The use of containers has skyrocketed at many companies, thanks to the technology’s ability to deploy software more easily across many kinds of computer systems. But the move can come at the short-term cost of simultaneous infrastructure and organizational shifts that can throw businesses into temporary chaos without proper guidance.

In an effort to minimize these issues and the enterprise learning curve around virtualization, Abby Fuller (pictured), senior technical evangelist at Amazon Web Services Inc., is leveraging her unique professional background to help customers move to containers with less disruption.

“I was a [developer operations] engineer right up until I took the job at AWS,” Fuller said. “Now I go around talking to customers and developers and other software engineers and teaching them how to use things. I build my own demos. I write my own blog posts. I do all my own slides and workshops. It’s the best of all the worlds.”

As these complex market transitions call for greater management from information technology support partners, opportunities for skillsets previously considered unconventional in tech are slowly beginning to open to industry newcomers. In addition to her work counseling container customers, Fuller is also positioning herself as a resource on how to invent new career pathways in tech.

Fuller recently spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host John Troyer, chief reckoner at TechReckoning, during the DockerCon event in June in San Francisco. This week, theCUBE spotlights Abby Fuller in its Women in Tech feature. (*Disclosure below.)

Creating a container roadmap

The impact of cloud computing is shifting industry priorities and motivating businesses to seek more efficient resource utilization through container technology, expanding the market exponentially. Recent reports forecast a 40 percent compound annual growth rate, with market size set to exceed $1.5 billion by 2024.

As an early adopter of the technology, Fuller understands the needs driving this rapid container adoption. The tech evangelist switched over to containers as a customer before joining AWS as a result of the compact efficiency and simple transport they enable.

“Being able to package everything together so that it worked on my machine, but also on a staging environment, a QA environment, and on your machine, that was the biggest thing for me,” she said. “I could deploy it a little bit more easily, a little bit faster.”

These benefits, however, can only be seen after some overhauling of infrastructure and business processes, which is no small feat at enterprise scale. “A lot of people are decomposing; they’re going with microservices at the same time as they’re going with containers,” Fuller said. “I think wrapping your head around that kind of decomposition is the first kind of big challenge.”

In order to help equip customers for this sea change, Fuller and the AWS team are working to develop strategies for businesses at every level of modernization.

“You get people who are just starting and they want to know how [to] build a container,” she explained. “Then you get the people who have been doing it … and they’re looking for like advanced black belt tips. The best part is being able to talk to the whole range, because then it’s never boring.”

Learning by doing

With a varied background spanning liberal arts to engineering, Fuller is uniquely suited to a new kind of role that blends engineering and education. The tech evangelist began her academic career majoring in politics, only discovering a love of computer science in her last semester. Despite her lack of experience, she sought out startup work post-grad, eventually landing a sales role with the mobile business listings company SinglePlatform LLC.

Eager to make a shift to the product side, Fuller took on side projects that could have a direct impact on her sales job, such as HTML email templates and lead pipeline optimization. After learning a few skills and moving to product following SinglePlatform’s acquisition, Fuller sought mentorship from the company’s Chief Technology Officer Randy Jimenez in order to further her path to full-time engineering.

“I’m going to be honest: I bothered the CTO a lot,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’ve learned Python now, what do you have for me?’ And then I worked hard. I did a lot of online classes. I read a lot of books. I read a lot of blogs. I’m a big proponent in learning by doing.”

In a Medium post entitled “I’m Back! And This Time, It’s Personal,” Fuller further details the journey between startups and a variety of engineering roles that led her to tech evangelism with AWS. The tech multihyphenate frequently discusses her unconventional path to illustrate the potential for opportunities in the field.

“The biggest advice I have for people is, it’s okay to not know what you want right away, which is how I have a politics degree,” she said. “There are so many nontraditional paths to tech.”

Closing the feedback loop

Fuller recognizes her path is an uncommon one and is using her position to encourage others with different backgrounds and skill sets to consider pursuing careers in tech. “I write better coming from a liberal arts degree than I would have otherwise,” she said. “Every skill that you bring in is valuable. Once you figure out what you want, don’t be afraid to ask for it.”

The tech evangelist credits mentorship and community in large part to her success and pays that debt forward through her work as counsel for those entering the field. In addition to the talks and meetups she participates in frequently, Fuller also emphasizes her availability for questions through her presence on Twitter and the candid tips offered on her blog.

“I love showing people that there are paths into tech that didn’t start off with a computer science degree, that there are tons of ways to participate and be part of the tech community,” she said.

Fuller’s position as an online resource extends to customers as well through her technical advice blog “Dear AWS Abby,” where she answers customer questions submitted through Twitter. “All things AWS related, even tangentially so, are fair game,” she states on the blog.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the DockerCon event. (* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE