Hey Reader,

Two weeks ago I announced the Winter Sprint. Today I want to show you what the 60 days actually look like.

The Winter Sprint runs inside KubeCraft: 60 days, from November 6 to the January hiring wave, with 45 people building toward the same goal.

Three phases.

Phase one: fundamentals and the homelab.

You need to have your fundamentals down so that you're not stumbling over your words in these interviews. This has to be locked inside of your mind.

Then you spin up a production-grade Kubernetes homelab on real infrastructure. You don't come to these interviews with minikube on your laptop, okay? That's not going to work. Companies care about proof that you can do the work that they need you to do. If you come in with a production-grade project that shows that you understand enterprise production patterns, then you are going to have a solid chance of landing that interview and that job.

The Kubernetes homelab is the tactic I've used for hundreds of my students that I've coached into six figure DevOps jobs.

And you document everything from day one, because we're going to build this into a portfolio in phase two.

Phase two: five projects in a public portfolio.

You need to have at least five production-grade projects in an online portfolio that people can visit and audit and that show what you are about. You want to be practicing the workflows that these companies are actually using, and no, you don't need to own an enterprise-grade server to do this. You can do this on your own hardware, but you need to apply the right principles.

Inside KubeCraft I show you exactly how. We build a Kubernetes cluster in the cloud and take the role of a managed service provider, providing applications to multiple customers. You learn production-grade security patterns, multi-tenancy, how to expose applications to the internet. And you build all of it publicly so hiring managers can check out what you have built.

Phase three: visibility and interviews.

After you have built these projects you rebuild your LinkedIn from the ground up, you rewrite your CV to incorporate all these projects and everything that you've built, and then you run mock interviews until you're bored of them. Until you can actually explain everything without hesitating, because someone who is confident on the interview is actually going to land the job.

That's the system. Everything in it is already built inside KubeCraft. The Sprint is what I put on top of it for 60 days:

• Extra live calls, on top of the multiple live coaching calls I already host every single week.
• Public accountability and check-ins. You share your goals and the group keeps you honest.
• The exact productivity tactics I use to multiply my own output.
• A focused group of 45 people aiming at the same goal, with a senior engineer coach that is there all day to answer your questions.

I can guarantee you, if you do this together with a group of people who are all working on the same goal, you have such an advantage over other people who are trying to do the same alone.

Hiring has slowed down now, so there's no point in sending applications. Focus on building. You don't need 80 hours a week. Plenty of our members are doing this while doing a full-time job.

If you're truly serious about landing a DevOps job in the new year, book your call. You're going to meet with someone from my team who will help you create your personal roadmap and see if you are a right fit. If everything works out, we onboard you directly and you start the Winter Sprint together with me and the other guys, so you're ready to strike in January when the hiring wave comes.

Mischa

P.S. KubeCraft is my career accelerator, and the Winter Sprint is 60 days inside it with extra coaching. Complete the milestones, build the portfolio, follow the job-search system, and if you don't receive at least 3 interview requests within 6 months, we keep working with you for free until you do. Over 1,000 people have gone through it into DevOps and Platform Engineering roles, and we have members at Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia. The Sprint starts November 6 and you need to be a member before then. Book your call here.