I went to CISCO certification courses in the 11th grade. I was, as always, the youngest in the group. Around the place were adults — heads of IT departments, and I was 16 years old.
We had a very cool instructor. We had a good time with him and he was talking about how difficult it is to get the last level of the SSIE. He's being handed in Brussels, in the lab. They bring there for 8 days, give a huge test for theory and a real task: "Here's the equipment, set up this scheme, do what you think is right."
The teacher complained that it was difficult to gain practice in working with networked iron. They are expensive, and then only the big three operators had them. If you work with networks there, you can gain the necessary level of knowledge and experience. You don't work, you can't.
The teacher had a friend who worked at MTS, and he said constantly: "Michael, the problem is you're teaching. You know only theory well." The friend was the opposite - a first-class practitioner.
At that time, it seemed to me that it was really a question of choice — that you are good either in theory or in practice, that you either work yourself or teach others.
But the salt is that neither of them could go and hand CCIE.
I thought it was impossible to combine
When I was working on networks, everything was built from practice. I read an article about IP protocol and tried to understand how it works—but I didn't know why I needed it all. Then I started to configure routes, AP-tables, roaming, BGP. After the practice, I re-read the article about IP, and here it all came together.
Everything written in theory resonated with practice. Since then, I've always tried it first, then I've read how it works.
But many years later, when I quit my job and started working on my projects, I found myself in a strange situation. On the one hand, I had a team of Devopses, we took orders and set up automation companies. A case for clean practitioners. On the other hand, I started teaching and teaching people. Doing what theorists seemed to do better.
Suddenly I became both my instructor Michael and his practicing companion. They both lacked each other's skills, and I decided to combine everything in myself. But with practice, I was on my own plate, and teaching was a completely uncharted territory for me.
In 2018, we started to hold the first webinars — and we were constantly arguing.
I sold all terms because I was very afraid to perform — although I was listened to only 10-15 people
It was very hard. I really overstepped myself. People around have always talked about it — most people don't want to perform anywhere because they're afraid.
But then they come out to the audience and get a huge charge of energy and emotion. That changes everything. I did the same. The response is very stirring, and very quickly it becomes boring to live without it.
Now it seems to me that those who do not speak and do not train people because of fear, miss a very large part of the interesting life. Communicating with people, trying to raise them to a new level or tell basic things is a huge charge of emotions. I'm surprised how rarely do people who really like to teach and do it cool.
Actually, it just sounds beautiful. The reaction of the audience is delightful and stunning for the first time, but emotions pass.Actually, it just sounds beautiful. The reaction of the audience is delightful and stunning for the first time, but emotions pass.
And when you regularly combine work and teaching, you get serious questions
And one of the first ones - why am I do it?
Now, I've got my watch broken every day, and I change my mask every hour. In the morning — a plan on tasks, then it is necessary to work a gendir, to look at contracts, to sign papers. Then an hour — to be a devoop, to configure another automation. Another hour to work as a therapist and calm colleagues, because there again something fell. Then an hour needs to be prepared for the webinar and another hour — to hold it. Then you need to be a methodologist and work on a course for corporate learning.
If I had been told five years ago that my day would look like this, I would have been pretty wary. How can I take such a crazy pace?!
Now I live in it, and I saw one big plus that I didn't think of before—there's no routine in my life. If you believe that the best vacation is a change of activity, that's the answer, why I'm not so far behind.
In general, the story about the lack of time for me turned out to be a myth — and in fact, little has changed. Our industry is such that it needs to be constantly studied. Among my acquaintances and acquaintances there is not a single person who simply does the work, and then does not touch anything in Minsk until the next morning.
Everyone always reads something, looks, finds out, saws for themselves, experiments. And I realized that making curricula is just the coolest way to learn.
I came to it unconsciously — I just couldn't deny myself the things I wanted to do. I've had this thing that work has become a routine, and you're setting up the same thing everywhere—nginx, Kubernetes, and everything else. And then suddenly you see a little fun utility or some architecture that works perfectly. It's not just something you want to apply, it's something you want to tell everyone about. Show people how to do better.
So teaching saved me from boredom and routine. And it makes me happy—I tell people about things I like.
My problems didn't start because of time and effort. The trouble was different.My problems didn't start because of time and effort. The trouble was different.
The main burden of teaching - responsibility
For example, I never loved Kubernetes, but I had to conduct webinars on it. He's cumbersome, there's a lot of stuff that nobody fucking uses. I like products with a clear purpose and I do not like things in which only 20% are used, and the rest are needed by one person once every hundred years. For me, this is an overloaded system. The more moving parts, the more errors there can be.
I had a good idea of how he works in practice, because he constantly applied on projects. But I didn't like it - and everything is here. Because of this, it was difficult to teach - from a moral point of view, first of all. It always seemed to me that because of relationship I could miss and not give something important. On the other hand, on webinars, I myself understood Kubernetes much better and began to treat him more loyally.
And then I realized - I figured out in Kubernetes deeper when I taught him than when I solved working problems. At that moment, I remembered how my instructor was reproached for allegedly burying himself with teaching. So here.
The fact that teaching inhibits your development as a professional is complete nonsense
For example, I have a webinar planned where I have to talk about taking events at Clickhouse. I know the topic in part - I know about sharing, I roughly imagine that I have an application that takes a json. In front of him is nginx. But I'm like: "Damn, I'll be asked a hundred percent about SSL and its configuration on the endpoint."
And I begin to dig this topic deep, deal with the TLS protocol, I begin to understand why they do SSL termination on dedicated nodes. Accordingly, both asymmetric and symmetric encryption are used there, I begin to understand how certificates are validated and much more.
That is, I took and pumped - simply because I was preparing for the performance
And if, for example, you need to read a story on a topic adjacent to you that you do not understand much about? It's not a job where you do all the workarounds you can. You can't hit your face in the dirt here.
For example, you program on C++ and also talk about C++. But you should not tell about C++ themselves and their general structure, but, for example, how to load an external ploughshare there and use functions from it. And you need to tell.
Well, that's all - he went, figured it out, conducted a couple of tests and told. And again pumped. If it weren't for the webinar, it would never have known about them.
Therefore, in any case, when you teach, you pump, structure knowledge. People can't be told randomly. You supplement some topics, study them to tell in more detail or sharpen attention.
You always answer questions and you know the answers.
If I didn't have company, I would still go to interviews - and I definitely wouldn't worry about any of them anymore.
It's a simple story. When you prepare to tell people about the technology, you study it so deeply that it becomes unrealistic to litter you on the side of the audience. Most likely, you know more than the person who talks to you - because he is only engaged in practice. And you both practice and theory, you know the farthest and darkest angles of technology.
More than that - when I began teaching, the need for interviews simply disappeared. I'm not looking for a job, they come to me themselves.
You, without noticing it yourself, become famous in professional circles
People see how I teach, what I tell, by what examples I lay out cases, how I answer questions - and everyone, they know everything they need about me as a specialist. Webinars turn, in fact, into virtual interviews and, as a result, they are replaced.
In short, if a person came to me who had the goal in life to build a super-successful career, I would recommend that he combine work with teaching.
I still remember how happy we were to our very first student. The guy was not very simple, but he was initiative, tried, constantly asked questions, wrote in his nickname. And at some point he wrote to us: "The guys, they took me to a new job with a good salary. Thank you so much! "
There was a guy who was doing something like digital marketing three years ago, he had an indirect relation to finding, but for him it was all new. And now he has studied Kubernetes very powerfully, passed certification on it and now passes certification on Google cloud professional architect. Now he works as a timelid on our team.
And here, perhaps, one of the most powerful arguments is why combine work and teaching. You teach yourself colleagues
I like this practice - people begin to solve problems under your supervision, and you immediately knock out clever specialists. We have almost the entire team recruited from people whom we ourselves taught. I look at them and understand - fuck we would find such specialists on a headhunter.
It is even cooler when students become more pumped than you in some matters. One of my students understands Kubernetes better than me, the other has a hundred times more experience with network iron. And I ping them all the time. I ask them questions, and now they teach and pump me.
After all, there is such a principle - you must make the world after yourself a little better than he was before you. The principle of small business. If you taught a couple of people the right basic principles in life, then the world has already become better. At least two idiots in the world are definitely less.