Want a career in cloud computing? Here’s what you need to know.
Cloud engineers are in high demand, and this should be no surprise. More and more companies are choosing to move their critical business applications and processes to the cloud (whether that be a public, private or hybrid infrastructure).
Those already in the cloud field are professionals responsible for assessing a business’s infrastructure and migrating its functions to a cloud-based system. They, therefore, usually have a mix of business knowledge, technical skills and some experience with at least one of the major cloud providers, e.g. Amazon, Microsoft or Google.
If you are interested in a cloud engineering career, this guide will help you understand the most important details.
Why are cloud engineers so in demand?
Back in November 2019, NetEnrich released a report on “The State of the Cloud,” which revealed that 68% of those IT departments who were surveyed were using public cloud infrastructures, and 80% said their companies had moved at least a quarter of their information to the public cloud. This has impacted the need for organisations to have technologists with cloud computing experience on board.
This is backed up by a survey completed by Indeed, which revealed that searches for the term ‘cloud computing’ and ‘cloud engineer’ have increased by 141% in the past two years alone.
What do cloud engineers do?
As we have mentioned above, cloud engineers are responsible for assessing a business’s existing infrastructure and researching the best way to move the different business functions to the cloud. They are then responsible for migrating the chosen business functions to the cloud system and maintaining them.
Technical abilities are therefore needed for them to be able to complete the migration, and they also need to be able to negotiate terms with cloud providers, ensure any data migrated is secure, and make sure that best practices are followed throughout the whole process.
Communication skills are also key, as they need to work closely with the IT team to integrate existing structures into the cloud and be able to communicate their progress clearly to the senior management team.
What skills do cloud engineers need to have?
Typically, cloud engineer job descriptions will ask that the candidate has:
- A bachelor’s degree in computer science or information technology and/or AWS, GCP or Azure professional certifications
- Experience in a variety of programming languages, such as AngularJS, C++, Java and Python
- Knowledge of tech tools and platforms such as Hadoop, Kafka, Kubernetes, Redshift, Scala, Spark and SQL
- Security expertise is also becoming more important, so cloud engineers with cybersecurity skills are jumping to the top of the pile.
What are typical interview questions for cloud engineers?
As well as the most common interview questions that you would normally expect, applicants for cloud jobs will also potentially be asked about their prior experience with cloud platforms and technologies, collaborating with other teams, and security issues. These questions may include the following:
- Give me an example of how you worked with other members of your team to solve a particular obstacle to migrating resources to the cloud
- What kind of relationships have you already formed with cloud service providers?
- What kind of projects have you been involved in concerning the implementation of specific solutions to the cloud?
- What are some of the types of security issues you have encountered when completing cloud implementations?
- What web development tools are you most proficient in?
- What are your favourite web development tools to use and why?
The role of cloud engineer is in high demand, which is why you need experienced recruiters at Agile Recruit to help you find the right cloud job for you or the right candidate for your cloud team.
