When I first learned about Cloudinary back in 2013, it literally seemed like web-development magic. You upload your images and videos to it and, in short order, Cloudinary has served them in the most optimal formats and quality for all browsers and devices. It blew me away. No doubt some of you have felt the same way.
However, I had no idea then of how all that magic happened. It just worked, and it worked really well. And while our documentation and support material are fantastically written and maintained by our teams, many of you have been asking for even more ways to better understand and harness Cloudinary’s capabilities.
Hence, we’re launching the Cloudinary Academy as our main training portal for all current and future courses, which you can access at training.cloudinary.com. Registrations for five courses with associated certifications are open now, with many more being developed by our Customer Education Team.
One of the best aspects about the Cloudinary Academy comes from a core Cloudinary belief that people should be able to use our service for free. Not only can hundreds of thousands of users upload, manage, and transform their digital assets on our Free Plan, all registered users can access much of our coursework at no charge.
Here are three examples of the free coursework that’s available on the Cloudinary Academy today:
- Introduction for API Users and Developers: This is a 60-minute course with video lessons and practice quizzes to bring you up to speed with the most essential parts of our service and the ins and outs of working with Cloudinary’s APIs. It’s taught by Stephen Doyle, one of our best developer support engineers, with our Node.js SDK for all of the examples.
- Introduction for DAM Users and Content Editors: This 60-minute course focuses on the essentials of Cloudinary with an emphasis on the capabilities of the Management Console, which is accessed through our web user interface. No coding is required.
- Fundamentals for Developers: This is a 13-lesson course that dives deep with specific code samples and interactive material. Two of the 13 lessons are now available, with the remaining ones to be released on a regular basis.
Throughout 2019, we experimented with our Regional Training Program, for which seasoned Cloudinary employees would teach a multiday, live course for developers in the city of their choice. We received some amazing feedback from our students:
“The pacing and depth is perfect and I haven’t heard a question go unanswered yet. You have the right people in the room for sure! It was really relaxed, the breaks were perfectly timed.”
— Adam White, Principal Engineer for JUST EAT
“I’m actually very happy with the format of the course overall; there is a good balance of ‘lecture’ and exercises.”
— Grant Ozolins, Web Architect for Made.com
“The training was interactive, dynamic due to the constant change in instructors and the time frame was perfect; my compliments for an outstanding training!”
— Patrick Just de la Paisières, Business Processes Specialist for Nintendo of Europe.
After three successful sessions in San Francisco, Boston, and London, we are proud to announce that this program is now in full swing. We will run two Regional Training courses in January 2020 and announce more course locations in the coming months. You can register for either course today, which offers plenty of one-on-one time with our instructors and lots of exclusive Cloudinary merchandise. Customers on our enterprise-level plans can also contact their Customer Success Manager (CSM) for discount eligibility, based on class size.
- Fundamentals for Developers (January 13-16, 2020): This is a virtual Regional Training course for our customers in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The sessions will be taught by Tamas Piros from our Evangelism Team and Maor Gariv from our Solutions Team. Register at the link.
- Fundamentals for Developers (January 27-28, 2020): This is an in-person Regional Training course in Silicon Valley, California. Amit Khanal from our Solutions Team and Marissa Masangcay, our technical marketing specialist, will be the instructors. Register at the link.
All learning styles are being addressed with these course options. If you want to learn in a classroom with a live instructor, we have something for you. But if you prefer to work at your own pace and time, that’s available, too.
For individual contributors and managers alike, it has been hard to quantify one’s proficiency with Cloudinary. With our courses and associated certifications, you can sum up your years of knowledge and prove that your skills are up-to-date, putting you in line for future promotions at your organization.
The Cloudinary Academy also positions people for advancement outside their current jobs. A prospective employer can easily verify that you’re qualified for a position that requires Cloudinary know-how and would hit the ground running with their software systems.
In fact, many companies are starting to list Cloudinary expertise as a requirement for their openings. If a candidate had certifications—an unbiased barometer of skills—to prove that knowledge, it’s a huge plus on the resume.
We at Cloudinary are thrilled about this launch, which enables us to focus on our customers’ professional growth and education. We hope you’ll join us for this journey by taking the courses and learning about the many aspects of our service that can save you time and money on your development projects: websites, mobile apps, and so forth.