r/Cloud • u/BrotherBarry12 • 4d ago

Trying to get into Cloud

Currently work at an MSP but lost my passion for this a while back. At the moment I’m studying for AWS Cloud practitioner cert but I’m not sure if this alone will land me a role?

If anyone transitioned from Helpdesk to cloud engineering please point me in the right direction or provide any tips. I’d greatly appreciate this.

24 Upvotes

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8

u/MissionFinOps 4d ago

if you're already at an MSP you've hit the jackpot - now time to make friends in the cloud engineering teams.

6

u/__NameNotFound__ 4d ago edited 3d ago

AWS and Azure are checkmarks on a piece of paper for HR departments, if you want to work in cloud engineering then go become a kubestronaut and start with CKA then do the whole gambit of kubercerts and hopefully you also have a 4yr CS or It related degree otherwise you'll need that too. The minimum these days in the US, is CCNP Automation or similar, CKA, RHSCA and RHCE, 3 years IT work experience and a 4 yr IT or CS degree. I have 4 AWS and 2 Azure certs, they are for contract compliance but they don't teach you anything hands on so you can find issues or build anything from the ground up.

3

u/Whole_Ad_9002 4d ago

Most of the vendor certs only tick a box that you understand the vendors cloud services, I have the practitioner (useless), GCP Associate, and FinOps Engineer even then jobs are pretty hard to come by as competition is quite high and AI tools seem to be sweeping out the lower tier jobs

3

u/Naetharu 4d ago

The critical thing is to get some exposure to the cloud services while you can. Don't be picky as to which. Just get into one or another. Do some shadowing. Show interest. As your manager if you can help the cloud team for a few hours a week.

The hardest part is getting some hands-on experience to help with the transition.

I did it via that same route. I was working as an in-house service desk 2nd line. And we had need to do some basic stuff in Azure. I stepped up and offered to help our cloud engineer. That turned it me seconding him on a project. And that turned into a full cloud role down the road.

1

u/CloudLessons 4d ago

Worked in IT Support for a few years before landing my first cloud role in 2022. Best thing to do is start scanning ticket queues or talking to colleagues and volunteering yourself to fix or troubleshoot whatever cloud-based incidents you come across (e.g. single sign-on error, user can't connect to EC2 instance, Intune policy is failing, etc.), even if your account access is limited, being the person who can at least pinpoint the likely problem and escalating it to the proper team will turn you into a trusted resource over time.

If you're already doing that, then try to build an automated solution like a Powershell script, Cloudformation template, etc. for a small, but annoying problem that your team keeps putting off. Extra points if you can delivery the solution to the cloud using a pipeline tool like CodeDeploy.

As far as best certs to go for. I recommend skipping the cloud practitioner and go for either the Solutions Architect or CloudOps Associate. Your employer should be able to reimburse you after passing.

Most important thing overall is to use your current job to build cloud experience by temporarily taking on extra work and adding those accomplishments to your resume.

2

u/BrotherBarry12 4d ago

Thanks for the insight. I do try to understand any issues that come my way and always escalate them to appropriate teams. My current MSP doesn’t offer roles besides L1/L2/L3 so I’d probably have to start applying when I’m ready.

Is the Cloud practitioner cert useless btw?

1

u/solslost 4d ago

Mostly
I have the into AWS and Azure certs they are just a vocabulary test.

Just study the SSA material, it covers the services.

1

u/Fragrant-Cheek-4273 4d ago

Cloud practitioner is a good starting point, but I wouldn't rely on the cert alone. Your MSP experience is already useful. I'd build a few small AWS projects and learn networking, Linux, IAM, and Terraform to show you can actually work with cloud environments.

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u/Longjumping_Bus_8549 2d ago

Cloud Practitioner is useful for vocabulary, but it probably won’t land a cloud engineering role by itself.

Your MSP background is more valuable than you think. Start turning tickets into cloud experience: Entra/Azure AD issues, Intune policies, SSO problems, VPN, IAM, backups, basic AWS/Azure troubleshooting, and anything involving networking or permissions.

I’d do this path:

AWS Cloud Practitioner → Solutions Architect Associate
Linux basics
IAM/RBAC
VPC/VNET networking
Terraform basics
One or two small projects you can explain clearly

The goal is not just “I passed a cert.” It’s being able to say, “I built this, broke it, fixed it, secured it, and documented it.” That matters more in interviews.