These are my learning goals. This document will be updated regularly and is meant to be a snapshot of the current progress made on the goals stated below. The intention of writing this down in a public blog is to increase personal accountability.
Read
This has the added benefit of contributing towards my annual goodreads reading challenge (21/20)
The highest number of books I was able to track reading in a year is 20, I’m hoping to equal or surpass that number this year. Most of the books below have been on my to-read list for some time now. I might switch between categories or switch out titles to keep the keep the grey cells guessing. I’ve given myself some leeway on my reading list by having the option of walking away from the ones that don’t interest me after a few chapters.
Infrastructure (2/6)
- Certified Kubernetes Application Developer(CKAD) Study Guide: Benjamin Muschko.
- The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Devops and Sre Practices for Web Services: Limoncelli, Thomas A.
- Infrastructure as Code, 2nd edition, Kief Morris.
- Cloud Native Devops with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud.
- Kubernetes Best Practices: Blueprints for Building Successful Applications on Kubernetes.
- Kubernetes in Action.
Leadership (1/4)
- The Unicorn Project, Gene Kim.
- The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations.
- Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach.
- The Staff Engineer’s Path: A Guide For Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change.
Systems (0/7)
- Devops: A Software Architect’s Perspective.
- Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations, Nicole Forsgren.
- Effective Devops: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale, Jennifer Davis.
- Continuous Delivery Pipelines - How to Build Better Software Faster.
- Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases Through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation.
- System Design Interview – An Insider’s Guide.
- System Design Interview – An Insider’s Guide: Volume 2.
Tooling (0/4)
- The Linux Command Line: Shotts, William E. Jr..
- Linux Bible, Christopher Negus.
- Terraform: Up and Running. - 3rd edition.
- Ansible: Up and Running, 3rd edition.
Programming (0/3)
- Python 3 Object Oriented Programming: Phillips, Dusty. - Brush up on Python.
- Fluent Python - More Python.
- Head First Java - Pick up a typed language for a change.
Investment (1/2)
- The Psychology of Money. (This was short and sweet. Easy recommendation)
- The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing.
Process (1/2)
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones.
- So Good They Can’t Ignore You. (I’ve read this twice now, succint actionable advice for knowledge workers.)
Non-fiction (0/4)
- The Consolations of Philosophy. (I need to get back to this book, only if I can find it 😂)
- Hatred in the Belly: Politics Behind the Appropriation of Dr. Ambedkar’s Writings.
- Annihilation of Caste.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow. (Have not been able to finish this one, inspite of it being an engaging read.)
Certification (2/8)
- Certified kubernetes application developer. Q1
- Certified kubernetes administrator. Q2
- Certified Kubernetes security specialist. Strech Goal - Q3/4
- AWS security specialty certification. Q2
- AWS database specialty certification. Q3
- AWS networking specialty certification. Strech Goal - Q3/4
- Hashicorp certified terraform associate. Q2
- Hashicorp certified vault associate. Strech Goal - Q3/4
Write
I’d like to get in the habit of writing regularly. I’ll start by keeping notes about the books I read or projects that I’m working on.
Note: This blog post initially started off as my goals for 2021 😅 but a lot of (good) things have happened to me in the last two years. Unfortunately, documenting and planning my learning took a backseat during this time. I’ve decided not to timebox this and track annual sub-goals separately since.