Looking Back at My Time at CloudStratex.
Casting my mind back to 8 months ago…
My expectations.
I would say that I didn’t know what to expect when I started at CloudStratex 8 months ago, but that wouldn’t quite be true. I did have expectations but from what I’ve experienced they look much better now than they did when I first joined. I expected the start-up to be demanding, but I never considered how much more invested they would be than any expectation that they had of me.
If I was to describe my time at CloudStratex in one word, it would be constructive.
Over the past 8 months I have been able to:
Build solutions with supportive individuals who are experts in overcoming challenges positively
Contribute to my personal development consistently
Build the company and its community most enthusiastically
Within the first day of working at CloudStratex I soon saw that it was their natural instinct to find and develop value in every opportunity and circumstance, starting with their own members who recommended each other to me within minutes of me joining as the person to talk to and gain from. When people are quick to talk well of each other’s work, it’s always a good sign!
I have learnt a lot about creating solutions in demanding client environments, requirements and constraints in an enthusiastic and creative manner.
My first week.
“I expected restricted thinking space, and they gave me space to stretch myself”
What stood out my most in my week at the company was not how constructive they were, but how much space they gave me to create solutions and how eager they were to listen to them. In the first few weeks I was introduced to the community as far and wide as it was at the time.
There was an opportunity in every corner to improve, to contribute and to own and I joined my first long -term engagement after a month of joining when I joined a cloud cost optimization project as a DevOps Analyst.
DevOps Analyst. My first engagement.
I learnt pretty quickly that there is a constant flow of opportunity in the company through new client engagement due to a sales driven environment. My first long term engagement was supporting the cloud architect, also known as the technical guru in the company to save a company with security, cost and technical debt issues – from not having the appropriate approach to using cloud services in Azure.
Throughout the project I was, to my slight surprise as much involved in the strategy, to the degree that I could input, as well as the implementation of the outputs determined for those meetings. The most unique lesson that I have learnt and was exposed to in this project was the process of selling a proposed solution to delivering and implementing it ; I came to realize that what I had learnt or rather taken from education was more engineered towards implementation than it was delivery, and a different experience than proposing an a solution in a market context. The scope to create value, through whiteboarding sessions, client meetings and stakeholder meetings to determine the output I would create was incredibly constructive in teaching me how problems get solved in a technical world.
Business Analyst, for many projects.
I have been able to operate as business analyst in many internal projects, including the Talent Academy itself with the expertise of those who have worked as business analysts for countless projects.
Every opportunity at CloudStratex is constructively used, whether internal or external to teach you how to deliver, create value and help people see the value you have and are created. Helping people see that value and getting their engagement, was one of the reasons I was inspired to join a start-up. Understanding the need not just to create something, but to deliver something is needed as well as wanted. I could list countless projects, however the opportunity to work on their unique IP – including pulse engagements stands out as the greatest opportunity. Being able to sit in on a project where their expertise has been turned into collateral for the good of the industry and then watching companies’ problems being held against the solution and driven towards it, has been one of most inspiring engagements to watch.
In Summary…
Whether we are building others in the industry, companies that are clients, or most commonly the team itself, my time at CloudStratex has been filled with energy of people who are passionately constructive about what they do and the people they work with to do it.
The best thing about my time here has been the vision of the company to build everyone around it to a positive self-sustainability supported by community and if you’re not here – you should apply! If you would like to know more about what a pulse is – take a look at the CloudStratex website!