In this post, we’ll explore the essential skills that every cloud engineer should possess and help you assess whether your team has what it takes to thrive in a cloud-first environment across multiple teams with competing responsibilities. 

The technical side of cloud engineering

For a cloud engineer, proficiency in key tech areas has become more than a feather in one’s cap – it’s necessary to prove and use those skills on the job. 

Designing cloud solutions requires expertise in the areas of virtualization, networking, security, and automation, as well as containers and orchestration tools like Kubernetes. These are must-have skills for provisioning resources, monitoring performance, and troubleshooting issues.

A cloud engineer should also have a strong understanding of the major cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), and be well-versed in their capabilities and limitations. 

Take a moment to assess your team’s familiarity with the cloud platforms you use. Are they AWS certified? Do they know their way around Azure or GCP? Investing in cloud platform certifications and training can help equip your team with the skills necessary to excel in their roles.

Cloud Academy can help tech professionals build hands-on skills or get certified. Our Certification Learning Paths include everything you need to advance your team’s tech skills in no time. To learn more about our certifications or to request a demo

What are Soft Skills?

While technical prowess is undoubtedly a given, there are other skills that often go overlooked but are just as important: Soft skills. In fact, research shows that 85% of career success comes from having well-developed soft skills.

Also known as “people skills”, soft skills include a range of interpersonal and communication abilities that help professionals to work effectively in a team, collaborate with colleagues and clients, and adapt to changing circumstances.  

Identifying soft skills during the hiring process can help HR and tech leads build the stand-out tech teams their businesses need. 

Collaboration and communication

Cloud engineers don’t work in isolation. Effective communication and collaboration skills are essential for translating technical concepts into actionable plans and aligning cloud initiatives with business objectives.

Consider how well your team communicates and collaborates with others. Are they actively participating in meetings and discussions? Are they able to convey complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders? Strong interpersonal skills are vital for well-rounded cloud engineers. 

Solid time management

Having good -or bad- time management skills can create a ripple effect on the rest of the team. Exceptional cloud engineers are masters at juggling multiple projects simultaneously, and successfully completing cloud-based initiatives on time and on budget. 

Sound problem solving

Cloud systems encounter issues related to scalability, security, and performance all the time, and engineers must be able to swiftly diagnose and resolve these challenges. Effective problem-solving skills are needed to minimize downtime and maintain the integrity of critical data and applications. 

Evaluate your team’s ability to troubleshoot cloud-related issues. Are they using monitoring and logging tools effectively? Do they have a documented incident response plan? Being proactive in addressing and resolving issues is necessary for maintaining the reliability of your cloud infrastructure. 

A great way to test your team’s problem-solving skills is with hands-on labs and sandboxes that provide immediate feedback, a risk-free environment for experimentation, and opportunities to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world scenarios. 

Continuous Learning and Adaptability

The cloud landscape is constantly changing. Successful cloud engineers are committed to continuous learning and adaptability. They stay up to date with the latest cloud trends, technologies, and best practices.

Ask yourself if your team is investing in continuous learning. Are they pursuing certifications and attending industry events? Encourage a culture of learning within your team to ensure they can adapt to new challenges and opportunities in the cloud space.

Did your team make the cut? 

If not, it’s okay, it just means there is work to be done. Partnering with an experienced e-learning provider can help you to develop the skills you need within your group.

And remember that while technical skills are the foundation, soft skills are the glue that holds a successful cloud engineering team together.  Identify your stars and create a mentoring program to help foster a culture of growth within the group. And before you know it you’ll be well on your way to building the rockstar tech team your company needs.

For more information on how Cloud Academy help you along your journey to the Cloud

The post Skills Every Successful Cloud Engineer Should Possess – Does Your Team Have Them All? appeared first on Cloud Academy.

The data then gets prepared in formats to be used by people such as business analysts, data analysts, and data scientists. The format of the data will be different depending on the intended audience. Part of the Data Engineer’s role is to figure out how to best present huge amounts of different data sets in a way that an analyst, scientist, or product manager can analyze.

What does a data engineer do?

A data engineer is an engineer who creates solutions from raw data. A data engineer develops, constructs, tests, and maintains data architectures.

Let’s review some of the big picture concepts as well finer details about being a data engineer.

What does a data engineer do – the big picture

Data engineers will often be dealing with raw data. Many of them are already familiar with SQL or have experience working with databases, whether they’re relational or non-relational. They need to understand common data formats and interfaces, and the pros and cons of different storage options.

Data engineers are responsible for transforming data into an easily accessible format, identifying trends in data sets, and creating algorithms to make the raw data more useful for business units.

Data engineers have the ability to convert raw data into useful insights. Data scientists are very grateful for the work done by data engineers to prepare data so that they can turn it into insights. 

What does a data engineer do – details

The architecture that a data engineer will be working on can include many components. The architecture can include relational or non-relational data sources, as well as proprietary systems and processing tools. The data engineer will often add services and tools to the architecture in order to make sure that data scientists have access to it at all times.

Earlier we mentioned ETL or extract, transform, load. Data engineers use the data architecture they create to load, extract and transform raw data. Raw data can often contain errors and anomalies such as duplicates, incompatibilities, and mismatches. Data engineers will review the data and suggest ways to improve its quality and reliability. 

How data engineers use tools – a basic example

An import tool that can handle data could be used to ignore rows not meeting certain criteria and only import those rows. Data could be a string, a number, or a particular length.

You could use a Python script to convert or replace specific characters within those fields. Creative data engineers will be able to identify problems in data quickly and will be able to find the best solutions.

How to become a data engineer

Here’s a 6-step process to become a data engineer:

1. Understand data fundamentals
2. Get a basic understanding of SQL
3. Have knowledge of regular expressions (RegEx)
4. Have experience with the JSON format
5. Understand the theory and practice of machine learning (ML)
6. Have experience with programming languages

1. Understand data fundamentals

Understanding how data is stored and structured by machines is a foundation. For example, it’s good to be familiar with the different data types in the field, including:

• variables
• varchar
• int char
• prime numbers
• int numbers 

Also, named pairs and their storage in SQL structures are important concepts. These fundamentals will give you a solid foundation in data and datasets.

2. Get a basic understanding of SQL

A second requirement is to have a basic understanding of SQL. Knowing SQL means you are familiar with the different relational databases available, their functions, and the syntax they use.

3. Have knowledge of regular expressions (RegEx)

It is essential to be able to use regular expressions to manipulate data. Regular expressions can be used in all data formats and platforms.

4. Have experience with the JSON format

It’s good to have a working knowledge of JSON. For example, you can learn about how JSONs are integral to non-relational databases – especially data schemas, and how to write queries using JSON.

5. Understand the theory and practice of machine learning (ML)

A good understanding of the theory and practice of machine learning will be helpful as you architect solutions for data scientists. This is important even if working with ML models may not be part of your daily routine. 

6. Have experience with programming languages

Having programming knowledge is more of an option than a necessity but it’s definitely a huge plus. Some good options are Python (because of its flexibility and being able to handle many data types), as well as Java, Scala, and Go.

Soft skills for data engineering

Problem solving using data-driven methods

It’s key to have a data-driven approach to problem-solving. Rely on the real information to guide you.

Ability to communicate complex concepts and visualize them

Data engineers will need to collaborate with customers, integration partners, and internal technology teams. Sharing your insights with people of various backgrounds and understanding what they are trying to convey is always helpful.

Strong sense of ownership

Take initiative to solve complex problems, because that’s what this job is about. You will be given a framework and a job goal – it’s up to you to figure out the rest.

Tools and resources for data engineering

The following are tools that are important in data engineering, along with courses that explain how to use them and where they fit in the job role.

Databases, relational and non-relational

It’s good to understand database architectures. Some basic real-world examples are:

• Relational, SQL database: e.g. Microsoft SQL Server
• Document-oriented database: MongoDB (classified as NoSQL) 

The Basics of Data Management, Data Manipulation and Data Modeling

This learning path focuses on common data formats and interfaces. The path will help you understand common data formats you might encounter as a data engineer, starting with SQL.

MongoDB Configuration and Setup

Watch an example of deploying MongoDB to understand its benefits as a database system.

Apache Kafka

Amazon MSK and Kafka Under the Hood

Apache Kafka is an open-source streaming platform. Learn about the AWS-managed Kafka offering in this course to see how it can be more quickly deployed.

Apache Spark

Apache Spark

In this lecture, you’ll learn about Spark – an open-source analytics engine for data processing. You learn how to set up a cluster of machines, allowing you to create a distributed computing engine that can process large amounts of data. 

Apache Hadoop

Introduction to Google Cloud Dataproc

Hadoop allows for distributed processing of large datasets. In this course, get the real-world context of Hadoop as a managed service as part of Google Cloud Dataproc, used for big data processing and machine learning. 

Python

Introduction to Python for Programmers

Python is a powerful and flexible scripting language that can handle many data types. This course is a quick summary of the theory and practice of Python for users who already have a programming background.

Java

Introduction to Java

Java is a robust, complicated, but proven language that forms the base of much data engineering work. This learning path covers the basics of Java, including syntax, functions, and modules. These courses teach you how to write Java applications and functions using object-oriented principles.

Data Engineering Certifications

There’s probably no better way to both educate yourself in data engineering and prove to employers what you know than through certifications from the big cloud providers. 

The following certification learning paths provide updated, proven, detailed methods to learn everything you need about data engineering.

AWS Data Engineering

AWS Certified Data Analytics Specialty (DAS-01) Certification Preparation

This learning path covers the five domains of the exam. This includes understanding the AWS data analysis services and how they interact with one another. It also explains how AWS data services fit into the data lifecycle of storage, processing, visualization, and storage.

Azure Data Engineering

Foundational Certification

DP-900 Exam Preparation: Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals

This certification path is for technical as well as non-technical individuals who wish to show their knowledge about core data concepts and how these are implemented using Azure data services.

You’ll learn about the basics of data concepts, relational and non-relational Azure data, and how to describe an Azure analytics workload.

Associate Certifications 

DP-203 Exam Preparation: Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure

This certification learning path will teach you how to manage and deploy a range of Azure data solutions. This exam will test your knowledge in four areas: designing and building data storage; designing, developing and managing data processing; designing and monitoring security; and optimizing data storage.

Google Cloud Data Engineering

Google Data Engineer Exam – Professional Certification Preparation

This certification learning path helps you understand and work with BigQuery, Google’s managed cloud data warehouse. You’ll learn how to load, query, and process your data. You’ll learn how to use machine learning for analysis, build data pipelines, and use BigTable for big data applications.

What is Big Data Engineering?

You can call it a buzzword, but big data engineering is the umbrella term for everything in the data engineering world. Typically in big data engineering, you have to interface with huge data processing systems and databases in large-scale computing environments. These environments are often cloud-based to take advantage of the distributed, scalable nature of cloud solutions, as well as turnkey set up in order to speed up development and deployment.

What’s the difference between a data engineer and a data scientist?

These roles can be combined, but they work well together. Data scientists and data engineers are two roles that require different skills and have distinct tasks.

Data engineers design, test and maintain data. Data scientists organize and manipulate data in order to gain insight. Data engineers are responsible for creating data that scientists can use.

Although things aren’t always perfectly separated in the real world, think of the data engineer as the controller of the data and its infrastructure, and the data scientist as the specialist who gathers insights from the curated data.

Both roles are important and need cooperation and respect to work well together and achieve a successful outcome.

How much do data engineers make?

As of early 2022, some of the top salary sites online show the following numbers for an average base salary for a data engineering role in the United States:

• Glassdoor: $112,000
• Payscale: $93,000
• Indeed: $116,000

FAQ 

Is data engineering easy?

It’s not easy, and it’s not the easiest role to get into, but it’s definitely interesting and rewarding. Some industry experts complain that there is a huge gap between self-educated and actual-world data engineers. This is due to a lack of relevant college or university programs that prepare you for data engineering.

Do you need math for data engineering?

In general, data engineering is not math-heavy. It would be helpful to be familiar with statistics and probability to get a sense of what data scientists in your team will do. A good understanding of problem solving from a software engineering and cloud architect point of view will help for daily issues.

Are data engineers in demand?

Yes, data engineers are in demand, especially as companies realize that the hype of data science is built on the foundation of work from data engineers. The most marketable data engineers have multi-cloud experience to help them make an impact in any environment.

Do data engineers code?

Yes, data engineers can expect to do a lot of data pipeline coding so they should be comfortable with programming languages and debugging issues. It’s helpful to be fluent in SQL, Python, and R.

The post What is Data Engineering? Skills, Tools, and Certifications appeared first on Cloud Academy.

Whether you want to make a career move or you’re looking to sharpen your team’s edge, it’s important to upskill in the right areas.

It’s also important to choose the right learning resources. With Cloud Academy, you can earn certifications, learn more with hands-on labs, and get job role training.

From cloud computing to application development, here’s a breakdown of the five most sought-after tech roles and skills to level up in 2022 – and how to do it all from within your organization, plus resources to make it even easier.

Cloud Computing

Positions in cloud computing include cloud solutions engineers and cloud architects. People in these roles are vital to the creation, implementation, and maintenance of strategic cloud adoption plans.

Here are some qualities a great potential cloud computing pro may have:

Background: IT, networking, or engineering

Current skills: strong understanding of IT, networking, or engineering

Upskilling path: get administrative experience with today’s biggest cloud service providers (like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and Cloud Architect), their products, configurations, and cost optimization; gain an understanding of the cloud landscape to accurately weigh the pros and cons of SaaS/IaaS/PaaS providers and guide your team’s cloud transitions long-term.

How to get started

• Cloud Computing Training Library
• Google Cloud Platform for Solution Architects
• Microsoft Azure for Solution Architects
• AWS Solutions Architect – Associate Certification Preparation for AWS

DevOps

Positions in DevOps include DevOps engineers. People in this role help manage the development, deployment, and operation of high-quality software by facilitating the exchange of information, shortening and amplifying feedback loops, and fostering a culture of strong cross-team collaboration.

DevOps isn’t new to the tech world, but its tools are constantly changing. Someone who’s itching to stay stimulated at work could be a great DevOps practitioner if they have this experience:

Background: software engineering, software project management

Current skills: soft interpersonal, tooling, project management, and technical skills

Upskilling path: become familiar with the concepts of source control continuous integration, and continuous delivery, as well as related tools and tech; gain an understanding of the mindset, frameworks, and processes of Agile methodology; get experience with Git

How to get started

• DevOps Engineer Starter Training
• DevOps Fundamentals
• DevOps Institute Certification Exam Preparation
• Moving to a DevOps Culture

Big Data and AI/ML

Positions in data science and data engineering include machine learning engineers, artificial intelligence architects, business intelligence engineers, natural language processing engineers, and data science engineers. People in these roles are essential for managing large quantities of data for artificial intelligence, machine learning, analytics, and other big data applications.

Someone may be a rockstar data scientist if they have the background and current skills listed below:

Background: computer science, software engineering, cognitive science, or business analysis

Current skills: strong data architecture, coding, math, and problem-solving skills

Upskilling path: get experience optimizing storage and handling big data in cloud environments; gain an understanding of the various potential data-handling solutions and their pros and cons, as well as configurations

How to get started

• Big Data Training Library
• Data Engineering Training Library
• Data Engineer Starter Training
• Machine Learning Training Library
• Machine Learning Engineer Fundamentals

Cybersecurity

Positions in cybersecurity include application security engineers, network administrators, and software engineers. People in these roles defend against cybersecurity threats by finding vulnerabilities in software and hardware, monitoring systems for attempted breaches or attacks, maintaining tools and tech, and developing security updates to keep businesses and information safe.

Cybersecurity may be a great fit for someone with this experience:

Background: computer science, information systems, or networking

Current skills: strong understanding of legacy and on-site security tools, like firewalls, antiviruses, and configuration management

Upskilling path: get experience creating and maintaining cloud-based data centers; build skills in operational automation with scripting and other cloud tools; earn certifications to maintain familiarity with industry standards

How to get started

• Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer Exam Preparation
• Security – Specialty Certification Preparation for AWS
• AZ-500 Exam Preparation: Microsoft Azure Security Technologies
• Preparation for the (ISC)² CISSP Certification
• Certified Information Security Management Foundations

Application Development

Positions in application development include developers, software engineers, DevOps engineers, product managers, and software architects. People in these roles create beautiful designs, code, and build applications to drive business value –– which is especially important in today’s booming Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) environment.

Someone may be great in application development if they have these qualities:

Background: computer science, software development, IT, or software project management

Current skills: strong understanding of coding and software design, problem-solving skills, and project management skills

Upskilling path: gain an understanding of current cloud-based tools, containers, and microservices development; get experience building tools to create and automate modern DevOps processes; become familiar with collaborative tools (like Jira and Git)

How to get started

• Programming Training Library
• Software Engineering Training Library
• Software Engineer Starter Training

With the top tech skills and their learning paths in mind, you –– or your teams –– can stay ahead of the curve in 2022 and beyond. Ready to learn how you can get the most out of your upskilling efforts? Download our most recent deep-dive on future-proofing your organization’s tech skills.

Looking ahead to the new year

The post 5 Tech Skills to Build in 2022 appeared first on Cloud Academy.

To a certain extent, we had to adapt to that mindset in our early days, back when we decided to build a platform to help our customers understand cloud and tech skills at scale. In 2014, while attending my first AWS re:Invent, it became very clear to me how keeping your cloud computing skills up-to-date would be a challenge for all of us.

What changed since we created Cloud Academy? 

Cloud accelerated and took over the IT world. 

I used to spend a lot of time looking at LinkedIn profiles to hire our team, and it’s shocking how many people today talk about skills related to AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and DevOps (and all its forms and tools) in their resume. It’s everywhere and it keeps getting better. 

When I was a teenager, web hosting and deploying my own software and website was a real struggle. Today you deploy to the cloud from day one!

And now I look at how many companies today are creating software in-house — hiring and developing great IT teams, and again, the majority of them deploying their digital products to the cloud. 

Cloud Academy grew with this trend during these years. We had to build more software and content and we decided to keep differentiating ourselves from all the other well-known competitors out there. We’ve been working hard on making our Hands-on Labs unique (try our Challenges — they’re fun!). Speaking of tough goals, our customers raised the stakes by challenging us to really empower users to complete their entire learning path online — which led to our creation of Training Plans. And finally, our content team has been doubling production year-over-year. 

It’s been an incredible journey and still, we would love to get closer to our customers out there. We have students, professionals, small teams, and large corporations using Cloud Academy today: they all want to improve themselves and use Cloud better. 

Most importantly, they all want an easy way to do that. 

It’s Time to Cloud:

Empowering more companies and people worldwide with cloud skills and professional guidance from our team.

In the past months at Cloud Academy, we have been obsessed with the idea of making our product simpler and friendlier. There is still so much to do, but we feel like we achieved a lot today.

It’s Time to Cloud is a special campaign we are running with the single goal of letting more and more customers around the world start to use Cloud Academy. Our customers are large Fortune 1000 organizations and professionals working on their careers. That’s why we created something that works for all our audiences and allows more and more people to get access to cloud skills, with practical tools and a library that can really help them. 

There’s more: In the last eight years working with customers of all sizes, we’ve learned the vital lesson that companies need guidance and expertise; they don’t get everything solved by simply providing access to our training plans. 

This is why we are offering ALL our new customers access to our Customer Success and Content teams to work on a personal set of paths and programs to boost your tech and cloud skills inside your organization. 

Here is what we concretely do to help your company succeed with Cloud Academy…

This is not some marketing slogan we just throw at you. Let me give some real examples of what we do for our customers:

• AWS/Azure/Google Certifications guided program: We work with you and your organization on your certification goals and set up live sessions and dedicated office hours to get your team there, together. 
• Build a program that matches your business goals: We will ask you tons of questions on what your business needs when it comes down to cloud skills, and how you think those skills can help you. Then we will present you a program that truly aligns with your business goals. We win if you win.
• Customization and perfect tracking of results: Our Content Engine allows you to shape Cloud Academy and our library to what you need for your team. Our Customer Success team works with you to get results from your first day of onboarding with Cloud Academy. And after that, our team will work with you to track results and correct things along the way. It’s not just Customer Success — you will meet our Content experts and our Product experts, and we will help you until we see success. 

If you are buying Cloud Academy, simply ask your Customer Success Manager or your Sales Account Manager for all this — they’ll be happy to start working with you.

Our special offer in detail

New customers can get 20% off — FOREVER. You will lock in these savings for as long as you’re with us.

For Personal plan users: 

You have the choice to pay either 

• $39/month or 
• $349/year

For Enterprise plan users:

Licenses start at 

• $499/year 

Self-serve enterprise customers are also able to pay 

• $49/month

With our Training Plans, you can prepare for AWS, Azure, Google, Kubernetes certifications, and more. You can jump into Python and Data Science. You can become a cybersecurity expert.

Join us and lock in these rates for life. 

If you have any questions, just contact us at support@cloudacademy.com or through our channels.

Stefano Bellasio
CEO/Founder
Cloud Academy Inc. 

The post Cloud Skills and Real Guidance for Your Organization: Our Special Campaign Begins! appeared first on Cloud Academy.

There are many ways to build great communities, but LinkedIn feels like the right place to start. Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve launched the Cloud Academy Community group on LinkedIn.

Here is a summary of what we’re trying to accomplish. 

What is it?

This is a community of tech enthusiasts, cloud professionals, and digital innovators interested in learning more about cloud computing and technology in general through the Cloud Academy platform.

What’s our purpose?

Our objective is to build a community on LinkedIn to foster discussion about industry and platform trends and best practices for developing tech skills. Our vision is to enable our community to socialize, ask questions, and receive the support needed. Our SMEs will be there answering content questions and sharing news about Cloud Academy, such as new features, content, events, and webinars.

What you can expect

A place to share your achievements where they will be celebrated

We love it when we see our customers share their achievements on their social media profiles. Whether you just passed a certification exam, completed a full learning path, or even just solved your first lab challenge, we would love for you to share your success on our social networks and in the group!

Communication on new product features and content

Our Content team is working round-the-clock to provide the most up-to-date content, and our Product team is constantly releasing new features to enhance our customer experience. We’ll keep you posted in the group when we have important announcements.

Information on events and webinars

During the pandemic, we switched our focus from large tech events to online technical webinars. We’re working on 1-3 webinars each month and we’ll keep you posted as soon as it’s time to register.

Once our world is able to safely host and attend events — such as AWS re:Invent or Microsoft Ignite — we’ll also keep you posted where we are located so we can meet you in person and hand out some our of favorite swag.

We’ll share thought-provoking insights and industry trends

Our SMEs will ask questions, post quizzes, and offer other prompts to help keep you informed, foster discussion, and inspire learning.

A forum to ask questions about Cloud Academy

Whether you’re an existing customer or you’re considering joining us as a customer, we’ll have our Customer Success Managers in the group ready to answer general questions about our training content, platform features, and certifications.

Please keep in mind that we won’t have a dedicated technical or customer support team in the group, so please contact our Customer Support Team for all technical, account, and billing questions.

Learn about technical job openings

In our group, we’ll keep you posted about new remote and on-site positions. Our Corporate Headquarters is located in San Francisco, California, and our Engineering and Product teams work in our European office in Mendrisio, Switzerland. We are always looking for ambitious and energetic people to join our growing team and help build Cloud Academy. Our company culture embraces and supports independence, transparency, positive communication, professional development, and a work-life balance. We also bring all of our team together every year for a global meeting near beautiful Lake Como in Switzerland.

As a community of tech enthusiasts, our community group also welcomes other technical job postings, so make sure to stay tuned if you are hiring or looking for a new job.

We’ll share our unique point of view on how organizations and individuals alike can solve the growing tech skills gap

We know from talking to customers every day that many organizations face the challenges of closing the technical skills gap. We believe it’s one of the most important challenges to solve, and we want to build a community of people committed to building tech skills and discuss our point of view on how to solve this ever-changing challenge. 

Join the group

If you’re interested in building your technical skills and want to join conversations with people who share your passion for all things cloud, DevOps, or tech in general, please  join our LinkedIn Community. We hope you’ll enjoy it, and don’t be shy — engage as much as you want.

The post Introducing the Cloud Academy Community appeared first on Cloud Academy.

As an IT professional, you know there are countless cloud and IT certifications that you can earn to help your chances of success by boosting your career opportunities. But having the right mix of technical and soft skills is what you need in today’s economy. Therefore, we have selected the 10 most-recommended soft skills to develop in 2020 to substantially improve your chances of acing an interview, finding the proper work-life balance, and refining your habits that lead to success. 

When you have the soft skills mastered, you’ll most likely want to focus your attention on building hands-on skills or getting certified. Cloud Academy’s Certification Learning Paths include a combination of everything you need to advance your tech skills in no time. As you probably know, having industry-leading certifications show that you have some of the most in-demand and profitable skills.

Now let’s dive right into the top ten skills you’ll need to be successful as an IT professional.

What are the top 10 soft skills?

1. Problem-solving

Being able to analyze issues properly, have intelligent communication with colleagues, and driving quick conclusions are must-have soft skills in 2020. It is possible to develop this skill by following a couple of simple routines every day:

•  Be realistic about what you can do

Matteo Forgione, from Forgione Engineering, says he starts his day by deciding what can be done through eight hours and does nothing more to have space for unexpected things. Problem-solving requires time and proper planning.

• Ask questions

Never stop asking questions. For many, humility and confusion are the blockers to speak out. Having a habit of asking questions, on the contrary releases from misconceptions, misinterpretations, and mistakes that thieve time and energy.  

• Think in little steps

An old Chinese proverb says, “It’s better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” A solution to a problem may unexpectedly show up as a secession to a series of actions. Try to apply this approach to everyday routines, like making reports, so that it doesn’t feel uncommon when a bigger issue happens.

2. Decision-making

The ability to make effective decisions is a core value, especially for business leaders and C-level executives. To develop this soft skill, follow these rules:

•  Keep clear goals

Knowing exactly what you want will help you decide how you can do this task. A general practice of setting SMART objectives, which corresponds to specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, time-bound, is a great tool to follow. This allows you to see a greater picture and plan your future achievement in smaller steps and can be applied both in work and life environments. 

• Don’t overthink

Being attentive to every issue is important, but spending too much time on reflections simply takes time from other things. Learn to make to balance between fast and thought-out solutions.

• Trust your gut

Intuition or gut feeling can be trained if you have a habit of focusing on it through a day. Intuition is a quick reaction of your mind to a trigger. It is based on the subconscious analysis of our experiences. Although we don’t recommend basing your decision solely on intuition, a combination of gut feeling and mental analysis simplifies the decision-making process. 

3. Strategic thinking

Perhaps, this soft skill tops a list of the most crucial qualities to lead business operations. Yet, this one is hard to develop. Here’s how to do it:

• Observe trends 

Perhaps your organization faces issues that repeat every day, or you can see some big problems that affect different groups of people. By focusing on such things, you learn to understand your industry context and business drivers. Eventually, the observing ability will help you avoid problems and choose the right paths to boost your career growth. 

• Play short and long games

A short-term success that helps you pay the bills today may hinder long-term plays that make life meaningful. Scott Mautz from Inc.com tells us that the only option to balance between long- and short-term objectives is to connect short-term tasks with the sphere where you plan to reach a greater success (e.g., writing short articles before writing a book)

• Check time and effort to set priorities

During your day, every event has a special level of significance. Vishaal Hariprasad from Arceo.ai suggests minimizing time spent on low-importance stuff, like daily meetings to have more time for something critical.

Effective task prioritization is easier with specialized apps. There are some ready-made apps on Google Play or the App Store, but you always can have your one. An average cost to develop an app is not necessarily high, but the payoffs of having an own priority app inside your organization may be fantastic. 

4. Negotiation

This ever typical soft skill will be in rising demand in 2020. Being perfect with speaking to others and advocating one’s option requires practice. The following recommendations can be useful:

• Stay tuned with your network

Staying in touch is an excellent source of new opportunities. Tim Sanders, the author of Love Is the Killer App, says, “Your network is your net worth.” Learn to stay in touch either by visiting events or by taking a couple of minutes to drop a holiday greeting.

• Listen to your interlocutor

An ability to listen is undervalued, yet it is critical for successful communication. To develop this ability one can practice attentive listening everywhere: from friendly chats to team meetings. 

• Thought preparation

Providing research, selecting arguments, and role-playing your negotiation with your family or friends is often underestimated. Though it’s a powerful tool to train you as a successful negotiator. 

5. Creativity

Being surrounded by more technologies raises a new challenge: an ability to implement and improve them. Thus creativity is now ranked among the top soft skills one should develop. In order to work on your creativity, check out the following advice.

• Be creative in everything

We used to apply creativity to challenging tasks. Lolly Daskal, the CEO of Lead from Within, reimagines the area of its application. She sees creativity as a way to architect your whole life and use this skill in every daily activity.

• Start a journal

By writing a personal journal, you learn to analyze your behavior, make some conclusions, and correct your actings in the future. This helps to sculpt useful negotiation strategies, evaluate and practice them on a regular basis.

•  Play

“Downtime is critical for recharging your batteries, re-energizing your body and mind and it inspires creativity,” says Ronit Raphael, founder of global wellness brand L.RAPHAEL. Therefore, making pauses for stuff you like should be an essential part of your day, which also opens a room for imagination.

6. Flexibility

The ability to adapt fast is the constantly changing environment is a skill that remains important today. The following habit will come in handy.

• Practice emotional reactions

We know that not the strongest survive, but the fittest. Being able to change and adapt is an evolution-driving feature and it’s a good thing to turn into a habit.  Every time you encounter a stressful or uncomfortable situation, take a pause and think, how to act in the best fitting way before you react to it impulsively.

7. Holistic vision

Today torrents of information are distracting our attention every day. The ability to abstract from details and see the situation as a whole is very important. Yet a clear mind requires practice.

• Learn to disconnect

It is vital to put the tasks back and find 20 minutes for yourself in the most stressful part of the day. It will allow you to have time to develop a clear vision.

• Do a routine job in routines

Tasks like reading emails, making to-do lists, and setting priorities follow us each day. Caleb Harty, from Harty Financial, says he dedicates the only one hour every day to read emails. The focus here: by turning technical stuff to rituals, we automate our actions and have time for analyzing.

8. Emotional intelligence

Being able to manage emotions is in high demand among employers. Here are some tips on developing your emotional intelligence. 

• Accept yourself

Accepting personal imperfections is spooky, but it’s an advantage of the strongest. Only by identifying your worst and weakest sides, you can make necessary conclusions and can learn to change.

• Stay humble   

If you think you are better than others, seeing your faults may drive strong negative emotions. Staying humble, being able to acknowledge the success of others, and accept their help if needed is a good way to build up your emotional intelligence. 

“Detach your ego from the equation and constantly seek out people who can help you be better,” says David White from Early to Rise and this advice is worth following.

The advice is perfectly applicable to start-up and middle businesses with C-level executives trying to perform too many tasks solely. Yet, many things, like project management, finances, or IT tasks can be successfully delegated to third party vendors. For example, IT outsourcing is perhaps the most common instance. 

• Learn to respond, not react

The emotional reaction to a trigger is an unconscious process, that can sometimes have undesired consequences. Responding presupposes also minding your feelings and the feelings of others. Try not to burst into emotions at any trigger, but take a moment and think what to do next, so that you find the best way out of a situation.

9. Being in the moment  

A life full of events gives new opportunities, but attention is a trade-off. Therefore, the ability to manage thoughts and give all your attention to the current moment is a rarity.

• Stay present

Attention leaves us during meetings, long chats with colleagues, or even when reading. You can train attention by practicing mindfulness throughout a day. Focus on details of your surroundings, including sounds, colors, and small objects. During your working hours, try to slow down and concentrate on the task completely.

10. Minimalism

A heavy backpack is a bad companion on a trip. Being able to leave unnecessary things — like thoughts, items, and tasks behind — is a valuable soft skill, it’s rarely mentioned. To develop this, follow the rule.

• De-clutter. Do it every day

The heaps of trash on the desk are contagious, and it can spread to a cluttered mailbox and complete chaos in daily activities. Marie Kondo, the world-famous expert in decluttering and the founder of the KonMarie cleaning method, suggests that by decluttering, you “can reset your life and embark on a new lifestyle.” 

Common negative traits that block our performance

Perhaps the most critical piece of advice is avoiding extremes. Even harmless or positive skills may block our performance when you rely on them too much Here are a couple of examples:

• Being reactive

“Successful people never wait for competitors to act, they act in advance,” says Chris Madden to Forbes. Although it’s a positive thing in general, by doing so, they spend days in stress and struggles, which sometimes fails to pay off.

• Relying on digital communication too much

Chris Harris from Bridge Tech says that social text writing style, like abbreviate messages, brings to insufficiency in delivering essential contents and meanings.

• Comparing yourself to others

Although competition drives change and is viewed as a positive thing overall, it exhausts. Thomas Griffin from Optin Monster indicates that such behavior lowers self-esteem, takes too much time on self-evaluation, and lures our attention to unproductive areas. 

Three tips for building new habits

When building positive habits or avoiding negative ones, we all fail in keeping on this path. Tara Parker-Pope from the New York Times says, “many of us try to create healthy habits the wrong way. We make bold resolutions to start exercising or lose weight, for example, without taking the initial steps to set ourselves up for success.”

Yet, there are some helpful, yet not popular tips, helping to evolve from the stage of bold resolutions into real habits:

1. Attach new habits to old ones. It is easy to develop a new habit when attaching it to the existing one, like adding a minute of physical exercise when making a bed. 
2. Start small. Significant changes require a big effort, yet tiny steps don’t. If you want to learn a new language, learn three new words a day. Hal Elrod, the author of “The Miracle Morning,” suggests beginning every day with six simple routines that will help out keep organized and focused through a day. He encrypts them under an acronym SAVERS, that stands for silence, affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing. Spending just a minute for each of them in the morning will help you shape the right frame of your mind for the whole day. 
3. Make it easy. Sometimes, the worst thing in a new habit is a change of routine. But it can be more comfortable with a bit of effort and creativity. Wendy Wood, a research psychologist, hated morning exercise. Therefore, she started sleeping in her running clothes to make the routine easier. This approach has helped to change her attitude.

Our soft skills and habits shape our future; no wonder the topic of the best or worst habits will always be on the surface. Sometimes, forcing yourself to something you never did before can lead to an ongoing habit that makes you happy. One thing, still, is not likely to change: every new action requires balance and consideration. Try to focus on one new soft skill at a time until you have them all mastered.

Hopefully, this article helps on your journey toward a successful career and in everyday life. If you’re an IT professional, I’d love to know your thoughts. Please feel free to drop a comment below. 

The post Top 10 Soft Skills You Need as an IT Professional appeared first on Cloud Academy.

It’s no secret that the tech sector suffers from a notable bias in gender representation, but new research suggests having access to desired employment benefits, and changing attitudes towards them, could be huge factors in attracting and retaining female staff.

I’ve spent almost my entire career in recruitment, and a lot of that has been in niche technology markets — the type of industry-leading tech that businesses crave so badly but can’t find the staff to operate. I’ve prided myself on being able to connect organizations with these coveted tech professionals, but that has put me in prime position to see just how few women are working in tech.

Looking at some of the leading tech providers, only 21% of the tech jobs at Twitter are held by women, while Google is only slightly greater at 23%. And while businesses have set targets to promote more women to board level, to eliminate the gender bias from the top down, this likely won’t be enough to attract a new generation of female talent. 

Though having a role model in your business can inspire staff, it won’t make their day-to-day lives any easier, which is ultimately what’s holding women back. After all, women don’t just need equal pay for equal work, they should also be supported in areas of their lives that are made challenging by working a full-time job, even if men may not necessarily need the same kind of support.

Explore Cloud Academy’s Woman in Tech series to read real stories from women in the technology industry. Or if you’re ready to dive right into Cloud Academy’s training library, you can start a complete certification learning path that includes courses, hands-on labs, lab challenges, and practice exams to build hands-on skills in no time.

The challenges for women in tech

It may be an age-old stereotype that women are housekeepers and caregivers, but this is still true for the majority of working women; around 75% of mothers with dependent children are in work. 

The reason this can introduce challenges to a woman’s career is that additional daily tasks such as cooking, cleaning, caring for children and elderly family members, and everything that comes with those can add up to around 22 hours; this equates to 60% more unpaid work every week. 

What’s more, women face additional discomfort throughout their careers when dealing with periods and menopause, and while it’s something they’re expected to live with, it shouldn’t be underestimated how much additional strain this can add to a workday. 

While women are contracted and expected to work the same number of hours as a man, their work-life balance is so completely different. 

A difference in benefit entitlement for women in tech

We recently conducted a survey of over 2,500 tech professionals and found differences in attitudes towards desired employment benefits, as well as a difference in entitlement to these benefits between the sexes.

When asked which benefits they desire most, 22% of female respondents indicated home and flexible working was important to them, compared to only 19% of men. These benefits would also influence women accepting a job offer, with 24% of females considering flexible working hours important to them, and 39% looking for home working to support their lifestyle.

Despite women wanting these benefits more than men, our research actually found women have lower entitlement to these benefits in the tech industry. Only 58% of women are offered home working, compared to 64% of men. This difference is even greater when looking at flexible working hours, where just 42% of women enjoy this benefit compared to 54% of men.

Women in tech have a comparatively lower entitlement to benefits that would introduce an element of flexibility to their working lives, improving work-life balance in the process, is hugely disappointing given the challenges they face. 

Given the prevalence of burnout in the tech industry overall, not offering this kind of support to women in your organization could be an additional contributing factor. Women are already more susceptible to burnout in tech careers, often because they tend to work jobs that are lower in pay and scope than their male peers—this additional finding may help explain why so many working women are going part-time or self-employed to support their lifestyle. 

A woman shouldn’t have to sacrifice her career and risk financial insecurity just so she can achieve a sustainable work-life balance; this is something her employer should be supporting her towards.

Flexibility stigma for women in tech

Having said that, a woman’s career problems aren’t automatically solved once she gets access to flexible and home working. Negative, damaging attitudes towards these benefits are discouraging professionals from leaning on them when they need to, and making them nervous about their career progression and job stability when they do.

A 2018 study by Heejung Chung, which measured sentiments towards flexible working by workers who had and hadn’t utilized the employment benefit, found perceptions that flexible working created more work for others, with 39% associating negative outcomes with a colleague working flexibly.

Those who had worked flexibly also admitted experiencing negative outcomes: 39% had faced damaging consequences as a result, and 18% believed it had harmed their career. Working mothers were the segment of people who had felt this ‘flexibility stigma’ the most. 

These attitudes are, of course, archaic, as recent research on home working has actually found increased levels of engagement for professionals who spend three to four days working remotely. There also isn’t a blanket flexible working model; it’s meant to be tailored around the needs of the individual, so it’s unfair to make generalizations around something that is so bespoke.

Educate the workplace on employment benefits

Some workplaces promote a culture of ‘presenteeism’, where it’s seen as a matter of pride that you’re at your desk inside and outside of core hours, but this is an unhealthy attitude towards work. For many workplaces, particularly in the tech sector, there’s no immediate need for staff to be in the office full time, as their jobs could be performed remotely to the same standard.

Employers must take steps to change the culture of benefits in their organization. This means producing a statement of benefits making it clear and obvious what employment support is available, and encouraging staff members to lean on appropriate benefits in circumstances where they need to. 

This isn’t just for working women, of course, it’s for everyone. Women should be entitled to the same benefits as the rest of the organization and that works both ways; just because an employee doesn’t have a family to take care of or other extracurricular obligations doesn’t make their work-life balance any less important. The message is that everybody has a job to do, and their workplace should support them in any way they can to help the employee get the job done on time and to a high standard. 

The best way to instill healthy attitudes towards these benefits is to champion those who’ve used them successfully, and measure this success against previous metrics. If you can demonstrate positive impacts on the workplace as a result of these benefits, you’ll have no issue getting skeptical staff on board.

There’s no quick fix to the gender bias in the tech sector—while diversity intakes and setting quotas will put more women on your payroll, we should be looking to prevent the issue rather than cure it. Making workplaces more attractive to women by offering flexible working benefits, and supporting their development by encouraging access to these benefits in a supportive environment could be an actionable and realistic way to increase both the attraction and retention of female tech talent in the long term.

The post Women in Tech: Are They Being Held Back in the Industry? appeared first on Cloud Academy.

Сloud-based platforms get more and more recognition. According to Statista, just in the third quarter of 2019, cloud market revenues reached $27.5 billion. By moving to the cloud, businesses can focus on their strategy and other processes instead of dealing with the tech stuff. And they don’t need to spend thousands to access the best cloud infrastructure. 

But as cloud services are in demand, there are countless solutions to fill it. Sometimes it gets too hard to pick the best-fitting one. In this article, we’re comparing two popular cloud services: Heroku vs. AWS. We’re going to check their pros and cons, use cases, and pick a solution that suits your project best. 

• Why cloud services?
• What’s AWS?
• AWS Services
• What’s Heroku?
• Heroku vs. AWS: What’s the difference?
• Why use AWS?
• Why use Heroku? 
• Heroku vs. AWS: Which is better for your business?

If you’re new to cloud computing, then check out Stuart Scott’s course, What is Cloud Computing. This course covers a wide range of cloud computing topics areas providing you with a solid foundation of understanding.

Why cloud services?

But first, let’s figure out why companies of all sizes choose cloud technologies in general. 

• Adaptability. Cloud technologies allow you to manage your data in multiple ways and make operations more flexible. 
• Accessibility. Cloud services ensure that the company’s staff has constant access to the data. They can edit or even change the files from anywhere. Quite convenient if the team members work from different parts of the world.
• Backup capabilities. If you’re using a cloud platform, you don’t need to worry about data safety. It’s stored on fully-secured servers, and even if something goes wrong, there’s always a restore point. 

What’s AWS?

We’ve figured out why more and more businesses turn to cloud solutions. Now, let’s check what services they prefer. Airbnb, Ubisoft, Spotify, and Foursquare – all these tech giants use Amazon Web Services. 

Here’s why. 

AWS is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform, so it comes with dozens of services that help users to deal with databases, management, analytics, deployment, and tons of other tasks. 

AWS platform is a combination of a few cloud computing infrastructure offering innovative products and services. 

AWS services

The most popular AWS tech services are:

• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3)
• Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
• AWS Lambda

Let’s take a more detailed look at them. 

AWS Elastic Compute Cloud

AWS EC2 is a flexible IaaS service. Still, before you can deploy your app on EC2, you need to create a server infrastructure that fits your project. Put simply, your team needs to manually set up and support virtual servers that launch the app. Plus, add database instances, choose and configure an OS. 

EC2 provides the building blocks, and your job is to configure them and choose the best ones for your app and manage them. In most companies, app deployment control and EC2 infrastructure organization is the job for DevOps engineers. Thus, one of the AWS benefits is its capability of creating infrastructure before the deployment process, which is vital for big-scale projects. Besides, by using AWS, you support the load balancing of the data. The system helps to bypass manual settings with the help of auto-scaling. Finally, you can work with templates and multiple configurations. 

AWS Elastic Beanstalk

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is the PaaS service and the most evident competitor of Heroku. It’s a service that allows deploying apps fast and simple in AWS Cloud using commands. All you need to do is to run commands using the management console or another interface by AWS. Once the deployment finished, the service manages infrastructure without your control. 

AWS Lambda

AWS Lambda is a serverless platform provided as a part of Amazon Web Services. It’s a compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. AWS Lambda is great for uploading code packages, but its architecture is closed for devs, and they cannot customize the scale. Instead, Lambda executes the code when needed and scales automatically, from a few requests per day to thousands per second.

What’s Heroku?

Heroku is a container-based cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution. Devs use Heroku to deploy, manage, and scale applications. The platform offers its customers the place where they can build, deploy, and scale their apps. 

What’s more, Heroku supports 175+ add-ons that cover various purposes – from notifications to security. In general, this cloud tech service is more user-friendly compared to EC2 I’ve mentioned. Heroku helps to increase the productivity of your team by creating an environment for rolling-out and development processes. 

Heroku vs. AWS: What’s the difference?

Now, let’s check what’s the main difference between AWS and Heroku solutions. Starting with the programming languages they support. But it doesn’t end up with the programming languages. There are three other things to take into account:

Type of business

If you’re choosing between AWS and Heroku, you’re choosing between IaaS or PaaS. IaaS involves manual configuration of the server and the app, while PaaS provides ready-made tools you can use but not manage. If you own a small business, the best option will be Platform as a Service solution. Just choose the settings, and don’t bother with things your project doesn’t require yet. 

Launching a large-scale app and have access to high-quality app development services? Stop on Infrastructure as a Service! Using it, the dev team manages building blocks of the project as your business grows. 

Budget

If you’re on a tight budget, AWS may be a better choice. The hourly prices start from $0.011/hour. As for Heroku, it offers six dyno types, with the most powerful one offering 14GB of memory ($500 per month). 

Here’s a price comparison of more or less similar instances and the cost per month:

• AWS: t3.micro (1GiB) – $0.0104 per hour ($7.48 per month)
• Heroku (Dyno): standard-2x (1024MB) ($50.00 per month)
• AWS: c5.2xlarge (16GiB) – $0.34 per hour ($244.8 per month)
• Dyno: performance-l (14GB) ($500.00 per month)

Deployment speed

Both AWS and Heroku make the deployment process lightspeed fast. And they both provide a monitoring option to keep track of your apps workability. Still, Heroku provides a ready-to-use environment where you only need to enter the code, make a few changes, and that’s it – you start running the app. Plus, you can migrate and run apps much faster compared to AWS. So if you need to make changes and fixes based on customers’ reviews – and do it fast – Heroku will be your perfect choice.  

Time to sum everything up. 

Why use AWS?

Advantages of AWS: 

• Scalability
• Lots of features
• Easy to create a new server

Cons of AWS:  

• You need to know the basics of Unix administration, or
• You will need to hire a developer experienced with Amazon AWS

Ease of usage: from medium to advanced

Why use Heroku?

Advantages of Heroku:  

• Create a new server in 10 seconds using Heroku Command Line
• Deployment is done with Git Push
• Lots of add-ons

Cons of Heroku:

• Requires deployment with Git
• No automated scalability

Ease of usage: for beginners

Heroku vs. AWS: Which is better for your business?

We’ve reviewed both cloud solutions and defined their main differences. Finally, let’s try to pick the one that’ll work for your project. 

Use AWS if: 

• You need a flexible infrastructure
• You haven’t deployed the app yet
• You have DevOps engineers at your service
• You have time to spend on deploying the new version of your app
• The project requires vast computing power 

Consider Heroku if: 

• You want to build an MVP app, deploy, and test it
• You will continuously improve your app based on customers’ reviews
• You don’t have DevOps engineers in the team
• The project doesn’t require huge computing power

That’s it!

As you see, both AWS and Heroku are great cloud-based solutions but different in certain key areas. That’s why it’s essential to understand that each feature matters when it comes to choosing the best cloud platform for your app. 

No worries: you can always switch between AWS or Heroku in case you want to change a hosting plan, or your app demands a custom infrastructure. Still, between Heroku vs. AWS, it’s always best to start with the best-fitting solution right away. 

The post Heroku vs. AWS: Which Cloud Solution Works Best in 2020 appeared first on Cloud Academy.

Whichever side of the job market you’re on, staying in the loop with trends in the cloud space is vital to staying competitive, hiring the best talent, or making sure your skills align with those in demand from today’s businesses. 

That’s why we [at Jefferson Frank] conduct in-depth research every year to help customers and professionals alike keep pace with changes in the AWS ecosystem. Jefferson Frank recently released the latest AWS Salary Survey Report at re:Invent, collated from months of extensive research into the AWS marketplace, and self-reported insight from thousands of AWS professionals. 

This investigation uncovered a wealth of fascinating results, from employee sentiments and diversity issues, to average salaries and certification levels. 

In this article, we’ll take a look at the top 5 key findings from the Jefferson Frank Salary Report. When you’re ready to begin — or advance — your AWS skills, you’ll want to check out Cloud Academy. It offers AWS training on the new generation of cloud training, for both professionals and enterprises. Cloud Academy’s AWS Training Library is a hub of highly-rated resources including learning paths, courses, labs, quizzes, and exams to enable you to get the right training to put you on the right track for AWS success.

#1 AWS Salary Finding: 83% of AWS partner employees expect to see an increase in their workload in the coming year

The global public cloud industry is expected to reach a value of around $1,132 billion by 2023, giving the market a compound annual growth rate of 23% between 2017 and 2023. As the leader in the sector, AWS will inevitably be facilitating a good portion of that growth, as more and more businesses move workloads and processes to the cloud. 

Unsurprisingly, given this mammoth rate of uptake, 81% of the AWS partners who took part in our survey said that they’d experienced an uptick in the number of projects they’d undertaken in the past 12 months. And they don’t expect that increased demand for their services to slow down anytime soon—83% anticipate that their workloads will increase in the coming year. 

Partners highlighted three primary reasons behind the upsurge: firstly, and most obviously, there are more businesses migrating workloads to the cloud or adopting cloud services for the first time. Bolstered public trust, the need to remain competitive, and the increasingly accessible nature of cloud services are opening the door to increased adoption for businesses of all sizes. 

Secondly, their clients who’re already using AWS are moving additional services to the cloud, taking a slow-and-steady approach to migration. 

Thirdly, thanks to the rapid pace at which AWS products and services are evolving, customers are engaging with partners to implement and develop their cloud platforms to ensure they’re making the most of cutting-edge developments in AWS tech. 

#2 AWS Salary Finding: 47% of those certified experienced a salary increase after earning a certification

Certifications are a big deal in tech circles. They can validate skills, open doors for holders, and, as our survey found, often help pull in a bigger check. Just over half of our survey respondents held at least one official AWS-issued certification, with a further 26% currently working toward earning one.

Nearly half (47%) stated that they’d received a salary increase after becoming certified, with the average post-certification pay rise sitting around 28%.

With skills gaps on the rise across many areas of the tech industry, demand for professionals with a particular set of aptitudes and expertise is on the up, with competition for hard-to-find talent driving up salaries in the process. We asked our survey respondents—who run the gamut from IT leaders and hiring managers to AWS professionals of all experience levels—to highlight the certifications they believed were the most likely to increase an AWS professional’s market value. 

Topping the list was the AWS Solutions Architect (Professional) certification, followed by the AWS DevOps Engineer Operations (Professional) certification, and in third place, the AWS DevOps Engineer —Developer (Professional) certification. 

#3 AWS Salary Finding: 63% of respondents don’t think a degree is essential to a career in AWS

Despite their ability to boost your salary, according to our respondents, certifications aren’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to laying the foundation for a rewarding career in AWS. 

When it comes to boosting your earning potential as an AWS professional, 54% of survey participants rated certifications as more important than a university degree, with just 42% of respondents believing that a degree is a significant factor in building a lucrative cloud career.

This is perhaps surprising given that 88% of these respondents themselves held a university qualification, indicating that throughout their career path, they’ve experienced more benefit from other factors. 

Our survey found that the factor most likely to have a positive impact on your market value as an AWS profession is experience in the IT industry, with a massive 85% of participants ranking it as the most significant influence on earning potential. This was closely followed by years of experience working with AWS specifically at 84%.  

Though education and certifications are great ways to validate skills and create a foundation of knowledge, nothing beats experience in the jobs market, particularly in a skills-short sector like cloud. 

If you’re looking to get AWS certified, you’ll want to find a program that provides the theory and hands-on experience. Cloud Academy Certification Prep Learning Paths include courses, practice exams, hands-on labs (to develop experience), and lab challenges (to validate experience).

#4 AWS Salary Finding: 54% had only been with their employer between 1-2 years

Just over half of AWS professionals who participated in our research had been with their current employer between 12 and 24 months. This relatively low average tenure is reflective of the high rates of turnover in tech today, with churn rates sitting at around 13%. 

Just 46% of our respondents expected to be with their current employer in a year. Though the top reason cited by participants for wanting to leave their employers was a lack of salary increase (38%), lack of career and promotional prospects (37%), and the desire to take on new challenges (32%) followed close behind. This indicates that for many cloud pros, professional development and personal growth are just as crucial to job satisfaction as a good salary.

Employers should take heed, then, that throwing money at their employers might not be the best way to keep hold of the best talent.

#5 AWS Salary Finding: 74% of AWS professionals work from home at least one day a week

Almost three-quarters of survey respondents regularly work from home, with 35% spending at least one day a week working remotely, and 16% working away from the office full time. 

These figures illustrate the rising trend for offering non-traditional working options, as both developments in technology and shifts in attitudes to work-life balance facilitate greater flexibility.

Taking a progressive approach to offering perks like flexible hours or home working can not only help businesses improve employee satisfaction; it can also put them ahead of their competition when it comes to attracting new talent. 

Asked to rank which benefits would influence their acceptance of a job offer, survey respondents cited home working as the most persuasive perk. The option to work remotely was the top choice for both male and female professionals in the AWS channel, though interestingly, 40% of women earmarked it as the most desirable, compared to 30% of men. 

The appeal of flexible working among female professionals, in particular, could point businesses in the right direction when it comes to developing diversity and inclusion-focused hiring initiatives. 

With the widespread cloud skills shortage threatening to leave businesses without the talent they need to implement and fully apply cloud technology, practical steps must be taken to attract and retain professionals from under-utilized pools of talent. Given that just 6% of our survey respondents identified as female, it’s clear that there is enormous potential to be harnessed by working to bring more women into the tech space. 

Offering less rigid working options, fostering transparency regarding salary, and eliminating barriers that prevent talented female tech professionals from taking part in the workforce are all vital actions that businesses must take if they want to be able to reap the benefits of cloud tech for years to come. 

Want the full AWS salary report?

The Jefferson Frank Salary Survey — packed with over 60 pages of insights, stats, and commentary — is the ultimate guide for anyone working with Amazon Web Services products. If you’re an employer or hiring manager, use the report to benchmark your team’s salaries and set budgets for the next financial year. If you’re a professional working in the AWS environment, we’ll tell you how much you should be earning, what certifications and technical skills you need to succeed, and much more.

The post Top 5 AWS Salary Report Findings appeared first on Cloud Academy.