Sandbox in a 30-Square-Meter Apartment: How I Engineered a Sovereign Exit from the Trenches to Tech-Executive[Part 6]
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Introducing Amazon Web Service "Permanent Beta"
This is not a sponsored promotion for AWS Amazon. Matt assessed my setup and was understanding when he learned that the app was hosted on my workstation. He grasped the idea of continuous iteration and failing quickly. He advised me to deploy it on AWS Amazon. Back in 2011, I had no clue what Amazon AWS was, except that they sold books. Thus, with some reluctance, I quietly agreed with Matt, saying "okay Matt," to deploy it on AWS.
With no AWS cloud background I initially deployed it to Linux EC2 instance. It was easy for me to do so. That is because my first job is Linux Administrator and C-Programmer. We redeployed our app to playstore. This time pointing to EC2 in AWS with static IP. This time around issues are less: no more daughter stepping on the cable, the occasional power outages, virtual machines can then be vertically scaled. Notice the word vertical.
I borrowed the word "Permanent Beta" from the book Start-up of You by: Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. This is my permanent beta in cloud where my continous learning in AWS cloud continues till today 2024.
Going back to the cloud. Soon EC2 and static IP no loner suits Matt and I need to our App. The app by the way was called "Proxiwoo". It didn't took off not because of technical issues but due to market. Location based app were a thing in 2009, we came late as new entrant in 2011.
As testers and beta users and more data is loaded in the app we needed to scale...
Scaling the App and my first taste of DevOps
Two months after our release, it became evident that scaling the infrastructure was necessary. As a newcomer, I took the initiative to independently familiarize myself with AWS cloud services. I discovered the capability to set up an elastic load balancer to distribute traffic between two EC2 servers, a concept that amazed me at the time. Although I was proud of this architecture, it has since become outdated in today's rapidly evolving landscape, with more advanced solutions available. Furthermore, I migrated the MySQL database from an EC2 instance to AWS RDS, a transition that was achieved through experimentation and learning from mistakes.
Everyday we have releases in the API side of thing. I need to manually install JAR file in the two EC2 instances. Each time I do so I need to reboot the server affecting beta testers making them nuts. My experience as linux system administrator in my first job led me to automate the deployment...
I created a script named deploy.sh the script will upload the JAR file to S3, spin-off new EC2 instance in AWS, the instance will download the JAR file from S3 through user data. Then the script will attach the new instance to the load balancer replacing the old. I can barely remember how I did it but that was the concept.
It wasn't smooth, but the deploy.sh script I made does the job 10X better than manual install. That is the first version of my DevOps CICD though back then word was not yet invented I think. I don't know that there were Jenkins back then. One thing for sure. Our deployment is better, and I became a "Permanent Beta" my self where I kept learning. Now my DevOps CICD knowledge is far better from the past.
Temporary Bye Bye
The technical aspect of the app's launch was successful, which made Matt happy. However, we struggled to attract users due to market conditions, as we were newcomers with many competitors who had been around for years. A year after the app was launched, we had to shut down Proxiwoo. Matt and I have remained friends, keeping in touch and exchanging advice. He has since become a successful entrepreneur in real estate. While I fulfilled my promise to him by delivering the app, I also kept my promise to my wife by sending our child to a top-tier school, buying her new designer bags to replace her old one, and repaying the $1,000 I had borrowed from her tenfold after I got the remainder of the payment from Matt due to my service.
I continued my job in corporate world. I had many different jobs. An app developer, sales, business development manager, head of mobile apps moving from one company to another. But one thing I did right. I continued enhancing my skills in cloud even though it was not my profession. Because I was in a "permanent beta"--keep improving your self, skills, aspiration, and find market.
A break came to me in December 2018 unexpectedly...
The Path to Senior Leadership
After Proxywoo, the market became a "red ocean"—saturated and cold. The excitement faded, and I felt the spark of the "Cloud" dying out. I stepped into the "slow lane," taking a sales job just to keep moving. For a moment, it felt like my identity in tech had vanished.
But you can’t keep a builder away from the forge forever.
I eventually applied for a "Cloud Supervisor" role at a major Telecommunications firm. I arrived armed with my 30sqm startup experience—the battle scars, the grit, and the integrity of a man who had built a global app from a dining table.
Just before Christmas, the offer arrived. The top management didn't see a supervisor; they saw a leader. They offered me a Senior Leadership role as a Director instead.
The $1,000 investment had finally hit its true 100x return. My "Black Swan" had arrived.
Several leadership opportunity came after. A Director for Cloud Services in airline where I honed further my leadership skills championing the migration of 200 servers in 2 years, and building a DevSecOps team that reduced turn around time from days to 15 minutes.
Today; I work as a First Vice President in Cloud in a Financial institution. Further honing both my leadership, technical skills, and business acumen. This is not a rags to rich story. But rather a story of hope, courage, integrity, and perseverance in life. That when things get messy, stay true to your vision and character...Things will get back on track one way or the other.
