Every Day is a New Challenge

Name: Ed Baker
Role: Senior Consultant, Azure and .NET Developer
Practice: Applications & Cloud Technologies
City: Des Moines
Joined Sogeti: 2020

Working at Sogeti has given me an opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone, technically. I have so many opportunities to stretch myself and train up new skills. There are thousands of resources at your disposal to help you get to where you want to be.

For me, this means defining a career path, taking the steps to achieve it, having the support of your colleagues and partners, and not being siloed into a linear career path. I love that I get to decide how to grow my career, and I feel completely supported by everyone in what I choose and how I accomplish my goals.

I started professionally programming when I was 19, and spent five years doing small to medium sized websites in PHP and the LAMP tech stack. After that job, I got into a developer role at a biotech company, where I learned C# and Angular on the job. In my current role, I focus on C# and cloud adoption on Microsoft Azure.

Now, I’m a Senior Consultant, and for my current engagement the Tech/Team Lead, which provides me so many opportunities to be a leader and develop new skills. It also gives me a chance to challenge my technical knowledge and experience as I’ve been asked to pick up languages I was not familiar with and systems (like call center integrations) that I have never used before.

On my current project, the broadness of the work is what keeps it fresh and interesting. I could come into work and be asked to migrate an old Cobol program or build a new serverless API in Azure. Every day is a new challenge.

And I also continue to challenge myself outside of my main role. I am currently working on a series of Azure certifications right now, including working towards a Microsoft Professional certification. This takes a huge time commitment, so it’s also making me become much better with managing my time as I work toward that goal.

Unique and difficult problems are the most satisfying to solve. The cycle of confusion, frustration, self-doubt, and finally success present large growth opportunities to developers, and makes you a grittier person overall – but you have to stick it out through the full cycle. In the Applications & Cloud Technologies (ACT) practice, we need people who are ready to get in and get to work on solving the challenges businesses will face going forward.

The pandemic forced a lot of hands in 2020. The ability to use on-demand and scalable models for continuity proved critical in moving not just the workforce, but scaling out new platforms for food delivery, curb-side, etc. Public cloud is set to increase 28-35% in 2021, which comes out to around a $113-billion investment.

As cloud practitioners and developers, we’re uniquely positioned to be a big part of what’s next in technology. Healthcare is one area that will see major disruption in the next decade. If necessity is the mother of invention, I think a lot of the changes we’ve been making during the pandemic will become permanent, and economic forces will also require a change in how healthcare is distributed and consumed.

Cloud engineering is not going away, and we’ll need the talent to keep up with the pace.

Learn more about our Applications & Cloud Technologies practice.