Welcome to the Internship

Welcome to the Cloud Engineering Internship. Over 12 weeks you will go from cloud basics to designing and provisioning a production-style AWS architecture using Terraform — entirely from code. This handbook is your day-to-day reference.

Classroom Links

Module	Link
Cloud Basics	classroom.stratpoint.com/course/view.php?id=372
Terraform 101	classroom.stratpoint.com/course/view.php?id=373
Cloud Native DevOps	classroom.stratpoint.com/course/view.php?id=380

What the 12 Weeks Look Like

Week	Focus	You Deliver
Day 0	Required setup	Working local environment: AWS CLI, Terraform CLI, Git, VS Code, AWS sandbox, GitLab
1	Cloud Basics — CloudFormation	AWS resources created and deployed using CloudFormation templates
2	Terraform 101 — First Deploy + Variables	Two individual Terraform activities completed and presented
3	Terraform 101 — Modules	Reusable Terraform modules created and presented
4	Capstone Kickoff	Architecture plan, GitLab repo, and initial Terraform structure ready
5	Capstone Milestone 1: Networking	VPC, subnets, Internet Gateway, route tables, security groups provisioned
6	Capstone Milestone 2: Compute	Jump host, launch template, Auto Scaling Group, Application Load Balancer provisioned
7	Capstone Milestone 3: Data & Storage	RDS Multi-AZ and private S3 bucket with lifecycle management provisioned
8	Capstone Finalization	Testing, cleanup, architecture diagram, documentation, capstone presentation
9–11	Project Immersion + Cloud Native DevOps	Docker, Kubernetes, GitLab CI/CD learning activities + project observation notes
12	Final Wrap-up	Final reflection, learning summary, mentor feedback, evaluation

What This Internship Will and Will Not Cover

Covered	Not Covered
AWS fundamentals — VPC, EC2, RDS, S3, IAM, ALB, ASG	Full AWS certification review program
Infrastructure as Code with Terraform	Deep cybersecurity or penetration testing
CloudFormation templates	Production operations ownership by interns
Basic Cloud Native DevOps — Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD	Deep Kubernetes administration
GitLab for source control and collaboration	Deep application development
Cost-aware and secure infrastructure design	Project-specific onboarding or live client access

Pro Tip

Terraform is the most important skill this internship builds. Spend extra time on it in Weeks 2–3.

Cost awareness matters throughout. Always destroy unused resources after each activity.

You will not understand everything on Day 1 — that is normal. Focus on running commands, then understanding why.