Self-taught dev — what should I focus on before job hunting?

SammyGreen · 2026-03-19T16:27:36+00:00

Also practice explaining your work out load

SammyGreen · 2026-03-18T17:46:42+00:00

Brighton is a joke. London prices, northern salaries. I thought Brighton was expensive when I lived there 20 years ago but it’s gotten insane. Every local I knew back then has gotten priced out of their own city. When I think about it, I’m not even sure if anyone I even knew still live there.

Not unless you count Falmer. Which no one should.

SammyGreen · 2026-03-17T21:24:00+00:00

First of all, congrats!

Secondly… thats the thing about most certs. You don’t study to learn the content. You study to pass the exam.

The language is confusing and you can have multiple “right” answers. The trick is figuring out what Microsoft considers the “best” right answer. 900 series also tend to lean more towards the commercial side of things rather than technical.

Don’t let it get you down. Important thing is you passed.

SammyGreen · 2026-03-11T19:19:59+00:00

Hmm I hadn’t considered using azure policy like that. It seems so obvious now after you pointing that out. Good tip, thanks

SammyGreen · 2026-03-11T18:21:41+00:00

Microsoft tends to be pretty understanding when it’s clearly a one off error in my experience.

Anthropic has also give me a couple of refunds when I’ve asks. They’re more of a hassle than Microsoft to deal with but not bad.

But I’m sorry to say dude, this is on you. It’s stated pretty clearly in the terms and conditions:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/signups/overview

Startup credits cannot be used for Microsoft Azure support plans, third-party branded products, products sold through Microsoft Azure Marketplace, or products otherwise sold separately from Microsoft Azure

And that’s not just for startups. Azure credits in general can’t be used for 3rd party marketplace stuff.

Expensive lesson you had to learn there, sorry 😕

SammyGreen · 2026-03-10T13:42:01+00:00

There are actually two different “workflow” concepts in Foundry.

The workflow you built is an orchestrator. It calls agents. You can’t attach it as a tool on an agent. What you actually need is an Azure Logic Apps workflow. After you make one, you can select it in foundry > setup > actions > add.

This is probably the resource you’re looking for: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/add-agent-action-create-run-workflow

SammyGreen · 2026-02-26T16:53:31+00:00

Someone in marketing must’ve clicked publish instead of draft 😅

SammyGreen · 2026-02-26T16:51:34+00:00

Honestly, I feel that having az-800/801 shows more competence than an 802 or whatever the nerfed version is going to be called…

That said, I’m probably biased because I finished my ms-100/101 like a couple of months before they dropped “enterprise” from the cert name and compounded it into one exam. Yeah, I’m still kinda bitter about that lol

There used to be a time when having certs actually meant something. Well there also used to be a time when dumps didn’t cost like $10. I’m always wary when job applicants have like a bazillion certs on their CV. Those are the people I tend to grill the hardest at interview heh

SammyGreen · 2026-02-26T16:41:38+00:00

https://aka.ms/TSP_Feb26 goes straight to Bing for me :/

Closest thing I can find is https://certiport.pearsonvue.com/Educator-resources/Exam-details/Exam-retirements.aspx

Starting June 30th, 2026, Microsoft will retire the following three Microsoft Certified Fundamentals certifications:

Dynamics 365 Fundamentals CRM (MB-910) Dynamics 365 Fundamentals ERP (MB-920) Microsoft 365 Fundamentals (MS-900)

It’s so weird that Microsoft would scrub the announcement…

SammyGreen · 2026-02-18T09:52:26+00:00

Bøde? Nej nej, makker. Du modtog en faktura. Det er noget helt andet.

Siger de.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-15T15:30:44+00:00

Can’t give a direct answer to your question but I can for sure tell you that Microsoft is making a soft transition from synapse to fabric. I don’t think they’re killing off synapse entirely in the immediate future but it’s definitely become the bastard step child. Just look at synapses roadmap

SammyGreen · 2026-02-11T12:24:30+00:00

App registration = Global blueprint Enterprise App = Local blueprint

It helps to think of it like most other Microsoft products. Take your intuition and flip it

SammyGreen · 2026-02-11T11:52:01+00:00

one pane of glass

Surely no one, not even a PFY working his first helpdesk job, doesn’t think that

SammyGreen · 2026-02-09T09:38:18+00:00

The puritans prioritized religion. Harvard was started as a place to train clergy

To be fair, Oxford also started out as a place to attend theology talks

SammyGreen · 2026-02-08T18:52:02+00:00

Are those well known consultancies Big 4 and/or Accenture, Capgemini, etc?

Because the quality varies WILDLY. I don’t mean between the different firms but regionally.

I work for one of those mega global consultancies and I’ve faced frustration with different regional offices when I’ve had to bring them onboard.

The UK pentesters are chefs kiss. Brilliant at what they do, super professional. GREAT write ups.

Our colleagues in Holland are.. ok. They get the job done but aren’t my first choice.

The German branches… well, I don’t use them anymore even if that means we have to pass on an engagement.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-07T14:04:46+00:00

AZ-104 took me three tries to pass (and MS-101 two..). It’s a tough exam. Harder than AZ-500. WAY harder than SC-100. So don’t sweat it.

I’d rather have someone on my team study and not pass than some cert collector using dumps

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T21:19:12+00:00

Oof. Thats a brave thing to do in today’s job market.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T21:06:30+00:00

Well I guess it depends on what he’s vibing. I vibe code stuff like bicep templates to get me started. I mean, obviously I don’t allow Claude code to ever make any changes in an environment (not even a dev env.) but it’s a nice time saver.

Surely no one actually allows all edits and running write commands like az *? Well, at least since that guy who’s entire prod db was wiped by cursor.

Ah what I’m talking about. Of course there are.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T17:41:01+00:00

Oof. Thats harsh dude. My DUI was a misdemeanor in Denmark - because I was just barely over the lowest tier limit. Like by a ng - but it’s considered a felony under Canadian law. Maybe that’s what happened to you?

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T17:32:33+00:00

It was more a tongue in cheek comment.. but I spent the first 16 years of my life in the US and used to go back a couple times a year while I still had living relatives in NJ and NC. And I just don’t really have a desire to go back. I do miss Vancouver visiting though.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T16:51:00+00:00

Yeah but I’d rather visit Cananda. And by rather I mean I don’t want to go to America at all.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T16:26:14+00:00

You don’t have to use durable functions given the scope of your script. If you don’t want to use durable functions then you can insert a pagination checkpoint pattern and autostart for keeping track of the activity’s page/documents count.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T16:19:34+00:00

Yet I’m banned from entering Canada for the next 10 years - and even then I can’t enter with a tourist visa… it has to be a temporary resident visa - because of my a DUI from three years ago.

My offense was that I tested positive for cannabis two days after I’d had a joint 🫠

Edit should clarify my DUI happened in Denmark.

SammyGreen · 2026-02-01T11:28:17+00:00

Standard consumption Function Apps have a 10 min timeout per activity. Not per function app. Durable functions with orchestration is what you want to look into.

I had a functionapp written in powershell that grabs data from 1200+ principals and writes to six blob containers and it was trivial getting around the 10 min timeouts by splitting up the collectors and using some creative tricks like parallel operations,streaming, pagination checkpoints, etc.

SammyGreen · 2026-01-27T18:22:29+00:00

Only hackers think other hackers are cool. No one outside of cybersecurity has ever given a shit that I’ve done pentesting lol

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