Dmitry Galkin is the author of Becoming KCNA Certified, we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Dmitry: Cloud, Kubernetes, DevOps.
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Dmitry: Packt reached out to me on LinkedIn offering to write the book.
I’m one of the not so many professionals in the Cloud-Native field who has all 4/4 Kubernetes certifications from CNCF. In fact, I was also invited to be a beta-tester for two of those Kubernetes certifications programs, meaning I took them before an official launch date and provided feedback that shaped the exams.
As somebody who enjoys constant learning and likes doing professional certifications, I think it is very helpful to have a senior colleague or a mentor next to you in order grow and advance in any field. Sometimes you don’t have such a luxury or you’re coming from a different background or even shifting your career path. This is where book might be your best friend and this was the main motivation for writing a book – to spread the knowledge and help readers succeed in a field that is new for them.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Dmitry: I did a review of CNCF curriculum and tried recalling the content of KCNA exam about 4 month after taking it myself. The initial book proposal received a few rounds of reviews and all in all it took about 4 weeks to finalize the proposal and sign the contract. The actual research time was probably around 2 weeks or so.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Dmitry: The main challenge for me was always time. Running a few full-time projects at work and combining book writing simply translated to 60-70 working hours a week. At first it is all fine and fun, but after a few month at such pace it means one thing – burning-out. I had almost no weekends and time for myself and family, causing additional stress.
I cannot say I overcame the time challenge as the book was delayed by a couple of month from the original schedule. Honestly, I think the original schedule was only feasible if I would spend 30+ hours per week writing. Also, as a first-time author it is not always easy to find the right words or explain complex tech in a clear and understandable manner.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Dmitry: I’m very positive on how Kubernetes and Cloud Native ecosystem would evolve in the next few years. I see them developing further as more and more companies adapt those at a rapid pace. Kubernetes today is like Linux was decade or two ago, it reached the point of maturity and became the “default choice” for container orchestration and Cloud Native workloads. My guess is that most of the (engineering) tech jobs would eventually require at least a basic, high-level knowledge of K8s .
Q. Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Dmitry: There is only one direct competitor on the market as of now. The main difference is that I was writing a book with the goal to give more than just a short-cut to passing KCNA exam. I wanted the readers to gain practical knowledge and basic hands-on experience by following the book. We’ll see in the reviews, whether that worked or not 🙂
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Dmitry: Practice, practice, practice and ton of patience.
Many things we learn in tech today can be mind-blowing… until you do them hands-on and gain more and more practical experience. Doing small steps consistently and trying new stuff all the time is crucial. Eventually, you’ll reach a point where learning new technology or a programming language takes weeks instead of months. Learning Golang when you already know Python or Ruby is much easier; Learning OCI when you know AWS is straightforward; learning Kubernetes when you had prior experience with Docker or Swarm is still ain’t piece of cake, but definitely a good foundation to begin with.
Stay curious, keep learning wherever you are.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Dmitry: I’m happy to get connected with my readers on LinkedIn, where I’m sharing my thoughts and industry news.
https://cloudification.io/cloud-blog/ is the tech blog of the company I’m running.
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites, and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Dmitry: https://kubernetes.io/blog/
https://www.cncf.io/blog/
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Dmitry:Yes.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Dmitry: I’m an SME (Subject Matter Expert) at CompTIA – a non-profit association known for its IT certification programs where I participate in the development of Cloud+ exam materials.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Dmitry:https://techcrunch.com/
https://thenewstack.io/Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book??
Dmitry: Writing mostly in the evenings after work and during the weekends.
Q. What is the one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Dmitry: Keep it simple, try to deliver content in a way that even your mom would understand 🙂
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, please share.
Seiji:Yes! you can reach me out in LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmitry-galkin/
You can find Seiji’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
