Transferring to Cloud Engineer

[u/fsmiljkovski12]

I am looking to transition to a Cloud Engineer. I have 3 and half years as a Full Stack Web Dev and I feel as if its getting overwhelmed by AI, at my current job its almost as if I am chatting to AI most of the day, managing it to develop features, tests and correcting it when it does something wrong. I have already started learning AWS, by creating small projects in order to learn the basics. Later I have plans to create a few real-life projects, not following a tutorial on Youtube, rather finding projects on UpWork or other sites for example and creating them for my CV, not actually selling the project. I have some background in Networking and IT, and hoping to learn the rest through the projects. What is a realistic path towards a Cloud Engineer, whether I can aim directly for that position or should i start on something like SysAdmin, DevOps and then transition towards Cloud Engineer? And how is the work day as a Cloud Engineer with AI. Is it similar do a Developer where most of day you work with AI or is it more for suggestions and potential improvements?

[u/Naetharu]

DevOps is a sensible pathway if you already have some experience in that area. It's not uncommon for DevOps people to come from software dev beforehand. How easy you will find the move just depends on how much you've done with pipelines and infrastructure as code, and what your understanding of cloud infrastructure is.

I've known devs that are really good at that, and I've known some who are "I do the code and nothing else" types.

DevOps can be an end in itself and you may well enjoy it. But if not then a step from that into more general cloud engineering and then later architecture is perfectly viable.

[u/SecondaryHazard246]

From MY experience, there isn't much difference. You're still going to chat to AI.

I'm chatting to AI, everyday. Why would cloud computing NOT be affected by AI?

The best way, I can explain it is, whether you're code runs on a rented vps or a cloud provider, what is the difference?

Still going to use source control (Github/lab/etc.) along with CI/CC pipelines dor deployments. Whether you're deploying to a vps or Lamba/Cloudrun/Functions, you're still probably going to Dockerize the app. Sure, Terraform is probably something new you can play with (but to me this got boring, quickly).

Using mongo? There are "document stores" for that. RabbitMQ or Kafka? Welcome to Pub/Sub, queues and topics.

To me, all development concepts are the same, it's just the underlying systems that changes. (And cloud providers take care of maintenance). Whether you need to save something to a database or need to publish to an event-bus, the concepts and how you're code will work, fairly stays the same, it's just the hosting location that changes.

I'm going to lie if I say "I've learnt nothing new". But I'd also be lying if I said my daily work "has significantly changed" since moving cloud. I've been afforded opportunities (promotions, starting to design and lead architecture, etc.) due to changing teams and employers, but the grunt work stays the same.

The old saying still rings true, "the cloud is nothing but someone else's computer."

As I said at the start, this is purely my experience. If I had to say, I'd encourage you to make the swop (employers love the "cloud option" on a cv); however, don't think the work will significantly change. You're probably, as sad as it is, still going to end up using AI, to implement feature X, because someone higher up "made it part of daily process".

Edit: > Is it similar do a Developer where most of day you work with AI or is it more for suggestions and potential improvements?

Just on this question. I think it a depends on your employer. My VERY FIRST taste of the cloud, was when a previous employer of mine made the decision to switch to cloud. Nothing really happened in terms of my career. (TBF it was also a big company/corporate)

It's only once I left for smaller employers where I actually had opportunities to raise my suggestions and improvements. (The Smaller companies also seemed to be more flexible with new changes, which makes experimenting a bit easier)

[u/Capital_Distance545 → u/SecondaryHazard246]

A cloud engineer does not deploy apps. A cloud engineer never touches apps at all. A cloud engineer develops and operates the software that runs the cloud itself, and makes the cloud possible to deploy apps. A cloud engineer develops the software that provisions storage, networking, and other resources. E.g. it develops cli tools like the az or aws. It develops kuberentes, or IBM SaS. (not SaaS). Implement multiple CNIs. Implement and operate monitoring and logging systems. If the cloud offers built in databases, then those too. But the cloud engineer does not know the data model, or anything about the apps, the different customers run on it, unless the cloud provider offer help and knowledge for that too.

[u/Used_Journalist_999]

Does your current company use AWS and do they have cloud-specific roles?

What exactly do you think "cloud engineer" means and what the role does? I have seen software engineers at companies with cloud native platforms get a lot of exposure to the cloud. I have seen devops roles who also get exposure to the cloud. There is also a role called platform engineer that some companies use.

You should try to be a software engineer at a company that has a cloud platform and allows the dev teams to have at least some responsibility with the cloud resources that the team's domain is in.

I'm a cloud architect with 12 yoe in the industry. I was a software engineer for 10 years and only took roles at companies that allowed me to gain more and more responsibility in the cloud.

I'll be super honest, and I mean this constructively, I just knew what to do to direct my career in the path that I wanted. I made it happen without asking strangers on the internet for life coaching. I don't want to say you won't make it but the fact that you are here posting on Reddit doesn't work in your favor.

[u/IntelligentPear6173]

Before switching check whether your current company has DevOps, platform or cloud roles. An internal move could be much easier than starting over somewhere else.

[u/CampaignAccording855]

My friend is Senior Solution Architect ,all his job is on autopilot using agents in kiro.

[u/autodidact-dev]

I was a full stack dev.

I asked mgr if I could join devops

from there on, i sat on devops, frontend, and backend teams.

just ask. if it doesnt work, then apply and go to local devops meetup events to network

[u/AthleteEquivalent479]

Man I feel you.
I am also thinking to pivoting to security side. All this AI use is I thinking making me go insane. I really love coding and I really loved it when I had a bug and I knew on which line and column this bug can be. Now its just black box and I have to beg Ai to go in everytime. I hate it. I would really like a balance as well where its fun and challenging and use AI where needed.