging trends; serverless is growing, and it’s not just about startups
Went from working with a Sharpie to Procreate for the FaaS and Furious cartoon series; serverless component of process is for invoicing
Changes? Packaging to handle sharing; more knobs on console; unified process needed because too many building own workflow and tooling
Certification: Proof-positive that you know what you’re talking about or is it questionable value if not backing up expertise in the real world?
Links:
Forrest Brazeal on Twitter
Invoiceless
Summon the vast power of certification - Dilbert cartoon
Trek10 blog
A Cloud Guru ThinkfaaS podcast
A Cloud Guru - Serverless Superheros
Why We’re Excited About AWS AppSync
Serverless Architectures with Mike Roberts
AWS Lambda
AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
Procreate
AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner
Serverlessconf
Digital Ocean
.