The 14 Skills You Need for a Successful Career In Cloud Computing
What is one skill a person needs for a successful career in cloud computing?
To help you identify the skills you need to succeed in a cloud computing career, we asked career coaches, tech recruiters, and tech business leaders this question for their best recommendations. From cloud technology-based skills and accreditations to interest in continuous learning, there are several skills that you need to possess in order to be successful in cloud computing as a career.
Here are 14 skills these leaders recommend for success in a cloud computing career:
- Cloud Technology-Based Skills and Accreditations
- Effective Communication
- Cybersecurity Skills
- Skills in Multiple Back-End Languages
- Knowledge and Skills in Atomization as a Part of System Design
- Adaptability
- Ability to Learn New Things Fast
- Performance Metrics Expertise
- Process Oriented Thinking
- Database Management Skills
- Good Understanding of Web Services and API
- Curiosity to Learn New Things
- Tooling Skills
- Interest in Continuous Learning
Cloud Technology-Based Skills and Accreditations
In my opinion, this skill is crucial for a prosperous career in cloud computing. To help developers get their feet wet in the Cloud industry, every major Cloud service provider offers training and certification in their own Cloud technologies. If you want to boost the value of your resume, you can get certified in Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. Gaining practical experience and then getting certified in your chosen industry is a certain way to raise your level of expertise and give yourself an edge in a job interview.
- Edward Mellett, Wikijob
Effective Communication
A career in cloud computing requires a wide range of technical skills, including programming, networking, and system administration. However, these skills are only useful if a person can communicate them to others. As such, successful cloud computing careers require excellent communication skills, including the ability to collaborate with others, present information, and troubleshoot issues. By actively practicing effective communication in addition to cloud computing prerequisites, you can build a successful career in the space.
- Matthew Ramirez, Paraphrase Tool
Cybersecurity Skills
This likely gets said every single year, but cybersecurity has never been more important, especially in the context of cloud computing. Not only are you responsible for securing the data that underlies the cloud service you manage, but you also have to consider the applications that process and use this data, as well as the servers and devices that use these services. Cloud computing security is a massive, tangled intersection of hardware and software, and you as a cloud computing professional are going to be responsible for all of it - to some degree or another. No matter which role you fill within your organization as it relates to cloud computing, you’ll definitely need some cybersecurity skills.
- John Ross, Test Prep Insight
Skills in Multiple Back-End Languages
Have a solid grasp of multiple back-end languages such as Python. For a career in cloud computing, you will pool on an amalgam of skills to put together complex systems that to the untrained eye just work and don’t seem to do much of anything when in fact they run the whole show behind the scenes. Cloud computing is growing in demand and salaries are expected to continue to rise as a result so there is no better time to learn a new skill and apply yourself.
- Ubaldo Perez, Hush Anesthetic
Knowledge and Skills in Atomization as a Part of System Design
Cloud Computing is certainly a broad category. While there is no one piece of information that will make you successful in all areas of cloud computing, no one will succeed without a proper understanding of atomization. Atomization in cloud computing is somewhat analogous to its definition in chemistry. Atomized systems are broken into constituent parts. It's key to understand that different systems should competently and discreetly do their parts of the process. For instance, the file storage system should be really good at efficiently storing and managing files. It's not ideal to have the file storage system manage system-wide authorization, logging, or any number of other topics. Atomization is what allows each constituent part to perform consistently and make the whole of the cloud system better than the sum of its parts.
- Trevor Ewen, Southport Technology Group
Adaptability
Things don't always go as planned, and unexpected outcomes frequently force you to quickly adjust to shifting circumstances and shifting expectations. An adaptive mentality is necessary when applying your abilities to a cloud profession since in the fast-paced world of cloud computing there is a constant demand to adjust to changing conditions brought on by new technology, new procedures, and new customers. Furthermore, you must embrace innovation in the field of cloud computing, which is where industry disruptors are introducing fresh approaches to pressing issues.
You must be ready to adopt novel concepts and approaches if you want to stay on the cutting edge of technology. The conventional specialization of IT roles has changed as a result of the development of cloud computing. Today's IT employees need to be at ease doing all four of those jobs, as well as taking on additional roles or picking up new technologies as needed.
- Raviraj Hegde, Donorbox
Ability to Learn New Things Fast
To be successful in cloud computing for the long term you will need to be a self-starter who is able to teach yourself new skills independently online. The only thing I know for sure is that technology moves fast and change can sneak up on the best of us. All engineering jobs require an agile mind, and being able to pick up new skills will be the most valuable skill going forward.
- Patrick Robinson, Paskho
Performance Metrics Expertise
Performance metrics expertise is crucial to any cloud computing career. Having the right metrics in place and being able to test them regularly is vital to improving on them. Metrics also demonstrate one’s ROI of a business. More specifically, how the business integrates and functions with their cloud technology.
- Lyudmyla Dobrynina, Optimeal
Process Oriented Thinking
I think there is frequently a procedure of best practices to follow when installing applications on the cloud to ensure that your deployments are secure and safe. Processes make complex organizations more effective. In such a new business, having a process-oriented mindset is helpful when creating your own procedures that will benefit both you and your clients. Every industry and company has its own procedures that you must follow, so you must be prepared to learn new working methods for every new position you take on.
- Steve Pogson, FirstPier
Database Management Skills
Database management is easy to do and hard to master, and an essential skill for anyone looking to enter a career in cloud computing. Individuals interested in cloud computing likely already know they're going to need to know some programming languages and general cloud service platform experience, so database management might be a skill they neglect to foster. The biggest cloud services all have multiple types of database services like relational or NoSQL databases. In order to have a successful career in cloud computing, you should definitely learn about and even try to get some experience with managing the different databases and their uses.
- Adam Bem, Victoria VR
Good Understanding of Web Services and API
With cloud computing, you are able to use the service without any need to install the software on your own computer. However, this requires the use of APIs to fully utilize the cloud services. In order to be successful in cloud computing, you need to have a good understanding of web services and APIs. API’s complete and deploy the integration on the respective platforms. In addition, you need to have a good understanding of different programming frameworks. These include XML, SOAP, UDDI, and WSDI. They are all used to tag, transfer, and describe data. Having a good understanding of Web services and API integrations will help you excel quickly in your cloud computing career.
- Tiffany Homan, Rental Property Calculator
Curiosity to Learn New Things
Of course, you will need all of the necessary technical skills to get ahead in cloud computing, but don't forget one very important soft skill that is absolutely essential to every person entering this field - You have to be a keen learner. It is no secret that technology is constantly developing, with changing trends and new programs, so if you think your education will end at college, this may not be the role for you. It is key for everybody in a career like this to not just keep learning about new things coming up, but also have a keen interest in doing so. Failure to do so can leave you as a worker, or your company as a manager, completely obsolete. Cloud computing, as with other technology-based roles, is about constantly moving forward, so you have to be on that train to keep building your career and be successful.
- Mike Walsh, Cloud My Biz
Tooling Skills
Cloud computing has changed the way we build software products. The earlier model of shipping software as box products (think CDs or software downloads) had the user responsible for the setup and install, with any new fixes coming later as patches or updates. In contrast, cloud computing provides managed services where the provider is responsible for the end to end lifecycle, i.e., make the software work at all times. This means that people building cloud computing products must have a good grasp of tooling, not just to automate development processes such as testing, deployment, and releases, but also to build the monitoring and diagnostics to keep track of the services as well as to investigate incidents when things don't work as expected. Given the expectation for cloud services to be 'always on', a person good in tooling can help achieve precisely that. Such a person can also make numerous other maintenance tasks and cloud integrations more efficient.
- Alekh Jindal, Keebo
Interest in Continuous Learning
Both companies and individuals need to be in the business of continuous learning. We practice computer science in many of the same ways that doctors and lawyers practice their professions. All of these jobs benefit from a culture where time spent learning things is encouraged and required. Today's new thing is tomorrow’s new vulnerability. Spending time on determining if something is right for your organization is time well spent.
- Chris Short, DevOps’ish
Learn more about Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud programs at Maricopa Community Colleges.
Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.