The Consultant’s Path: Key Lessons in DataOps and Cloud

How to Become a Consultant

If you are here, you are probably wondering how to become a technical consultant, the mysteries behind it, and the main steps to achieve it. I may not have all the answers you need, but I will share my experience after a year of being a consultant.

A bit about my story. I come from a very technical background; for my final university project, I made a surveillance robot with complex machine learning algorithms for a computer vision application using AWS Kinect. I also worked with Backend in many languages and different frameworks at various companies, participated in mobile app development, and even Cloud with DevOps. 

DataOps Consultant

But, in the last year, I started the role of Consultant, and this took me out of my comfort zone, without knowing much about it. Would I stop developing? How much of the corporate culture should I learn? What is the impact of my advice and recommendations for client companies? These were some of my questions whose answers I couldn’t find until I started.

First of all, let me describe my role, today I am a DataOps / Cloud consultant, what does this mean? I contribute to clients the knowledge of how to plan and create the infrastructure to start a data culture within the company, all using cloud services like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud, so we work with concepts like DataLakes, BigData pipelines, Process Orchestration, Data Analysis, and many others. If you didn’t quite understand what a DataOps Consultant is, don’t worry. The important thing is to keep these two things in mind when you decide to be a consultant:

• One works with and for the client
• The quality of our delivery is the foundation of the relationship
  

Consultant and Clients

I will start by saying what I believe is the most important topic for a consultant: all clients ARE part of your company, and your company is part of theirs, but what does this mean? Remember when I said I have a very solid technical background? My concept of consulting was that the client asks you to do something, you go and create a solution and deliver it to the client, and if this is the wrong decision and things go wrong, it’s their fault because the client decided to do it, but this is what I think should be different. If you believe that, as a client, both could achieve the best solution for the business, always look for all possibilities. If something goes wrong for the client, your company also loses, the company could even lose the contract, so when the consultant stops being a task executor and becomes part of the decision, the relationship becomes win-win.

Speaking of relationships, this is very important to achieve a good connection with all clients, both need to - MUST - be aligned with ideas and purposes. This will make the project more optimal, with less rework and, most importantly, it will meet the client’s expectations! 

You can be the most skilled person in the world and create the toughest software there is, but if you don’t deliver what the client wants, it makes no sense. And by want, I mean what adds value to the client’s business, not what they ask you to do, these could be two different things. With this, the work environment becomes healthier, your company gains visibility as a company focused on delivering quality, and this attracts new clients. 

A small analogy: think of the company as an orchestra, we have the conductor, the guy who manages everyone, some musicians already belong to the orchestra, and there are new invited musicians (our consulting company), if we are not aligned, everything becomes a disaster, and the final goal, the music, will not be heard, but if everything is perfectly synchronized and everyone gives their best, we have a wonderful symphony, a result everyone can admire.

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Quality of Delivery

The next aspect, as I mentioned before, is quality. You may ask yourself, and this is so obvious, who wants a poor-quality service? Well, here I refer to quality over time!

In almost every project, we have the following dilemma: we have time to do it, quality, and cost, but we can only choose two. If you want a quality project with low development time, it will cost a lot; if you want a low-cost project with quality, it will take time; and a low-cost project with fast development will have poor quality, and this happens because for quality products and services we need to plan and study very well, always looking for possibilities, new ideas, because even if the client wants a short development time, if this does not meet the demand, it will have no use, so, in my opinion, if you want to maintain a good relationship between both companies always, never do anything rushed, deliver things patiently and in a way that quality never falls below what your team can offer.

From what we have experienced in our company, we believe the relationship between the client and the consultancy can be divided into three steps. The first is the beginning of the relationship, where the client requests some tasks and we execute them; even at this stage, we have to try to understand the business, how we can help it, to better leverage our work. The second step is when we already have the client’s trust; now the client no longer asks us for tasks, instead, they show us problems and, as a consulting team, we propose a solution, the client trusts us for the best solution, and we define what tasks must be done. And in the third and final step, when we and the client share the same goal, creating strategies together, identifying problems before they become a real obstacle for the business.

Without a doubt, the key to achieving all this is communication; there is no better way to align with the client than talking to them, understanding their problems, telling them what we are working on. People have different opinions, visions, and experiences; if you include everyone in the process, together, you and your clients can achieve any goal you set.

Conclusion

In summary, being a consultant in any discipline goes beyond providing expert knowledge. It is essential to build good relationships with clients, communicate, and plan well together to achieve quality results within deadlines.

My conclusion is that we think of our technological jobs as an exact science, where we have methods and patterns, but nowadays I see it more like a craft. We start with something simple, adapt our knowledge to the client, what best suits them, and evolve over time to always have a better solution. And to sum things up, if you start thinking with more empathy, your work as a consultant will be better every day.

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Are you looking to transform your technology strategy with experts in DataOps and Cloud?

At Kranio, we have a team of specialized consultants who will help you optimize your processes and achieve your business goals. Contact us to discover how we can collaborate in your company’s success.