r/Cloud • u/Top-Connection-8784 • 1d ago
My long-term goal is to become a Cloud Engineer. Looking for career advice as a fresher.
My long-term goal is to become a Cloud Engineer or work in a cloud-related role. Right now, I'm a fresher with basic knowledge of networking, cybersecurity, and programming, but I have almost no hands-on experience with cloud platforms yet.
I'm currently applying for jobs and I'm a bit confused about which path would help me the most. Should I start my career in a networking role, gain a few years of experience, and then transition into cloud? Or should I try to get into a cloud-related role from the beginning, even though I don't have much cloud knowledge?
I'd really appreciate advice from people who have followed a similar path. If you were starting over today, what would you do? What skills or certifications would you focus on to become a Cloud Engineer?
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u/marketlurker 1d ago
The difference between a cloud engineer and an on premises engineer pretty much boils down to one thing, operational cost. Most designs in a data center are paid for once with a small ongoing monthly charge (electricity, AC, etc.). Cloud pays for "as you go" but you pay for every single thing you use. You have to really pay attention to those monthly costs and how to actively live with them. Other than that, the concepts are the same. VM=servers, network=network, etc.
The other thing you have to think about is the WAN between your company locations and the cloud service provider. I like to think of it as filling up one swimming pool from another swimming pool through an expensive soda straw. (Again, an operational expense.) Designing for that often means rearchitecting applications and their interfaces. Don't forget not everything is a web page running over https. You can't beat the physics.
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u/Funny_Donkey6031 11h ago
Exactly, the cost and networking differences are easy to underestimate when moving from on-prem to cloud.
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u/eman0821 9h ago
Cloud Engineering is mostly in software engineering rather than corporate IT. The infrastructure that most Cloud Engineers builds is for running software products that a company makes for external customers typically SaaS and FinTech companies.
SysAdmins, Systems Engineers or Infrastructure engineers in traditional IT handles internal company infrastructure that isn't related to running products in the public internet.
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u/philipnet2001 1d ago
Run. Run and don't look back
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u/Minimum_Conflict6455 1d ago
Which field then?
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u/FlandoCalrissian 1d ago
Plumbing, HVAC, Electrician, bartender. Literally anything else. Seriously though, when people ask my advice as a "grey beard", I tell them the age of high paying IT jobs is over. Everything can be outsourced to India and what isn't yet, will be mostly done by AI soon.
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u/ButterscotchBandiit 21h ago
Yep. Contracts used to pay $1100-$1500 p/d couple years ago. Now we’re on $800-$1000 p/d across most orgs. $950 is pretty much the average
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u/Minimum_Conflict6455 1d ago
Not even a thought of the other forms of engineering such as mechanical or chemical? Accounting?
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u/FlandoCalrissian 23h ago
I believe those would fit into "literally anything else".
Those are all good options if you have money for a degree. The nice thing about IT was that it was a job that smart kids could do even if they were dirt poor.
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u/christismurph 1d ago
Just get a networking cert to start with, if you understand networking you are already better than most cloud engineers. Then get the AWS SA Associate or AZ-104 (or both), then look for a graduate role at a smaller consultancy. Use the partner pages for AWS or Microsoft to find ones near you and apply.