TODO (revisit this, it’s now out of date)
Let’s consider another question:
“What should I learn to get a job in tech?”
The Beginner Boost™ is my highly opinionated response to this question, which might lead you to another one:
“Who the hell are you?”
Hello, friend. I’m Rob. I stream on rwxrob.tv, founded skilstak.io, and work full-time as a Systems Infrastructure Engineer and Software Developer on a Cloud-Native team supporting Kubernetes for a High-Performance Computing (HPC) Machine Learning group within one of the largest corporations in the world (with its own Class A subdomain). Don’t worry that will all make sense soon enough.
I’ve made it my life’s work to professionally mentor everyone and anyone to help them take control of their learning and lives, empower themselves with real tech skills, share their learning with others, and change the world. That’s why I founded SKILSTAK with my own retirement money and later started live-streaming and creating this Boost content. I’m here to build a community of like-minded people to help each other level-up to wherever they want to be.
Hopefully, you are here because you heard about me from someone you trust. That’s one thing mentorship and employment both require. Sure I’ve helped a lot of people, but they honestly have helped me just as much. I literally got my current job from a member I met through this community. Won’t you join us?
“Sure, but what will I learn?”
My boosts are definitely flavored for hacking and infrastructure operations (including “cloud-native”). These are skills that underlie everything else. They are rock-solid and sustainable. Most jobs required them, and all jobs will benefit from them. Starting salaries are always over $100K in this field. In fact, there is a serious drought in the industry now for good infrastructure operations engineers, mostly because these skills are not normally taught in school, not even in tech universities like MIT, and certainly not in any “bootcamp.”
The Beginner Boost™ is focused entirely on tools and technologies that actually matter to those hiring for real jobs. While others might argue about the “best” Linux distro or programming language we focus on stuff that companies are hiring (and paying six-figure salaries) for today. Here is just one example:
Clearly, you have a talent for educating people in tech. … After [your member’s] success [here], I suspect the review team will be even more interested in picking up one or two of your students. We’ve had a lot of very bright interns from some of the top universities in the country and [your community member] was right in the mix with the best of them.
This “junior” technologist, with a psychology degree and few prospects, went on to land a $100,000 job at one of the most exciting companies in the cloud-native space after completing the learning in the Boost that he taught himself. I was just along for the ride.
🤬 My recruiter calls me at least once a month to see if I have anyone who can fulfill all the empty jobs he cannot fill because no one is learning the right stuff. This is why I get really annoyed by uninformed, like-n-subscribe, Linux hobbyists with Social Media marketing degrees taking beginners down the wrong path. In fact, this is the main reason I started producing videos and live streaming. I’ve known them to stop people from getting a job by telling them absolute crap that prevents them from doing the job, or even getting it, or any certifications in the process. You can easily spot these charlatans because they almost always recommend four things: Zsh, NeoVim, Rust, and Arch Linux. None of these inferior technologies can be found anywhere in 99.9% of the tech jobs out there, even Linux jobs. Nothing screams “I don’t know what the Hell I’m talking about” more than recommending them. Don’t take my word for it. Do your own research. You’ll see.
“What does ‘flavored for hacking and operations’ mean?”
Here’s an example. When we study the Web we cover the languages and protocols, not so much to make slow “serverless” GUI web apps, but to understand how they work and, yes, how to hack them when Web people inevitably fail.
We learn everything from the Linux bash terminal including lynx,
curl, and netcat to manipulate pages and protocols from the command
line. When we do “browse” the Web, we focus on getting answers fast,
real fast. We are safe from insecure JavaScript, privacy violations, and
slow graphics because we’ve learned the bash Linux shell first allowing
us to dominate the skills learned by others. It’s not that we think
we’re better than others. We objectively are. You will become part of
the 0.01% of technologists who actually know this stuff. The trick is to
keep your ego from taking you over. (Alas, I’ve lost a few to ‘Anakhin
Syndrome’ in the past).
Let’s get you started with your first mission (which is what I’m calling each step along the path these days):
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