This is not a unique story, but maybe it is one that isn’t told as often as it should be. This is a reflection of my time becoming pregnant (and then not) and pregnant again as a woman working in technology whilst navigating a promotion and accepting a new role.
I was encouraged by a colleague to write this and I’m grateful for their support. My intent is to share a story not openly spoken about and hopefully provide insights that might help someone else. …
I had a moment of extreme motivation and inspiration at the end of last year. I was full of optimism after delivering a day-long bootcamp on Cloud Networking 101 for some great people as part of a DevOps Girls event. This was the moment I decided to put in a submission to 0xcc Conference to deliver a 2-day course on Cloud Network Security. Then the world changed…
My role at SEEK is to support a lot of the edge networking infrastructure, which includes a lot of YAML, NGINX and BASH — it also includes a solid understanding of AWS cloud networking resources and the flow of traffic through SEEK’s websites. I’ve developed this knowledge over time, with the excellent support of my colleagues and an active membership with A Cloud Guru.
I staunchly believe in passing on knowledge, especially when that knowledge has been passed on to you. This is what drives me to run bootcamps and workshops as a co-Organiser for DevOps Girls. The sense of…
More often than not, we believe our infrastructure in the cloud is supported by magic. There’s a team on the 5th floor who cast spells to weave webs of cloud infrastructure that allows us to securely and reliably host web applications. This mysterious skillset is not part of our day-to-day job, but when it goes wrong we call upon this team to help us fix it. The magic I speak of is cloud networking and a team of us had a mission to dispel some mysteries.
On the 16th of November 2019, SEEK hosted a day-long event for DevOps Girls. We gave over 20 women and non-binary people the opportunity to learn about Cloud Networking in AWS. This was an intermediate-level hands-on bootcamp to understand how to set up our own cloud network from scratch. Participants were mostly developers, testers and even managers.
The day started early at SEEK’s HQ on St Kilda Road, with volunteers from SEEK (and beyond) giving up our Saturday. We do this because we’re passionate about sharing our knowledge and skills to under-represented groups in technology.
An ambitious start to the day
Participants arrived and settled in…
Some days you love where you work more than others. But I never thought that day would be a Saturday. If you work in tech, having to show up on a weekend isn’t normally a good news story. Thankfully, this was different. I went to bed the night before hoping my excitement wouldn’t keep me up too late. I set my alarm nice and early because the next day I was going to head into work to be part of something amazing. We were going to give a group of awesome women an opportunity to learn some new technical skills…
Franca Moretto
Platform Engineer at SEEK. Co-organiser for DevOps Girls ( @DevOpsGirls ). Technical zine enthusiast.
