The Teknician’s Cloud Journey: From Music Production to Cloud Engineering (Now with 100% More Dad Jokes and Beats)

Hey there, future cloud overlords and career transitioners! I’m Charles, aka The Teknician—a music producer, creative tech enthusiast, and now an aspiring cloud engineer. My journey from laying down beats to spinning up virtual machines has been… let’s just say, less “smooth jazz” and more “heavy metal drum solo played by an octopus on caffeine.”

I’m from London, where the weather is as unpredictable as my Linux commands, and my career transition is powered by equal parts curiosity, determination, and sheer refusal to admit defeat. Buckle up, because this is going to be a wild ride filled with Python scripts, cloud configurations, and the occasional dad joke that’ll make you question your life choices.

Who is The Teknician? (Besides a Man Who Talks to His Laptop Like It’s a Studio Monitor?)

I’m a music producer who studied at the London College of Music, earning a BA in Music Technology. Music is my passion, my love, and the thing I refuse to quit—no matter how much my Wi-Fi tries to sabotage my uploads. But let’s be real—raising a family of three teenagers, two dogs, and a wife who occasionally reminds me that "making beats all night is not a financial plan" meant I needed to add some stability to my life.

Enter: Cloud Engineering. Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to deal with crashes. (Looking at you, Logic Pro.👀👀👀👀👀)

Currently, I’m six weeks into a 12-week Skills Bootcamp with Generation UK&I, where I’ve been thrown into the deep end of IT, Python, networking, Linux, Azure, Shell scripting, Powershell and more acronyms than a government agency on steroids. It’s been fast-paced, challenging, and occasionally feels like trying to install a DAW on a toaster. But hey, if you’re not slightly panicked, are you even learning?

If you’re thinking about diving into Cloud Engineering and you’re in London, up North or Ireland? Check out Generation UK&I on Google. Whether you're dodging overpriced lattes in the South, surviving Arctic temperatures in a T-shirt up North because 'it's not that cold, mate,' or braving Irish weather (where 'four seasons in one day' is a lifestyle), Generation UK’s got you covered. Cloud skills won’t keep you warm, but at least they’ll help you get a job where you can afford heating! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

If You’re the Smartest in the Room… Move to a Different Room Before They Ask for Help

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned? Surround yourself with people who know more than you.

At the start of this bootcamp, I quickly realised I wasn’t the smartest person in the room—which was a relief, honestly, because that meant I wasn’t responsible for fixing everything. Instead of drowning in imposter syndrome, I chose to steal—uh, I mean, absorb—knowledge from my peers.

It’s not about being the best; it’s about being better than you were yesterday. And also about Googling at lightspeed when someone asks you a question.

Projects: Where I Break Things So You Don’t Have To

Let’s talk about what I’ve been building:

🔥 Spinmoji – A slot machine game using Python… but with emojis instead of boring numbers. Why? Because coding is hard, and I needed something cute to distract me from debugging errors.

☁️ Cloud Resource Validator – Basically, it checks cloud resources and makes sure they don’t disappear into the void. It’s not revolutionary, but neither is remembering to put the milk back in the fridge, and that’s still important.

👀 Cloud Resume Challenge – A full-stack, cloud-hosted resume project where I showcase my skills. Also known as "a desperate attempt to impress future employers while documenting my slow descent into madness."

The Cloud Resume Challenge: Aka “How to Fight YAML and Lose”

I recently discovered the Cloud Resume Challenge and decided to tackle it head-on. The challenge involves:

Hosting a resume in the cloud
Building a visitor counter
Using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, and more technologies than a sci-fi movie spaceship

I’ve committed to spending at least an hour a day on this, balancing it between family, music, and the very demanding job of giving belly rubs to two dogs who don’t understand my career change. On a serious note I plan to increase this as i go along in my journey.

Day 1: Setting Up Azure

Today, I set up my Azure account and development environment. It asked me to install Visual Studio Code but I already got it, the Azure CLI, and a fresh batch of patience because cloud services love to test my will to live.

I also watched a tutorial by A Cloud Guru, which was super helpful, but I have questions:

Why is everything in tech harder than it looks in tutorials?
How do I convince my family that “I’m working” when I’m clearly just watching YouTube?

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieYrBWmkfno or if you have the keyboard skills of an angry German kid smashing away in frustration, you can type in: Cloud Guru - ACG Projects: Build Your Resume on Azure with Blob Storage, Functions, CosmosDB, and GitHub Actions. But honestly, just click the link, your keyboard will thank you.

Azure Today, AWS Tomorrow (Because One Cloud Just Isn’t Enough)

Right now, I’m focused on Azure. It’s like learning to drive—you start with something basic, get comfortable, then move to AWS, which I assume is like driving a spaceship with 1,000 buttons and no labels.

One day, I’ll be the type of engineer who casually deploys infrastructure with a single command. Until then, my biggest flex is not accidentally deleting my own virtual machines.

Plus, AWS has cool stuff, and I can’t wait for the day I get to say, “Alexa, deploy my career.”

Why This Blog? (Besides My Obsession with Writing Jokes in Between Studying)

I started this blog to:

Document my journey, so when I finally become a cloud engineer, I can look back and say, “Wow, past me had no clue what he was doing.”
Hold myself accountable, because if I don’t, my dogs will assume I’ve quit and demand more attention.
Make this transition fun, because if I have to suffer through YAML errors, so do you.

So, if you’re also on this journey, let’s struggle together. Drop a comment, reach out, or just send emotional support in the form of cloud memes.

P.S.

If you’re wondering why I’m called The Teknician, it’s a mix of my love for technology, creativity, and sounding way cooler than “Charles who is currently Googling what a CIDR block is.

P.P.S.

Why did the cloud engineer who got locked out of his own server?
He couldn’t find the root cause. 🌩️😂😂😂😂

Thanks for reading—now go deploy some dreams! 🚀

See you back here tomorrow.