We have prepared for you an interview with Jiří Snopek, one of the first lecturers of Pumpedu, who specializes in Open source courses. He has prepared many courses for our students, which combine theoretical knowledge with their practical application. The results of this approach are proving to be very effective. Students are able to immediately apply the acquired knowledge in practice.
As a Pumpedu instructor, you focus on Open Source courses. What benefits will companies and individuals gain after graduating?
In our courses, we focus on the maximum usability of the acquired knowledge in practice. For all courses we have practical exercises based on real scenarios from practice. I am happy to learn how graduates reflect their knowledge in simplifying and speeding up the work of their teams. I am most pleased to be able to inspire students to new ways of thinking about existing tasks.
The trainings cover topics such as Linux, Ansible, containers, OpenShift. Based on what, did you define their form?
The training seeks to help concretize modern visions of IT, such as automation and containerization. Under these keywords, our students can imagine specific approaches to work and technical solutions and can design and implement them themselves. Today, Linux training serves as a stepping stone to all other open source technologies. Without this knowledge, it is increasingly difficult to work in a Windows team. The adoption of Linux by Microsoft began 5 years ago and is deepening every year.
You have been teaching IT for 5 years. What does it mean to prepare such training?
The most important thing is to empathize with the role of a potential person interested in the course, what kind of experience and needs such a person has and what his view of the IT world is. The skeleton of the course is derived from this. I try to pack new knowledge on existing ones and use the AHA moment to the maximum extent, which strengthens the acquired knowledge thanks to the evoked emotions. Students who do not remember everything at the given training are thus able to "invent" the solution themselves. All this is supported by practical exercises that support the acquisition of new knowledge through mechanical activities.
There is still a shortage of manpower in IT. How should a person who is interested in working in this field start?
There is a growing demand in IT for people with an overlap to more areas. Today, the basis is clearly Linux, followed by a second obviousness - automation. Ansible is a very powerful and at the same time simple way to immerse yourself in IT automation. It is also appropriate to focus on containerization, as it is currently the fastest growing area in IT and in a few years will be the absolute standard in the delivery and operation of applications.
And how should companies get involved? Should they try to educate their own IT specialists? How?
Most companies understand that highly specialized people without overlap have less and less value. That's why networkers are starting to train in the basics of Linux, on the contrary, system administrators in networks, but also in containers, so that they can be full partners in the surrounding teams. Thanks to automation, "systemists" are usually the closest to development teams and help them with infrastructure work.
Do you have any idea how many people have taken the courses you have taken? Do you also learn from the participants?
Over 400 people took my courses in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, but also in South Africa, Moldova and, for example, Romania. For me, the participants in the course are "colleagues" with whom I like to discuss topics that interest them and their specific problems. This sometimes takes us to study the source code to explain exactly why the technology behaves this way.
The second important aspect for me is the feedback from the students. She helps me improve as a lecturer. For me, the result of such an approach is the "DevOps instructor of the Year" award for the entire EMEA area.
Have you ever been alone to IT training? What experiences did you take from the position of a student?
The quality of the course always depended to a large extent on the lecturer. Even the best course in terms of content was a 5-day effort not to fall asleep to monotonous storytelling. Another time I experienced a course that had lousy training materials and servers for practical exercises, but the lecturer made it one of the most valuable courses I had the honor to take. I believe that our courses (implemented in cooperation with Pumpedu) will be the best you can find on the market.
Open source courses prepared by Jirka focus on the following areas:
IT architect, professional IT consultant and lecturer specializing
in Open Source.
Holder of certifications and awards:
- Red Hat Certified Architect
- Red Hat Certified Trainer of the Year EMEA - DevOps
- Red Hat Certified Specialist in Hybrid Cloud Management
