Stormer Spotlight: From the Classroom to the Cloud – Austin Obeng's Impact as a Mission-Ready Consultant

When organizations partner with SkillStorm, they don’t just get additional headcount — they gain mission-ready tech resources who are prepared to make an impact from Day One. Austin Obeng is a prime example. With a background in education and the military, Austin brings a unique combination of discipline, communication, and leadership to every project.

Today, Austin is deployed with one of our clients — a Fortune 500 energy exploration and production (E&P) company — where he’s already helping to strengthen their cloud infrastructure, improve compliance, and enhance cross-team collaboration.

From the Classroom to the Cloud

Austin’s path into tech wasn’t typical — but it was intentional. His early exposure to technology started at home.

“As a kid, my father had a technology store. Computers and cell phones. I've always been around those things. I've always been exposed to software and hardware, but I just wasn't doing it on a professional level,” Austin said. “But when COVID happened and I was working from home, dealing with all the different apps and different programs we had to do for the kids, I really just reignited that fire in me.”

That moment led him to explore career options beyond education. “I started then looking at ways to transition from teaching and coaching to technology,” he said. That’s when he found SkillStorm. 

Delivering Day-One Impact

After being hired, Austin entered 12 weeks of immersive training — a cohort-based environment designed to mirror real-world enterprise teams before being deployed to our clients. Throughout the program, he worked collaboratively on simulated projects that reflected the systems, tools, and workflows he’d encounter on the job. This hands-on experience gave him a deep understanding of both the technology and the team dynamics that define high-performing tech environments.

That preparation paid off immediately. Once deployed, Austin was entrusted with leading efforts to resolve critical compliance issues. By tapping into the relationships he built with fellow SkillStorm consultants deployed across other teams, he accelerated problem-solving and delivered results faster than expected.

“I was put as a lead and was able to use the relationships that I had on my CET team to leverage and find out information of what they were doing on their end to bring it back to my team to make us more effective,” he said. “It just sped up the timeline for us to remediate those non-compliance issues.”

He was also given ownership of a global monitoring app that had been built through ClickOps, with no infrastructure-as-code backup. The ask: replicate it in Terraform. The timeline: one quarter.

“I was able to meet that deadline in half the amount of time,” Austin said. “Which really spoke volumes to how fast I was picking up Terraform, how much I really understood that application. And now we were able to reproduce that and push it back to prod with no errors.”

Scaling Skills, Expanding Value

Since joining SkillStorm in September 2023, Austin has stayed committed to upskilling.

“Since the cohort, I have had to come back and scale up in AWS,” he said. “I was able to take another course through SkillStorm, take my CCP, and pass that. So I'm one of the only members currently on our team that has Azure and AWS certifications. And then adding the Terraform on top of that, which I now can do infrastructure as code in both Azure and AWS.”

His proactive mindset has also earned recognition across teams.

“I don’t wait for a problem to arise,” Austin said. “I try to find where I think problems will happen in the future. It's kind of forecasting things and it's been great for me.”

That forward-thinking approach paid off recently when a leadership change surfaced questions about cloud security. “I was actually one of the only people on our team that could speak to it because I was exposed to cybersecurity training because of SkillStorm.”

Powered by Purpose-Built Training

The ability to perform from Day One wasn’t an accident — it was intentional, built into SkillStorm’s model.

“Through the training, we had a great instructor, Brian. He led us and exposed us to so many different things in technology, things that we'll be using here on the job,” Austin said. 

He also noted that the team-based projects in training helped prepare him for the collaborative environment he works in now. “Learning to look at the whole picture, not just yourself as an individual, is very important,” he said. “You have to understand first what your role is to that team and then how your role supports the grand scheme of everything.”

Looking Ahead

Austin is currently focused on expanding his skills in cloud engineering, but his long-term vision is broader.

“Of course, I would love to stay in the cloud space. I love doing cloud engineering, actually building resources,” he said. “But I think as my career progresses, I would love to phase more into a solution architect — so more of creating the cloud resources or services, solutions... thinking about tying in all the infrastructure, the security, and how everything all comes together.”

The SkillStorm Difference

Austin’s story is one of many that highlight how SkillStorm builds mission-ready tech teams prepared to contribute from the moment they arrive.

“I believe this program is very beneficial. I think it serves a big need,” Austin said. “I'm appreciative for this opportunity and believe that anybody else put in this role will be prepared in the same way I was.”

Looking to build a high-impact tech team?

SkillStorm tech teams arrive equipped with the tools, training, and drive to deliver real results — right from Day One. Learn more about partnering with SkillStorm by emailing hire@skillstorm.com.