A Sunday Coffee Turned Struggling Dad into a Leader in Cloud by Profession

Coffee At the Porch

On a Sunday afternoon in 2011 at 3:00, I spotted my wife on the porch, her eyes filled with profound sorrow. Being both her husband and the family's Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), it was incumbent upon me to inquire about the reason behind her distress. She expressed, "I aspire to enroll our daughter in a renowned school, but our savings only amount to one-fifth of the required funds. While we may not be affluent, my wife believes that providing our daughter with a quality education would enhance her prospects for a successful future."

I gave my wife a brewed coffee, sat down with her, and held her hands. She continued, "We are 5 months away from the next school year. Do you think we can bring her to that school?" As a husband who always gives them emotional stability, I asked my wife, "Do you trust me?" Without hesitation, she said yes.

I inquired if she could loan me the money we had. In exchange, I pledged to repay her ten times the amount in 4 months, although I was unsure how. Without hesitation, she handed me $1,000 USD, a substantial sum in our country. Upon receiving the money, she inquired about my plans for it. However, I quickly fled without providing an answer.

Rush to Electronic Shop

My wife was unaware that I visited an electronics store at 5:00 PM, just before closing time. Despite the late hour, I persuaded the salesperson to assist me. I had decided to use the money my wife had given me to buy a decent workstation with approximately 16 GB of memory, a 500 GB SSD, and an Intel i7 processor. The purpose of this purchase was to enable me to apply for freelance jobs online in order to earn extra income. Although I was uncertain about the specific type of online work I would pursue, I was determined to increase my earnings. My plan was to use the additional income to repay the 10-fold Ponzi scheme that I had promised my wife. At that time, I was employed as a "Java developer" at a traditional financial institution.

It took me and the technician two hours to finish assembling the new computer. Once I completed the task, I headed back to our house. I squeezed the computer into a small taxi, despite it barely fitting. Driven by excitement, I hoped that eventually, I could contribute more financially to my family. However, upon arriving home, a bigger issue arose. My wife mistakenly believed that I had squandered the borrowed money on gambling and was now returning with useless pieces of junk.

As you are aware, my wife, or women in general, has a tendency to overanalyze things. I can sense her frustration as soon as she lays eyes on me. However, before I can even say a word, she embraces me and expresses support to me without knowing the details. Following the embrace, it's my chance to clarify the purpose of these computers. I told her that I intend to take freelancing jobs online. That I need a computer so that I can code programs. Additionally, I require a larger monitor to enhance code visibility.

My rough first week

The following evening, I promptly set up an online freelancer profile and submitted my application for my initial online project as a C Programmer tasked with developing a driver for logic circuits. It took a week of back-and-forth emails to secure the job. Given my previous experience as a C Programmer, I was confident in my ability to deliver. Following three late-night sessions collaborating with the client, they suddenly vanished. This scenario is a common frustration for freelancers, as clients often disappear without a trace Missing in Action a.k.a MIA.

Two additional clients arrived, only to repeat the same pattern MIA! I dedicated nights to fulfilling their requests, only for them to disappear without paying. Being inexperienced at the time, I failed to establish any formal agreements. Even for those who did have contracts, it would have been challenging to pursue them due to the vast distance between us. Instead of dwelling on the situation, I persevered until I encountered my fourth client, who ultimately changed everything.

Spoiler: This is not a Silicon Valley garage-to-billions startup IPO story. Nor is it a Series A or B funding of a company. This is a story of a dad who accidentally got lucky to be in the wave of cloud computing that made their life more comfortable.

Client trust and self integrity match in heaven

The fourth client I worked with was based in the USA. I came across this client on a online job platform that was suggested to me by my brother-in-law in November 2011. In 2011, GPS technology was quite popular. This client's request was for me to develop a location based advertising application. The technology requirements included Android, REST API, and MySQL. At that time, I lacked experience in Android development, but I was well-versed in REST and MySQL. Despite this, being a Java programmer in the past, I felt confident in taking on the project, especially since I had promised my wife a Ponzi scheme return on investment 10 folds. Consequently, I accepted the job.

I was surprised the client named(Matt) sent me a downpayment. The downpayment was more than enough to pay the initial investment I borrowed from my wife...

I approached my wife with confidence, walking proudly like a celebrity, my smile stretching to my ears. I handed her the money, exceeding the amount I had borrowed from her. Although not tenfold, it was sufficient to cover our daughter's tuition fee. I also asked her to join me for dinner. The expression in her eyes will always stay with me. Her eyes were teary, filled with hope and gratitude towards God for His unexpected blessings to us. She embraced me, and that gesture was all I needed, it gave me additional mileage to get going for more.

She asked me where I got the money. I didn't told her. Just to tease her. As long as not from gambling or any sort of unethical things she says she is good. I just smiled. But she trust me. She gave me another hug. This energizes me like superman. My wife is beautiful both inside and out.

A Production App running in workstation

I completed the app. I made a demo. Matt is happy, I got all the features completed. He paid me a total of 75% already of the project. Matt then asked me to deploy the app in Cloud!

I do not know what the hell is cloud is back then. I googled, the simplest description of cloud I can comprehend it says "anything that is running in the internet as a service rather than hosted in your data center".

So I deployed the backend and database of the app in the "1, 000 USD workstation" I purchased from an electronic shop. I was so proud about it. By definition I met the description of cloud "anything that runs in the internet remotely". It is remote to Matt and our beta users out of my ignorance so I call it cloud. Matt and I published the app to playstore. It was horrible.... See my very first setup in cloud below.

App in Cloud by my Own Definition

The app was approved on the Android Play Store, but its initial performance was unacceptable. "Internal Testers were extremely upset." Whenever there is a power outage in my area, the app crashes. At times, it struggles to serve 20 users simultaneously. Once, my daughter accidentally tripped over the modem cable, causing the workstation to switch to a dynamic IP address. This change in IP address during prevented the app from connecting to the server, as the IP was hardcoded in the app. Consequently, we had to release a new build on the Play Store every time the IP changed. The picture above showcases my first attempt at designing in the Cloud back in 2011, based on my personal understanding of cloud technology.

I almost gave up. I thought of quitting. I already received much of the payment. I got to send my daughter already to the school I promised my wife. I got to give the money I promised to my wife 10X in return. I got to buy her SUV.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I remained. My integrity is more valuable than any amount of money. I cannot disappoint Matt after the trust he placed in me. My personal principles dictate that I stay until Matt and I have successfully launch the app. It is no longer a matter of money; it is personal. The hardship was short-lived. Just a week later, we are in a better situation...

Introducing Amazon Web Service "Permanent Beta"

This is not a sponsored promotion for AWS Amazon. Matt assessed my setup and was understanding when he learned that the app was hosted on my workstation. He grasped the idea of continuous iteration and failing quickly. He advised me to deploy it on AWS Amazon. Back in 2011, I had no clue what Amazon AWS was, except that they sold books. Thus, with some reluctance, I quietly agreed with Matt, saying "okay Matt," to deploy it on AWS.

With no AWS cloud background I initially deployed it to Linux EC2 instance. It was easy for me to do so. That is because my first job is Linux Administrator and C-Programmer. We redeployed our app to playstore. This time pointing to EC2 in AWS with static IP. This time around issues are less: no more daughter stepping on the cable, the occasional power outages, virtual machines can then be vertically scaled. Notice the word vertical.

I borrowed the word "Permanent Beta" from the book Start-up of You by: Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. This is my permanent beta in cloud where my continous learning in AWS cloud continues till today 2024.

Going back to the cloud. Soon EC2 and static IP no loner suits Matt and I need to our App. The app by the way was called "Proxiwoo". It didn't took off not because of technical issues but due to market. Location based app were a thing in 2009, we came late as new entrant in 2011.

As testers and beta users and more data is loaded in the app we needed to scale...

Scaling the App and my first taste of DevOps

Two months after our release, it became evident that scaling the infrastructure was necessary. As a newcomer, I took the initiative to independently familiarize myself with AWS cloud services. I discovered the capability to set up an elastic load balancer to distribute traffic between two EC2 servers, a concept that amazed me at the time. Although I was proud of this architecture, it has since become outdated in today's rapidly evolving landscape, with more advanced solutions available. Furthermore, I migrated the MySQL database from an EC2 instance to AWS RDS, a transition that was achieved through experimentation and learning from mistakes.

Everyday we have releases in the API side of thing. I need to manually install JAR file in the two EC2 instances. Each time I do so I need to reboot the server affecting beta testers making them nuts. My experience as linux system administrator in my first job led me to automate the deployment...

I created a script named deploy.sh the script will upload the JAR file to S3, spin-off new EC2 instance in AWS, the instance will download the JAR file from S3 through user data. Then the script will attach the new instance to the load balancer replacing the old. I can barely remember how I did it but that was the concept.

It wasn't smooth, but the deploy.sh script I made does the job 10X better than manual install. That is the first version of my DevOps CICD though back then word was not yet invented I think. I don't know that there were Jenkins back then. One thing for sure. Our deployment is better, and I became a "Permanent Beta" my self where I kept learning. Now my DevOps CICD knowledge is far better from the past.

Temporary Bye Bye

The technical aspect of the app's launch was successful, which made Matt happy. However, we struggled to attract users due to market conditions, as we were newcomers with many competitors who had been around for years. A year after the app was launched, we had to shut down Proxiwoo. Matt and I have remained friends, keeping in touch and exchanging advice. He has since become a successful entrepreneur in real estate. While I fulfilled my promise to him by delivering the app, I also kept my promise to my wife by sending our child to a top-tier school, buying her new designer bags to replace her old one, and repaying the $1,000 I had borrowed from her tenfold after I got the remainder of the payment from Matt due to my service.

I continued my job in corporate world. I had many different jobs. An app developer, sales, business development manager, head of mobile apps moving from one company to another. But one thing I did right. I continued enhancing my skills in cloud even though it was not my profession. Because I was in a "permanent beta"--keep improving your self, skills, aspiration, and find market.

A break came to me in December 2018 unexpectedly...

From Ronin Cloud Practitioner to a Cloud Executive in Big Firm

It was the night of February 15, 2018, I received an email regarding a job opportunity in cloud computing that I had previously applied for at a Telecommunications Company. Several months ago, I had applied for a position as a "supervisor." Following a series of interviews, I did not anticipated hearing back from them. I was bracing myself for a rejection email stating, "Thank you for your interest in our position, but unfortunately, we have selected another candidate..."

I was dead wrong. The e-mail actually read somehow sounded like this "We are pleased to inform you that we are hiring you as Director for Cloud Planning. As a Director for Cloud you will receive the following benefits..." Wow! I was not expecting that. God is great, God is good, He brings blessing in his own perfect time. All is beginning to make sense. I kept questioning my self if it was worth it to study cloud prior because I was not able to put it in use. But now, here it is.

I only stayed to that company for approximately 18 months. But I am forever grateful. As well as to the people I met there. Another opportunity came in. This time from an Airline company to lead their Cloud Transformation as a Head of Cloud Services in 2019 October. That airline company is also very generous and kind hearted. I will be forever grateful to them as well. It is filled with warm people, great leaders, and the owner of the company is really maverick. Despite of Covid where airline has been badly hurt, we got to keep our job.

The Final Permanent Beta

I still work in that airline company now. It has been five years. It was also 13 years since I've met Matt. We still communicate. Many had changed. My skill had evolved. I now play the likes of Orchestrators and Containers "cloud native". All infrastructure now that we built are purposely made for cloud. No more scripts all infrastructure as a code. I managed awesome people that is my team they are far smarter than me. We are proud that we were able to move 200 servers to cloud / 95 apps in 2 years some are complicated.

From the original deploy.sh I made in 2012. My vision of DevOps being able to deploy apps easily to production has grown. With my team, we can deploy apps 0 downtime to production, 5 minutes turn around time, there had been no unwanted downtime in our infrastructure running cloud native for the past 3 years.

The deploy.sh is no longer a monolithic script. The concept evolved. Me and my team now eats Jenkins for breakfast. We have a pipeline to do full automated deployment, automated approval, automated rollback, and Blue-Green strategy | Canary | AB. It has Terraform and HELM charts, too many to mention all.

I do not have an official DevOps title. I am the Head of Cloud Services. But my passion, aspiration, opportunity given to me by my current company lets me function as DevOps by necessity.

Where I am now an Executive Cloud by Profession

I am not rich. I am far from being rich. I don't plan to be rich. All I want is to have something extra for my family. As I said earlier, this is not a silicon valley garage to unicorn story.

I am now a full-time executive Cloud by Profession leading a great talented team and working with awesome peers. I no longer live in a small 30 SQM apartment, two of my kids are in beautiful schools, I got to buy my wife all the bags she wanted(at certain degree not exuberant), I got to bring them to decent vacations, got to eat good food from time to time. Got just enough savings to pursue my hobbies, fund my continuous learning "permanent beta", and most of all help build my life aspiration. My daughter now is taking preparatory medicine degree. Below is a photo of my house currently being built(model unit I don't have recent photo).

I got got to go in AWS re:invent twice in Vegas. Thanks to my current company and the opportunity given to me by my boss. If not for them I would not be able to go to that pilgrimage of cloud professionals. I have a great Team in Cloud where we built beautiful things like AIOps, DevOps CICD, Cloud Native, and more. I can't accomplish all these without them. Great Team, Company, and Opportunity all stars aligning made the success possible.

AWS re:invent. Note. This was a public photo that I downloaded. I am the guy in Yellow Shirt. By any means let me know if people in the photo wanted to have this removed in the blog.

From time to time I also do speaking engagement. Recently to Aviation Festival Asia where I spoke about cloud migration. It was a humbling experience. I'd like to thank the person who took this photo of me. Allow me to borrow it.

I also no longer build rudimentary and lame cloud designs. All now are fully automated just like this DevOps CICD video you see below. This is my recent accomplishment I am proud off.

Someday I will have my own Cloud SaaS company. It will be a long journey, I am far from it, yet each day makes me closer to my goal. By staying focus and discipline, results are compounding. IT industry has been so kind to me. I promise to do the same by giving back to the industry. To make job that will give people purpose.

All of these things don't make sense back in 2011, but it all makes sense now. Just like what Steve Jobs says "you can only connect the dots moving backward". Looking back, I need to meet Matt, I need to be salesman, I need to struggle. The owner of my current company happens to be the owner of my first job where I learned my tech foundations. They gave me chance when I was once junior, it is my chance to do good for them now that I am senior. Yet my skill is just small among the contributions of talented employees working in our beautiful company.

I still struggle from time to time, this world is full of hardship, but each time I survive the obstacles, life just got better a foot higher the next day.

THANK YOU!!!