Skylines Academy’s very own Tech Marketing Maven, Amy Colyer (@wyrdgirl), talked to Microsoft MVP, blogger, avid golfer, and Azure community advocate, Gregor Suttie aka Azure Greg (@gregor_suttie). In this interview, they discussed Gregor’s Azure journey, plans for the future, and the upcoming Microsoft Ignite conference.

*Note: We understand this post is long but worth it. Gregor provides a ton of insight about how he got to where he is today, paving the way for some of our readers. Pay special attention to links to other community leaders and Ignite info!

Here’s the scoop:

Amy (Skylines): We’re really interested in how you started out. You’re so involved in the community, you’re an MVP, and an avid Azure blogger. Where did you start and get the passion for the community?

Gregor: I started off with Visual Basic 6 around 20 years ago. I was straight out of college and had no idea what I was doing at first. But I was working under a senior developer who took me under her wing and showed me the ropes. From there I went on and became a .NET developer. That’s when I started taking exams…when I had downtime.

Amy (Skylines): And when did you start blogging?

Right around the time I started taking exams. I started blogging about it because it was helpful to other people. That’s kind of where blogging started. But I stopped blogging for a while because I was busy with projects and the day-to-day.

Amy (Skylines): So when did you get into learning Azure?

Gregor: Probably about November 2017. I was looking to do something new after working in .NET for years and my next move was to learn cloud! I looked at what the next move in my career would be and had a look around; I’m a developer by trade – so I reviewed what Azure exams were out at the time. The exams were in beta, so they were just coming out.

Amy (Skylines): How did you study for the new exams?

Gregor: I viewed some online training and Microsoft blogs for a couple of months and decided to sit for the AZ-100 exam (retired - now AZ-103) to see where I was at learning-wise and test my skills. I sat the exam and failed by 10 points; I was only a couple of questions away from passing. It was a bit disheartening, but it wasn’t too bad. A couple of weeks later I decided to take the AZ-101 (now retired) to see how I’d do; I failed by 5 points. To be honest, the AZ-100 and 101 exams weren’t what I was interested in; I was more interested in the Azure developer exams because that’s my background. So I decided to study for the AZ-200 (now retired) and I had more time to study for this. While I was studying, I thought it was really cool because of the speed-to-deployment in Azure. Before I got into learning Azure, I thought it would be really complex but it was pretty straightforward. When it was time to sit the AZ-200 exam, I passed! Which I thought was really cool and I wanted to keep going.

Amy (Skylines): It’s always a question from our students: How much did you study to pass? Want to give our readers some insight?

Gregor: I spent about 2 hours per evening studying for it. I just dedicated myself to learning it. But everyone is different.

Amy (Skylines): What came after your first passed exam?

Gregor: Well, the more I started blogging the more I discovered that others were interested in similar Azure learning paths as well. My main blogging topic has been exams so I can help others out and get feedback from the community. The exam subjects have settled down a little now and they don’t change as much as they used to, I think they’re refreshed every 3 months.

But really, my main passion is learning, I just love learning things and the cloud is enormous; it makes your day-to-day easier, which is kind of why I want to keep learning it. I just kept going with it, blogging and learning.

Amy (Skylines): Why Azure? Are you using other clouds?

Gregor: Before I looked at Azure I was looking at Amazon Web Services (AWS). But being a Microsoft guy since the beginning of my career, it was a more seamless transition for me to learn Azure instead of AWS. AWS back then was a bit difficult to figure out where to start for me. The Azure language was more straightforward in terms of what was what, especially since I was already familiar with Microsoft. It may be different now but back then that’s how I saw it, so I just stopped and started working with Microsoft Azure.

Amy (Skylines): You’re studying for the AZ-500 now, right?

Gregor: Yeah, I’m going to sit for the exam at Ignite in November. I was going to sit it at the end of the month but I’ll wait until ignite because it’s FREE (insider tip).

But I’ve learned a lot through studying through the AZ-500. There is a lot of stuff that I had no idea about. The nice thing is I can take the information I’ve learned through studying and take it into work. We have a Data & AI team at work, for example, and a lot of the team works with SQL Server day in and day out but a lot of the Azure services they had not been introduced to.

Like I said, I love learning, and the exams are just a bonus, to be honest. What I’m able to learn and apply in the real-world is what really interests me. But it’s a definitely a good feeling to pass exams!

Amy (Skylines): I heard you recently got your Microsoft MVP. Congrats!

Gregor: Yes, I got the MVP in August and it’s just a by-product of being involved in the community. When I first went to the Azure User Group in Glasgow, Sarah Lean (Founder of the Glasgow Azure User Group) approached me and must have seen that I was blogging and talking about Azure. She asked me if I could help her with that. We now host the Azure User Group in Glasgow every couple of months. It’s been great to meet and talk to people. People have a passion for Azure just like me and they come from all over Europe to talk.

Amy (Skylines): It’s great that this group is established because sometimes it’s difficult to find User Groups, especially for Azure.

Gregor: Agreed. They are becoming more and more popular, especially in the UK. They have set up a Slack group for everyone who runs the groups across the UK.

Being an MVP is nice because you can send questions to the group and you’ll get some great answers. It’s really an amazing benefit of becoming an MVP. You’ll be asked to give feedback on products and interact with product groups.

Amy (Skylines): That’s great so you’re really having an impact on product development as an Azure user.

How the heck do you follow so many people on Twitter and keep up with it!??

Gregor: (Laughs) I’m following 5,000 people now so I can’t follow any more for some reason. I’m honestly on Twitter far too much. I’m kind of addicted to it to be honest (aren’t we all). I follow all the people who are working in Azure; all the Microsoft MVPs. I follow as many people as possible! I know a lot of people don’t follow many people because they think it clutters your timeline but I don’t. I just see a lot of good information and a lot of people blogging about interested in topics I’m interested it. That’s my way of seeing it.

Amy (Skylines): They must think you’re a robot (laughs).

Gregor: Right, they must think I’m adding any and everyone.

Amy (Skylines): What’s your plan for Ignite?

Gregor: I’m really excited for the conference and I’ll probably spend most of my time just meeting with people. I set up my schedule for watching sessions and I’ve kept it pretty light so I can meet with as many people as possible. I’d rather meet people than watch back-to-back sessions.

Amy (Skylines): You can always stream the sessions!

Gregor: And Ignite Community Leader, Anna Chu, is also insightful. She’s done a lot of cool Tweets about how to make the most out of Ignite, places to eat, and even the weather in Orlando! For people like me who don’t really know what to expect because it’s our first time, it’s really helpful.

Amy (Skylines): You can pack your schedule and then decide later what you want to do. If you get one or two [sessions] in and you can spend the rest of the time networking, and socializing; there are also hallway sessions.

Are there any sessions in particular you are looking forward to?

Gregor: Scott Hanselman (see this session) and Donovan Brown. There are guys like Simon Binder (see this session & this session) who is coming over from Sweden to talk at Ignite. I want to try to support the people I know as well.

Amy (Skylines): Definitely. And be sure to show up early to the popular sessions!

Gregor: I’m actually going to take two exams as well. Security (AZ-500) and Fundamentals (AZ-900) (because it’s free).

Amy (Skylines): Awesome. So how do you know Pixel Robots (Richard Hooper)? Through the community?

Gregor: Yeah. We came across each other on Twitter a few times. We both eventually went to Ignite in London and we met up. Similar to myself, he was going for the Microsoft MVP at the same time. He’s more Ops-focused and I’m more Dev-focused but I was delighted when he got the MVP award at the same time as me.

Amy (Skylines): You both complement each other – he has a really successful blog as well.

Gregor: I love reading that blog! Just helping people out has been really fantastic for the both of us I think. The Azure community is great. A lot of people don’t know about becoming a Microsoft MVP so you can just ask the community and get more information.

Amy (Skylines): Have you been on any podcasts lately?

Gregor: I’ve been on Mike Pfeiffer’s podcast and RunAsRadio podcast – both of which I connected with via Twitter

The number of opportunities I’ve had from Twitter alone in the past year and half has been incredible. I was pinged by an Azure advocate asking if I wanted to meet Scott Guthrie. That was fantastic!

Amy (Skylines): Fanboy moment! I think we all would have felt the same way.

Amy (Skylines): And your blog is really taking off now...

Gregor: I have over 350,000 views and it’s really taken off since I started writing it and learning about Azure. I was trying to do four blog posts a month, but I’ve done some videos as well and might do some training. The problem is, if I do too many things at once I end up losing focus. My Ignite exams will be the last for a while because I need to focus. I also have a day job on top of everything else. 😊

Amy (Skylines): What made you come up with the 2019 Azure Advent Calendar?

Gregor: Matt Groves on Twitter did a C# one last year. I saw he was looking for 24 spots to fill and I thought it was a great idea. Fast forward to this year, I pinged him and told him I might want to do one on Azure. So I spoke to Richard and we decided to launch the Azure Advent Calendar with 25 spots and then it just kept taking off and people wanted more spots. It was mainly for people who are working in Azure or want to become and MVP, and we wanted to help them get some recognition; just give them a chance. There’s a lot of people you may not have heard of that can get exposure and there are a lot of people who haven’t done videos before so we’re just trying to help people get started…people from all over the world, so it’s been great!

Amy (Skylines): I really like seeing people sign up [for the Azure Advent Calendar] and following their Twitter handles – people I haven’t heard of.

Gregor: Definitely. People you have never heard of that are out there doing really cool stuff with Azure so we want to showcase that. I think we’ll do the Advent Calendar every year. We could have done 100 spots but we had to cap it at some point. Some people think we should do Azure 365 but it’d be really difficult to do one every single day.

Amy (Skylines): Right, you have a full-time job!

Gregor: I’d like to eventually raise some money for charity with the Azure Advent Calendar. I’m not sure how to implement it and you need to raise quite a bit of money. It’s a nice idea but I’m not really sure where to start I took part in an event with Dave Kuwala – Microsoft MVP in Canada and it was really cool.

Amy (Skylines): It is an awesome idea.

So what’s next for you after Ignite?

Gregor: I have the Microsoft MVP Summit in March and then I’m not sure after that…maybe I’ll just chill (laughs).

Amy (Skylines): What do you do to chill anyways?

Gregor: I’m a golfer. I’ve traveled around Scotland playing golf so it’s quite cool. I also have taken up fishing because my golf friends also fish so I’ve just tagged along.

Amy (Skylines): Do you go ice fishing or “regular” fishing?

Gregor: We went fishing last weekend and it’s the last fishing weekend of the season since it’s so cold here. It’s also quite dark in the autumn/winter. I thought fishing was the most boring thing in the world but it’s actually quite fun and a lot of laughs when you go with the same guys you play golf with.

Amy (Skylines): Maybe you’ll have time to go golfing in Orlando (laughs).

Thanks so much for talking with me today, Gregor!

More About Gregor:

Gregor Suttie lives near Glasgow, Scotland. He is a passionate developer with 20+ years experience, mainly with Microsoft Technologies and background is a .NET developer since the start of .NET.

He currently works for Sword as the Head of Development Services where he manages a team of full-time employees and contractors who are mostly remote workers all over the UK.

His main passions are around Azure and DevOps. In his current role,he does a lot of Azure and absolutely loves the hands on time he gets with Azure. In the past he has used plain old MSBuild, TeamCity, Cake and Octopus Deploy and now he focuses primarily on Azure DevOps (formerly known as Visual Studio Team Services VSTS).

DevOps and Azure are his focus of late and they are his main passions apart from learning new technologies and he is using the Azure exams as a way to learn as much as I can going forward. He has sat and passed 8 Azure exams in the last 12 months.

His Twitter handle is @gregor_suttie and that’s the best place to contact him.

He helps run the the Glasgow Azure User Group and also runs the Azure Global Bootcamp Glasgow edition

View his list of Microsoft :- Certifications

If you’re heading to Ignite this year and/or are taking upcoming Azure exams, feel free to check out Skylines Academy’s courses here.