[For those with no IT experience] What a liberal arts graduate realized after becoming an infrastructure engineer: The power of words

Introduction

Hi, I'm Paru 🐶

This time, I'll be sharing what I've noticed, learned, and things I'd like to share with others in a similar situation, from the perspective of someone with a strong humanities background who jumped into the IT industry.
Please feel free to read along!

Why did you become an infrastructure engineer in the first place?

I admired Japanese language teachers, so I majored in literature at university and studied subjects like education, psychology, and philosophy.
I don't play games, so I only used my PC to write reports in Word, and I've never programmed before. I knew absolutely nothing about servers or anything like that. Izero knowledge of IT.

When I started job hunting and began thinking about how I wanted to live my life, I became interested in the IT industry for the first time. I
quit my dream job as a teacher because I decided the work style didn't suit me.

I thought, "It's a technical job, so I won't have trouble making a living, and it seems like I can work flexibly. For some reason, there are a lot of IT companies that welcome liberal arts graduates..." I wondered, "Can I become an engineer too?"and jumped in without knowing anything,which is how I became an engineer.
Through a fortunate connection, I joined Beyond, and after training, I was assigned to the System Solutions Department and became an infrastructure engineer.

The IT world felt like an unfamiliar language

When I first joined the company, I honestly couldn't understand what my seniors were saying, to the point where it felt like I was in a foreign country. This
wasn't limited to IT; if there were any unfamiliar words, I couldn't understand the conversation at all.

So,looking up unfamiliar terms → encountering more unfamiliar terms in the explanations → and looking them up I was stuck in an endless loop of
For example, what is VPC (AWS)? → "It's a network space where you can launch AWS resources within a logically isolated, predefined virtual network." → ...logically isolated? virtual network? What's that?! → I looked it up again.

Furthermore, I struggled not only with understanding IT terminology but also with understanding "concepts unique to IT."

In terms of infrastructure, servers are one example. They are essential for running services, but they are so vague that it often leads to the question, "So what can they actually do?" Especially now that cloud computing is mainstream, servers and network equipment are almost invisible. It
constantly think about, understand, and imagine "invisible things" while working.

Infrastructure terms that are incomprehensible if you've never heard them before

In that unfamiliar language region, I spent my days researching things I couldn't see, but what confused me the most were the unique industry jargon that was used daily on site.
Here, I'd like to introduce some words that you might not understand if you're hearing them for the first time.

kill the process

force-quit the program. For some reason, it uses the cruel expression "kill".

Name resolution

refers to the process of converting a domain name to an IP address. It feels strange to use the word "resolution" to describe this process.

Try digging

a command used to look up DNS records. It's used not only in music but also in the IT world.

Is it throwing an error?

means that errors are output to the log file. IT terminology is strangely full of graphic expressions like "spitting out" (logs being output) and "consuming" (memory consumption).

An environment with a step stool

A "stepping stone" (server)a server used to relay traffic from the production environment to enhance security. While the meaning is straightforward, it's an unfortunate name.

I went back to basics and listed a bunch of things.
Two years later, I've been using them mindlessly, but looking at them objectively, there are a lot of strange words.

In fact, it's a job that deals with "words."

I've jumped into an unknown world, grappling with unfamiliar terminology, but I'm gradually getting used to the practical work

What I realized after actually working as an infrastructure engineer for two years issolving problems through communicationis more important than simply staring at a black screen and typing commands on a PC.

When you think of engineers, you might imagine them constantly facing a PC, honing their skills. However,in reality, infrastructure engineers spend a lot of time communicating with clients and colleagues. This is becausetechnology is merely a tool, and our role is to solve our clients' infrastructure-related problems.

To solve a problem, we first need to understand "what the customer is really struggling with." Customers have varying levels of IT knowledge. We communicate with them to unravel their true objectives and hidden risks, addressing vague requests such as "it's not working somehow" or "I want to do this like this." Then, we explain the solutions we propose (which ofteninvolve many unfamiliar IT terms) in easy-to-understand language from the customer's perspective.

, come in handy, such as the ability to understand customers' perspectives and communicate in an easy-to-understand manner.there are many moments when the skills I learned during my student days, which I thought were completely unrelated to ITI believe

summary

What did you think?

I've been rambling on and on with some rather presumptuous remarks, but I'm still just a baby engineer myself, so I'll do my best to steadily hone my skills and become a competent infrastructure engineer!

I hope this article will give a little push to those of you who are about to venture into the unknown.
Thank you for reading to the end! (^^♪

Reference:What is Amazon VPC?