From Zero to Cloud: How I Built and Deployed My Resume Using AWS Resources

Bhupendra KunwarBhupendra Kunwar
5 min read

A few years ago, I came to the UK from Nepal with a dream and a deep sense of responsibility for my family. I worked nights while studying during the day, eventually I completed my Bachelors in Accounting from Oxford Brookes University and studied MBA from the University of Wales. I never made any excuses: I kept moving forward.

Although I spent over a decade in retail management, I had always felt drawn to technology and innovation so, in 2021, I finally decided to act on that passion. Today, I’m proud to say I’ve earned 2 certifications and am actively pursuing a future in cloud engineering.

In my long management experience, I have done so much training and have learnt many things. One thing I want to share here is that before doing anything we always ask three questions. If we are clear about those questions no one can stop us from succeeding. These 3 questions are not only applicable to managing a team or doing your own business, they are equally applicable for our own life.

These questions are: What?, Why?, And how? Simple but effective questions.

Why did I start my learning journey?

By December 2021, I had joined Optima IT with no cloud computing experience, no prior exposure to AWS, and no IT background. But I had one advantage - my ongoing interest in IT and technology. I knew that if I wanted to be more knowledgeable and successful that I would have to put the work in. Hence why I took on the Forest Brazil AWS Cloud Resume Challenge: a cloud project that was very beneficial for my learning journey. Thank you to Forest Brazil for introducing such an existing project.

What was the project?

My goals were to:

  • Design a statistic frontend to showcase my resume

  • Build a dynamic backend to track my website visitors

  • Deploy the entire stack using using AWS-native services

  • Secure the environment using AWS ACM, IAM and HTTPS

  • Automate deployment with GitHub Actions

  • Write infrastructure as code using AWS SAM

How did I complete the project?

I used the following tools and technology to accomplish my project.

Modules

Tools and technology

Frontend    

    HTML, CSS , JavaScript

Backend                                                                     

AWS Lambda, Python, API Gateway

Database    

  DynamoDB( for Visitor counter)

web-Hosting

  S3, CloudFront and Route 53

Infrastructure     

  AWS SAM(Serverless Application Model)

Security 

AWS ACM , IAM  HTTPS via ACM

CI/CD

GitHub Actions

Docker, Boto3 , AWS documentations, MDN Dox

Problems encountered and resolved

After completing this project, I began to visualize it like a machine – carefully assembled from many different parts and engines, each with its own function. Just like a real machine, if one part of the engine fails , the whole system stops working. Like if our unit test is failed then the rest of the job will not complete on CI/CD( GitHub Actions).Integrating everything to build this live resume challenge -was one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences I’ve had.

What makes me proud is that I started with zero technical knowledge, I had to learn all technologies and tools from scratch.

The most difficult part of the project was writing and unit testing Python code for AWS Lambda functions, along with working on the Yamal template file and GitHub workflow. I have failed the Python unit test numerous times and GitHub Action workflow. But I genuinely enjoyed the debugging process, and every small breakthrough kept me motivated.

Architecture

I learned:

  • How to write and deploy Lambda functions with Python

  • How to create secure APIs using least privilege IAM roles

  • How to define infrastructure with AWS SAM templates

  • How to host and secure statistic websites with S3, CloudFront , and ACM

  • How to implement CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions

  • Python unit tests and error debugging

  • And how to think like a smart cloud engineer.

Certifications That helped for my Resume

  • AWS Certified cloud practitioner AWS CCP

  • AWS Certified Solution Architect - Associate(SAA-C03)

  • Preparing for AWS Solution Architect - Professional exam

  • Learning Azure cloud

Next steps

  • Looking for junior cloud , Devops, or support engineer roles

  • Practicing advanced AWS services, Azure Cloud ,SQL database

  • Building more serverless applications

  • Seeking open- source and Volunteer tech projects.

My Live Cloud Resume Project

Throughout my research , I have benefited greatly from YouTube videos and documentation. I sincerely thank all the contributors who shared their knowledge and expertise.

https://www.youtube.com/@cumuluscycles

github.com/CumulusCycles

  • AWS documentations

  • MDN documentations

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Bhupendra Kunwar
Bhupendra Kunwar