I've been working with ECS and CloudFormation for about three years now, and a recruiter recently reached out to me about a job that asks for three years of experience with Kubernetes and Terraform. I'm wondering if it would be acceptable to just go through some documentation and watch a few tutorials, then claim I'm familiar with these technologies. What do you think? Would that work?
5 Answers
If you get the fundamentals down—like understanding container orchestration and infrastructure as code—the skills you have are more transferable than you might think. The tools vary, but the core ideas often remain the same, so understanding the problems they're solving is key!
It's definitely possible to get up to speed if you're motivated. While there may be a bit of a learning curve with Kubernetes and Terraform, especially in the setup, a lot of the concepts will carry over from ECS since they both use Docker containers. Just be ready to put in some work!
You can transfer skills between the two, but it's tough to convince a hiring manager that you have experience with both ECS and Kubernetes unless you really know your stuff. You might be better off with a solid grasp of one or the other beforehand.
Think of ECS like the WordPress of container orchestration. While you can pick up some Terraform with a bit less hassle, there are knowledge gaps you’ll need to fill, like networking and monitoring. So be ready to do some studying!
From my experience, ECS and Kubernetes are not that similar apart from being container orchestrators. There are definitely some essential skills that don't transfer directly between the two, so you'll want to be prepared to learn quite a bit more about Kubernetes specifically.
I strongly disagree. If you don't already have the skills in Kubernetes, you won't be able to perform effectively on the job. It's going to be a steep hill to climb!