Many years ago, I filed my very first Jira ticket—just a bug report with two blurry screenshots.
Today, I’m an Atlassian Certified Consultant. This is the story of how a curious end-user grew into a Community Champion and consultant through structured learning, professional certifications, and—above all—the generosity of the Atlassian Community.
As a developer, QA engineer, team lead, and architect, I lived in Jira and Confluence. I always asked why a workflow existed before tackling how to fix it, combed the Atlassian Community for answers, and experimented with time-tracking “the Jira way.”
A new job dropped me into product ownership for Atlassian tools—and my first taste of Jira Service Management. I dove into admin tasks, sat my first certification exam…and failed. Every thorny question from users or customers sent me back to the Community, which never let me down.
Taking a senior-consultant role turned the journey up to eleven. I earned multiple certifications and all three Atlassian designations—Agile DevOps Specialist, Administration Expert, ITSM Specialist. I answered Community questions daily, attended events to stay sharp, and became an Atlassian Community Champion in the process.
Now I tunnel even deeper into the Atlassian mountain—building my first Forge apps. The Community still has my back, and I repay the favor by sharing every new insight.
I’m grateful—and humbled—to be a small part of this amazing ecosystem.
• Certifications multiply impact: structured learning + instant credibility.
• Teach to learn: writing an answer exposes gaps you never saw.
• Automate aggressively but incrementally: one rule that saves a minute per ticket adds up to weeks per year.
• Build for one, share with many: what you give the Community returns compounded every day.
Curiosity → Certification → Community
Those three words turned Jira tickets from chores into a career—one I now share through consulting, app-building, and mentoring, always alongside the Community.
Kai Krause
Senior Technical Consultant
VI2VA
Brunswick
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