MVP Spotlight Archives - Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom

MVP Spotlight: Azure for developers with John Kilmister

John Kilmister — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 18:26:10 +0000

Welcome to our MVP Spotlight series! We’re showcasing some of the wonderful people in our MVP program about their areas of expertise, so that we can learn more about how they got started and their recommendations for others doing the same. We’ll also point you towards the resources they’ve worked on, whether it be articles, videos or podcasts, to help you level-up your own skills.

Meet John, Azure MVP

This time I caught up with John Kilmister, where I asked him about his personal dev journey, and how other developers can improve their Azure skills.

Chris: Introduce yourself!

John: I’m John Kilmister, an Azure MVP, software engineer, software architect, blogger and speaker. I always find it hard to explain my niche area but if anything, it’s focused on how software developers can use the Azure platform.

In my day job I work as a principal software architect on a SaaS product, as part of a team of software architects at a large international company. I help develop roadmaps for our codebase, help improve developer experience, analyse tools/options and input into the general direction of code in the product. Everything we build is in C# hosted on Azure.

I became an Azure MVP last year and it has been great to meet more people in the community.

C: How did you get into cloud and Azure?

J: I have always had an interest in computing – my dad was into electronics and fixed TVs and VCRs, so when computers came they were around the house and I often found myself helping fix them. After school I initially took business studies, then on to a degree in Business Information Management Systems, which would be useful later for working with business colleagues, with a placement year doing both hardware and software. Later I learned the computer science bits I missed through self-study.

After leaving university I decided to become a programmer and got my first full-time job converting VB6 to .NET 1.1 in a waterfall 2-year-long project, then supporting it for the next 5 years. After this, I went to work for an international online retailer where I learnt a lot about e-commerce, agile development, internationalisation and scale.

Following this in 2015, I helped set up a development team at the UK’s largest chain of gyms. Over the next 7 years I held many roles in the team, doing everything from initial website builds using continuous delivery on Azure, Xamarin development (it’s amazing to see people on the bus using your app!) to team design. We chose Azure and PaaS to cope with unexpected loads, and this is how I started my Azure journey all those years ago.

C: We recently saw you participate in the 2022 Festive Tech Calendar – what drives you to give back to the community?

J: I love learning things and then sharing that with others. This is something I have done many times in my workplace and continue to do.

A few years back I started to write my blog for a number of reasons; firstly as a way to improve my writing, but also to give me a reason to learn something new and in-depth. By writing and sharing it with others, I check the details and consequently discover more things. But the most important thing is to share with others and give back.

My posts have been focused on Azure with a developer twist to them, looking at how we can use PaaS or Serverless with C# or JavaScript. I like going deep on topics when I find the time, like How to Separate Production, Test and Development Resources in Azure and Azure Custom Roles Following Least Privilege Best Practices, and it’s also great to get feedback and learn even more from others.

I had done a few lightning talks at local .NET user groups over the years, but it wasn’t until I was approached to repeat a session at a different user group that I really started doing them frequently. When lockdown came and many groups moved online, I had the opportunity to perform talks to many people all over the world. It built from there, and I have now spoken in person at different groups and online.

In the near-future, I am planning to write talks on “Unlocking the Potential of Azure Blob Storage: A Guide to the lesser-known Features” and “Azure for C# Developers: A Hands-On Guide” this year. You can track my upcoming talks on my website.

I have also been involved with Bit Project for the last 2 years mentoring students, which has been great for getting more people into the industry by sharing my experiences. I have also worked with a local university and had the chance to talk about the industry with others, as well as been on podcasts about my tech journey.

I have dyslexia, though I have found ways to work around this. I also try to find hobbies and other activities beyond the code.

C: You mention you’ve found ways to work around your dyslexia – if you’re comfortable sharing them, could you talk a bit about it?

J: Dyslexia affects up to 1 in 5 people. For each person it’s different, but for me it causes challenges mainly with spelling and reading. I will often read text and the words don’t make sense, reading it again and again and they still say the same thing, but eventually I’ll be able to see that it says something completely different. On the positive side, it’s now thought that the genetic changes that cause Dyslexia also provide strengths through different approaches to problem-solving, communication skills and creative activities, something that I feel I can relate to.

I was first diagnosed while at university, at the time when I probably did the most reading and writing I would ever do. Luckily the world of work is different and as I started as a programmer, there was less need to write longer documents. As I progressed to more senior roles I have written more but I have found support from colleagues and techniques to help.

If I read my own work, I find that I struggle to read what is on the page and instead read what I thought was written. Therefore when I’m writing long documents or blog posts, I tend to use the voice-to-text features in Word, edit the document and then use the read-aloud features to read it back to me. I also ask others to read over my work and suggest edits, which not only helps with spelling but with the document as a whole.

While coding, spelling mistakes can typically be spotted in pull requests or corrected after the fact, but there are times when this is not the case. I have previously misspelt database columns and public API endpoints that others have had to live with for years after. To avoid this I now use a spell-check plugin for Visual Studio and for Visual Studio Code, and it’s great to see this is soon going to be built into Visual Studio without the need for a plugin.

I started my career learning how to code from books, and I feel that they are still really important even though they’ve been a struggle for me. Today I often use audiobooks to help, listening to them in full or in some cases, where the books have technical diagrams and visual elements, I will have both an audiobook and a hard copy together.

As with everything in my life I continually attempt to keep learning. Recently I have become aware of the Made by Dyslexia campaign supported by a wide range of successful people who have dyslexia. They share inspiring stories and techniques.

C: Do you have any tips for people starting out with Azure?

J: With hundreds of services in Azure it can be overwhelming, but luckily there is no need to learn about them all. If you are starting out on your cloud journey it’s worth understanding the options between IaaS, PaaS, and Serverless, and initially focusing on the one that suits your needs. A great way to begin is with the AZ-900 MS learn module.

One of the first things I would always suggest everyone does is set up budget alerts. The cloud is excellent with consumption pricing, but early on when experimenting with a new cloud provider or service for the first time, it’s easy to accidentally leave something on and spend more than you had expected.

There are, however, so many ways to get started with Azure for no cost. If you have a Visual Studio subscription you can enable the monthly free credit – I often use this to try things out away from other systems. There’s also the Azure student offer, as well as the generous free tier for many services have.

If you are looking for interesting developer projects to get started on, serverless Azure Functions are easy to learn and work with a wide range of languages – from C# and PowerShell through to Python and Java. Cognitive Services also offer opportunities for lots of interesting and creative project ideas.

John’s Azure content

Fortunately for us, John has written tons of content on Azure and other technologies, so it’s a great way to learn about something new. Check out our curated selection of articles below, but be sure to visit his website for a more comprehensive list of everything that is available.

Articles

Videos

You can find John on Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn and Stack Overflow.

Learn more

The post MVP Spotlight: Azure for developers with John Kilmister appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

MVP Spotlight: Learning Visual Studio with Lee Englestone

Chris Walden — Fri, 21 Oct 2022 17:50:41 +0000

Meet Lee, Developer Technologies MVP

This time I caught up with Lee Englestone, where I asked him about his personal dev journey, and how others can improve their Visual Studio skills.

Chris: Introduce yourself!

Lee: My name is Lee Englestone, Avanade DevRel Lead based in Manchester, England. I have a two great kids, an amazing wife and two ok cats (Molly and Stormtrooper). I enjoy Taekwondo, Badminton, Reading, Hackathons and building a few side projects.

I’ve gone back to school to pursue my masters degree part time and am currently studying MSc Entrepreneurship Management and Innovation online at the University of Bath.

I’ve been a Microsoft MVP in developer technologies for the last 3 years, largely because I enjoy creating videos and useful online resources for the developer community such as VisualStudioTips.co.uk and XamarinARKit.com (and others), which are regularly visited by 1000s of developers. I also wrote a book sharing how .NET developers can create Augmented Reality experiences for iOS devices using Xamarin, ARKit, .NET, C# and Visual Studio.

I enjoy playing around with AI and Image classification models, which you can see in my experiments at IsChristmasTree.com and GoodyOrBaddy.com, as well as in my video on self driving/learning car simulation.

I’ve recently made the move from Software Engineering to Developer Relations, as I am finding DevRel to be increasingly important for both organisations and the community (though I still code a lot in my spare time). As DevRel Lead, I don’t sit in marketing or recruitment. Instead, my north star is building long term relationships with the development community by encouraging my organisation to have a community centric mindset that benefits the community.

For example, I am building out TechCommunityCalendar.com to be a resource that aggregates Tech Conferences, Meetups, Hackathons and Call for Speakers – all in one place.

C: How did you get into Visual Studio?

L: I’ve been using Visual Studio since Visual Studio 2003 in all my roles and enjoy seeing it improve with every new release.

Recently I’ve been amazed how you can use StereoKit and C# to build and deploy virtual reality experiences straight from Visual Studio to your Oculus/Meta Quest 2 headset in a code-first manner with just a few lines of code. Mind blown!

Visual Studio really is the modern-day canvas for creativity and innovation.

C: What are some of your favourite tips for using Visual Studio?

L: If I had to choose, my most used keyboard shortcuts are probably the following:

Ctrl + Shift + F9 = Delete All Breakpoints
Ctrl + – and Ctrl + Shift + – = Navigate backwards, forwards
Ctrl + K, K = Toggle bookmark
Ctrl + K, N = Go to next bookmark (cycles through)
Ctrl + R, W = Toggle showing whitespace (I don’t like unnecessary whitespace)
Ctrl + K, D = Format document (Removes most of that unnecessary whitespace)

C: Do you have any tips for people starting out with Visual Studio?

Keep learning! – Check out VisualStudioTips.co.uk, learn the keyboard shortcuts and see your productivity and enjoyment of using the tool rocket!

Go build! – There are multiple versions of Visual Studio, including a free community edition. With C#, .NET and Visual Studio you can build any website, mobile app, AI program, IoT or cloud solution, augmented or virtual reality app you like!
The only limit is your imagination!

Share what you learn! – I’ve previously delivered a couple of talks titled “25 Tips for Visual Studio”. When you start sharing what you learn, not only do you help others but they will share and pass on their learnings with others and you as well!

Lee’s Visual Studio content

Fortunately for us, Lee has written a wealth of content both on Visual Studio and on topics related to it, so it’s a great way to get stuck in. Check out our curated selection of articles below, but be sure to VisualStudioTips for a more comprehensive list of everything that is available.

Articles

Tips for Visual Studio

Videos

25 Tips for Visual Studio

You can find Lee on Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn and YouTube.

Learn more

The post MVP Spotlight: Learning Visual Studio with Lee Englestone appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

MVP Spotlight: Learning DevOps with Marcel Lupo

Chris Walden — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 16:44:21 +0000

Welcome to our new MVP Spotlight series! We’ll be talking with some of the wonderful people in our MVP program about their areas of expertise, so that we can learn more about how they got started and their recommendations for others doing the same. We’ll also point you towards the resources they’ve worked on, whether it be articles, videos or podcasts, to help you level-up your own skills.

Meet Marcel, DevOps MVP

This time I caught up with Marcel Lupo, where I asked him about his personal DevOps journey, and how others can get started on their own.

Chris: Introduce yourself!

Marcel: I’m a Microsoft DevOps MVP, Cloud Solutions & DevOps Architect and technical speaker focused on Microsoft technologies in the Azure cloud platform. I specialise particularly in Automation, DevOps and Developer Technologies, with a strong focus on Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Azure DevOps and GitHub. I am passionate about technology and how it can be used in automation to bring true value and solve complex business problems.

I’m a regular speaker at conferences and meetups, and enjoy sharing knowledge and technical content with the wider tech community. I currently work at Avanade UK&I as a Group Manager in DevOps Engineering. As a global DevOps lead for infrastructure and operations professionals, I help build next-generation operating models for digital organisations and help them adopt DevOps culture and innovate on cloud platform services such as Azure.

C: How did you get into DevOps?

M: Coming mainly from the OPS end of the spectrum, I started out as a very seasoned sysadmin with over 18 years’ experience across large and small companies where I had always taken the “Automate everything” approach. I saw the role of systems administration as a role that shouldn’t exist if a system was configured and maintained right.

So wherever I worked I wanted to make things easier not only for myself but for others around me, empowering myself and others to accelerate and succeed in tasks taken on the day to day. I looked at every process and improved on it, taking any repetitive tasks and automating them. I wanted to make things simpler, such as changing 10-step manual processes to a “zero-touch” fully automated solution. Spotting and improving inefficiencies with companies I worked with was also high on my list of objectives.

I transitioned into what is known today as DevOps naturally due to my past working experience with automation. The exposure working alongside developers and embracing the “DEV” culture and the way we worked together meant we ultimately adapted the same practises and disciplines into Operational teams, Security teams and IT teams, where we shared a lot of amazing success stories. We worked with large companies using the Microsoft Cloud to continuously innovate and do incredible things, but most of all to increase efficiencies through the automation of build and deployment, through scalable workloads and much more.

C: Why should other people adopt DevOps?

M: There are so many benefits to adopting DevOps and it’s by no means limited to the following, but DevOps has been proven to increase the speed, efficiency and quality of software delivery as well as improving staff morale and motivation. It removes the communication barriers between teams, therefore removing the reliance on the availability of an individual person or team for software delivery to progress. Efficiency is increased as decisions are made collectively by all involved, and feedback to those decisions is rapid.

Work quality is also improved by the introduction of automation which removes repetitive tasks. DevOps delivers applications, infrastructure and even security in a consistent fashion, removing the mistakes that humans typically make. As the burden of manual work is removed from staff members, they can then focus on more creative work that increases their job satisfaction and adds real value to the organisation.

By establishing automated services, the ongoing operational costs are lower than the human equivalent. There is also a significant speed advantage as automated processes are much faster. The quality of the entire release process improves because steps in the pipeline become standardised, thus creating predictable outcomes.

The DevOps approach results in ease, reliability and confidence to release frequently. This allows for continuous feedback to be rapidly incorporated into future releases, whether that be for software delivery, infrastructure builds or even operational and security automation to be truly Agile.

C: Do you have any tips for people starting their DevOps journey?

M: DevOps is without a doubt the future. It can be applied everywhere – it’s not just for developers developing applications or a product. DevOps can be applied to Infrastructure, Operational tasks, and even Security. When it comes to identifying skillsets and the need for the understanding of how to work in a DevOps environment, there is no doubting that it is becoming more and more important.

DevOps is certainly a culture, and not a role, so my advice is to begin learning as much as possible about DevOps and the culture behind it. It can be applied to almost any environment, as it’s not limited to software delivery. Having prior development or developer experience can also be particularly helpful, but it’s not essential, coming from a non-developer background myself.

I would say that I never saw myself as a developer, but in reality, if you write any sort of automation scripts whether that be PowerShell, Python, Bash… you are essentially a developer.

For anyone starting out, I would recommend learning at least one scripting language and try to automate tasks. Start with the foundations first and also learn about cloud and what cloud platforms are and when to use them. Look at how you can adopt cloud technology and automation together. Microsoft has some amazing foundational courses and certifications in their cloud platform, Azure. But most of all, have fun!

Marcel’s DevOps content

Fortunately for us, Marcel has written a wealth of content both on DevOps and on topics related to it, so it’s a great way to get stuck in. Check out our curated selection of articles below, but be sure to check Dev.to for a more comprehensive list of everything that is available.

Articles

Videos and Podcasts

You can find Marcel on Dev.to and Twitter. He’s also organising and speaking at the London Microsoft DevOps Meetup on November 2nd.

Learn more

The post MVP Spotlight: Learning DevOps with Marcel Lupo appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.