Everyone tells you that breaking into the cloud requires years of experience, but the truth is, becoming a cloud engineer is actually quite straightforward. Five years ago, I was exactly where you are now—overwhelmed, confused, and questioning my abilities. However, I discovered something that changed everything. Hi, I’m Slaman. With over a decade in tech, I now help businesses scale and secure their AWS Cloud infrastructure through my consultancy. I’ve discovered that cloud engineering isn’t just easier to break into; it’s actively being designed for beginners. In fact, it took me just 90 days to go from complete beginner to landing my first job as a cloud engineer, and here’s the best part: it’s even easier today than it was five years ago.
Firstly, the job market is thriving. Just last week on LinkedIn, there were nearly 3,500 open cloud engineering positions—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tens of thousands of roles across tech now require cloud expertise. Why? Because everything in tech is built on the cloud. By next year, 95% of new digital workloads will run on cloud-native platforms, up from just 30% in 2021. This shift is reshaping how businesses operate. In fact, 93% of companies say cloud-native computing is transforming their operations, enabling faster innovation and easier adaptation to change. With cloud engineering roles growing by 27% annually and salaries averaging $130,000 per year, the demand for cloud professionals is enormous. It’s not just tech companies—banks, hospitals, and startups all need cloud experts, making this one of the most rewarding and accessible career paths today.
Secondly, you can start building with zero investment.
Think about traditional IT: to build anything meaningful, you’d have to buy expensive servers, licenses, and other equipment. The upfront cost was prohibitive for individuals and even small businesses. But cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP have flipped that model on its head. They offer free tiers, allowing you to use their services without spending a penny. For instance, you could experiment with setting up a database that can handle thousands of users or create an application that scales automatically to meet customer demand—all for free. This means you can jump in, test things out, and learn by doing.
If you’re switching from another career, you can leverage your existing skills. Perhaps you’ve worked in IT support or networking, or maybe you’ve even dabbled in programming. Cloud engineering draws on many transferable skills, providing you with a unique advantage based on your background. If you’ve worked in IT support, you likely already know how to troubleshoot systems and solve problems under pressure—crucial skills in cloud roles. Whether you’re familiar with networking concepts like subnets, VPNs, and firewalls, or have programming skills, you’ll find that cloud platforms use those same ideas, just in a cloud environment. And do you need to be an expert coder? The answer is no, not at all. Many of my colleagues didn’t know how to code, and they were doing just fine. Cloud engineering involves configuring tools and automating processes with scripts. It’s much more approachable than people think. But if you already have a background in programming, you definitely have a head start.
Another reason it’s relatively easy to become a cloud engineer is how quickly you can achieve results. In some tech fields, it can take weeks or months to see your efforts pay off, but in the cloud, the feedback is almost immediate. You can deploy a project today and see it in action right away. For example, if you want to host a website, tools like Amazon S3 and CloudFront allow you to get a static site online in less than an hour. These quick wins aren’t just satisfying; they’re also great for building your confidence. This ability to create functional projects quickly also helps when you’re job hunting.
Cloud certifications, however, are as good as worthless on their own. While they can bridge your knowledge gap and provide a structured learning path, what will land you a job is demonstrating to employers that you can build projects and applying for roles in high volume.
In terms of the path to becoming a cloud engineer, it’s quite flexible. One of the myths is that you need a computer science degree or years of IT experience to get started. That’s simply not the case. What really matters is your ability to learn cloud concepts, use the tools effectively, and build projects. There are many ways to learn cloud skills: online courses, YouTube tutorials, or even boot camps if you can afford them.
The learning never stops. It’s a never-ending journey. Even after you land your first job, you’ll constantly be learning because cloud providers like AWS are always releasing new features and services. This ever-evolving landscape actually makes it easier to break into cloud engineering for three reasons: Cloud providers make new services easy to learn, providing free training materials, interactive labs, and sandbox environments. Companies expect their cloud engineers to learn on the job, making them more open to hiring newcomers. You’ll constantly be exposed to new technologies and challenges, keeping your day-to-day job exciting.
Finally, it’s relatively easy to become a cloud engineer because you can work from anywhere. As long as you have your laptop, you can travel wherever you want and work from any time zone. Cloud work is inherently tied to the internet, making the job remote-friendly. This flexibility allows you to consider global opportunities and find positions that match your skills and lifestyle.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3rAXBliEEA
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