To be honest, all this while I pretty much have only been coasting, and going with the flow when it comes to my career pathway. I have decided that starting from today, I am going to get 100% serious with my professional development and career goals. Learn as much as I can, get certified, and get fairly compensated for my expertise.

I will also no longer wait or rely for companies to sponsor certifications and learning anymore. A lot of these are super expensive though, so this will probably need to be spread out across several years. And I probably won't even take them all, things like CCNA, PSM II, and Red Hat might not be too useful where I'm going. But if the opportunity presents itself, I believe it's worth aiming for.

Years after my first ever full-time role in 2019, I've finally decided and identified a solid path for my career. I'll be transitioning away from my full stack development roots, and move infrastructure engineering, DevSecOps, and ultimately architectural/strategic roles.

Four principal categories, and their certifications:

Cloud Engineering & Architecture
- Solutions Architect Associate
- Solutions Architect Professional
- Advanced Networking Specialty
- AWS APN Ambassador | Datacom
DevSecOps, SRE
- Kubernetes
  - KCNA
  - CKA
- Terraform Associate 002
- CCNA
- CCSP
- Red Hat
  - RHCSA
  - RHCE
Enterprise Architecture
- TOGAF 9
- TOGAF EA
- ArchiMate
- ITIL4
Leadership & Team
- Agile & Scrum
  - PSM I ✅ (thanks Maybank!)
  - PSM II
- MBA (probably the last thing I'll ever do after all of the above)

# career path

Professional Development and Career