Training Report of 6 New Graduate Engineers – AWS Jumpstart for NewGrads 2022

※This article is machine translated.
AWS JumpStart for NewGrads 2022, held online in September 2022.
Six new graduates who joined the company in 2022 participated in this training program for new members of the Cocone development team.
Here is a summary of the actual reports written by the six newcomers on how the workshop proceeded over the three days, each team’s deliverables, and their impressions of the workshop, which they each attended in separate teams.

participant
I.R / Pokekoro Series Division
T.K. / Pokekoro Series Division
P.B / Pokekoro Series Division
K.K / Livly Division
N.Y / Livly Division
M.H. / Livly Division

About AWS JumpStart for New Grads

• Practical training program for newly graduated first-year engineers to help them take a smooth first step toward utilizing AWS in the future.
• The goal is not just to learn about AWS services, but to gain experience in considering and designing an appropriate architecture for your requirements.

M.H:
I attended the AWS training on September 7-9, 2022.
The total number of participants exceeded 200, with new graduates from numerous companies in attendance.
It was held online from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and ranged from AWS basics to group work, a volume that was very hard to believe it was three days.

What I did to prepare for the training

T.K:
We watched two videos for advance preparation.
The first one is the first architecting (60 minutes).
This video explains general knowledge about building architectures that are not limited to AWS.

I had no experience in architecture construction.
Therefore, it was good that we could watch this video beforehand and learn what we should pay attention to in building the architecture before going to the training.
The second one was an introduction to AWS (3 hours).

About the subject of the training

• Scalable TODO management app (hands-on)
• Creating a serverless translation API (hands-on)
• Creation of AWS architecture diagram for a large chat application in a team of 4 people
  • Unforeseen circumstances, such as specification changes being communicated in the middle of creation

Six newcomers report on their work, deliverables, and impressions.

I.R:
A particular focus of the assignment was the architecture around the prerequisites and concepts. We designed it to be as simple as possible, so that we could focus on development and operations through serverless, fully managed services.
This training has opened up a new world for me, as I learned about reliability, performance, and cost in architecture, which I had never thought about before.

And I found it fun to think about architecture.
I had always wanted to create my own API, but I didn’t know where to start learning and hadn’t really gotten around to it, so this was a very meaningful time for me to create my own API.
And I was amazed at how easy it was to create APIs using AWS.

What we would like to do in the future at Cocone
（I was wondering what the architecture of ” Pokecolo Twin (which I am in charge of) is like, and I want to figure it out.
From now on, I wanted to be able to care not only about the reliability and performance of processing on a per-client basis, but also about the reliability and performance of the entire service.

T.K:
For this training assignment, we detailed the organizational prerequisites on the first day.
The need to create an architecture that would satisfy the prerequisites was born, allowing us to think more multidimensionally.

• Specific Prerequisites
  • Few system architects (few who can operate infrastructure)
  • Possibly a lot of new people coming in (anyone can touch it and use it).
  • In-house production (infrastructure, applications, etc.)
  • Don’t want to devote people to operations and maintenance
  • Newly developed applications
• The following quality items were added to meet the above requirements
  • Make the architecture such that the learning cost for maintenance can be low.
  • Ensure that maintenance manpower can be minimized in the first place

Since I am a client engineer, I have not thought much about infrastructure, so this training was a very new experience for me.
We were able to learn hands-on, experiential perspectives to consider when setting up an architecture that is not limited to AWS, and how to actually achieve those things in AWS.

I was especially surprised at how easy it was to create an API during the serverless hands-on on the second day.
I was also interested in creating APIs so I wanted to make something for my own hobby.

What we would like to do in the future at Cocone
I am usually a client engineer, so I honestly don’t see how I can immediately apply this to my work.
However, I would like to become an engineer who can do a wide range of work on the server and infrastructure side in the future, so this was a stepping stone for me to learn how to do that.
I hope to be able to work on the server and infrastructure side at some point at Cocone.

P.B.:

For the final build, the assignment considered operational costs and calculated how much it would cost to predict the average response.
We also considered monitoring the performance of the contents of Lambda to save resources.
It was a good training to be aware of the need to structure the service in a realistic way, considering the architecture and also the operational costs, and getting realistic advice from the AWS people.

What we would like to do in the future at Cocone

To build an efficient server environment that can combine on premise and cloud services. And to consider a flexible architecture using not only AWS but also GCP, Azure, etc.

K.K.:
Regarding the issues we worked on this time, I feel that we were able to differentiate ourselves from other teams in terms of “architecture with cost optimization in mind “
We are aware that few teams provided estimates of “how much it would cost to actually build it. “
One comment from a participant from another team was particularly striking: “Using AppSync incurs a learning cost for GraphQL “

Given the situation in which the newcomer is given responsibility and the senior staff does not have enough time to do so, it is desirable to have a structure that does not require learning costs to introduce the newcomer. I think you are right.
My team had not been able to consider this deeply for the subject situation, and I felt like I was being reminded of the lack of consideration.

There were many things to consider in the architecture that we twisted our heads around for three days to consider.
Watching the presentations by other teams, I was impressed by their detailed studies and learned a lot from them, “” team did not consider this part” and “I didn’t know there was such a good method or service.
If I am ever involved in the launch of a new service from the architectural design stage, I would definitely make use of this experience.

What we would like to do in the future at Cocone
As a server engineer, I have opportunities to come into contact with AWS services in my work, but there were a few areas here and there where I “only vaguely understood” or “I know how to use it, so there is no immediate problem “.
In the future, I would like to supplement my knowledge in these areas and strive to become a person who has the perspective of “making services better from the aspect of infrastructure “

N.Y:
As a prerequisite for their own organization to be informed of the challenges,

• Few system architects (few who can operate infrastructure)
• Possibly a lot of new people coming in (anyone can touch it and use it).
• In-house production (infrastructure, applications, etc.)
• I don’t want to split people between operations and maintenance.
• Newly developed applications

Based on these conditions, we designed the system so that it would be easy to use for newcomers and so that it would not require a lot of maintenance work.

Since I am a client engineer, I do not usually have access to the back-end side of AWS, etc., so many things were new and interesting to me.
On the other hand, since I had to learn unfamiliar knowledge from scratch, I sometimes had a hard time understanding what they were talking about at the beginning.

What we would like to do in the future at Cocone
Since I am a client engineer, I don’t think I will be able to use this training in actual work situations, but I hope that this training will help me to think more about the server side and broaden my perspective.

M.H:
Our team first assumed “prerequisites” from the given requirements and then considered the architecture to accommodate them.
I came to this training with little or no knowledge of AWS.
I was a little apprehensive at first, but thanks to the AWS staff who kindly and clearly explained things to me, and the people from other companies who were on the same team, I was able to enjoy participating in the training until the very end.

Cocone provides a variety of training and backup programs to ensure that new employees are able to work smoothly and gain skills that will enable them to be immediately effective.

In addition to the existing avatar service, all of our employees are working hard every day to become the industry leader in the new web3 business that the entire group is aggressively promoting.

If you are interested in working at Cocone, please take a look at our openings here.