The Chicken and Egg, AWS & Cloud
How do you get a job in Cloud Computing? The Chicken and Egg.
You’ve built up a career in Infrastructure, Data Storage, Development, DevOps or you’re an Architect and everyone around you seems to be getting a job in cloud. You have a nagging feeling that maybe you should be heading in this direction too.
Traditional IT jobs seem few and far between and there is an element of ‘Cloud Experience’ required in every job description you stumble upon.
You think to yourself… *Ta daaa* I’ll do an AWS / Azure Certification and *Voila*….Cloud Expert to the ready. Sadly, not so simple.
Here is the Chicken and Egg scenario:
You work hard to get certified, you’re practically bursting with joy, but you still have no commercial experience. Without commercial experience, you can’t get a job. The infamous Catch 22.
So my questions is; How is anyone going to get the experience unless given the opportunity? How can I, as a recruiter help give people that break?
If you’re contracting, is taking a permanent opportunity the way forward?
Whats the solution ?
Sadly, I don’t have the perfect one just yet.
I’ve got ideas though, after talking to lots of candidates every day… I’ve come up with a list of things that might help.
- If you’re working on a project and you hear whispers of a cloud migration or a cloud team needing extra hands, jump at the opportunity to work on the project. Do anything you can to gain practical experience.
- Be visible in Cloud Networks. Attend Meet-up groups, blog, be active on LinkedIn, attend conferences. The old adage, ‘It’s not what you know, but who you know’. With Cloud Computing I think its mixture of both. Stay on top of trends and be well read.
- Be passionate, you might not have hands on experience, but if you can demonstrate your passion – This will go a long way. Passion can sometimes lead to you creating your own opportunity.
- Get certified, it does come at a cost. If you have an AWS Associate Certification, its worthwhile going for the AWS Professional.
- Obtain practical experience on Cloud Platforms – AWS offers a free tier, which can give you up to 12 months’ free usage. Microsoft Azure, offers a starter credit, which is available for a 30-day trial period. Google Cloud Platform offers you a free credit, which you can spend over 60 days.
- Make contributions to open-source projects or by building a profile on code-sharing and IT social network Github.
With Cloud now being the hottest Tech Trend... You need to do more to make yourself stand out.
If anyone else has any other ideas on how to help, please get in touch.
I’d love to hear your stories on how you made the transition.
