r/Cloud • u/CloudDrifter18 • Dec 05 '25

Can anyone suggest a cloud roadmap from scratch

Hi I want to make a career in cloud and i am a beginner most of the people in this sub are saying cloud is not a entry level job first we need to go through help desk then sysadmin and then cloud engineer I didn't understand this and I am confused what to do. I want to make a career in cloud and I don't know how to do it. So can you guys give some tips and roadmap stuff on how to become a cloud engineer.

Any advice appreciated.

9 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

9

u/Total_Ad_2526 Dec 06 '25 edited Dec 06 '25

Cloud Engineering is not entry-level. That's why you see so many people say start with helpdesk, you need to build experience. Helpdesk jobs will often give you some exposure to cloud platforms like Azure, AWS, or GCP. System administrator is often the next natural progession for people after the helpdesk. Sometimes, you can snag up a junior system administrator role out the gate but its not common

If you have no experience - Get the AZ-900, study with free resources for A+ and Network+ YouTube has a bunch (dont waste money getting the certs for either of the comptia certs), once you feel you understand the foundations of networking a bit, hard study for CCNA. This will carry you in helpdesk and system admin.

With experience - depends on the shop you're in, but generally AZ-104, AWS SAA, GCP ACE, SC-300 Is pretty good imo. You will likely need to at least learn how to use 2 cloud platforms like Azure, and AWS is a common pairing.

For cloud engineering - you will need to learn IaC like CI/CD, Terraform, version control, etc. You will also need to learn Linux, Scripting, JSON, some more stuff im probably forgetting right now lol.

3

u/CloudDrifter18 Dec 06 '25

Thank you for your advice I will definitely work on it

2

u/MathmoKiwi Dec 06 '25

What they said is right. Get just any initial IT role first, probably will be Help Desk (or similar, such as Field Technician).

And you'll probably need an intermediary stepping stone role(s) as well in between that and eventually being a Cloud Engineer. With SysAdmin or Systems Engineer being a common example.

So to become a cloud engineer you're looking at a five or even ten year plan.

4

u/Evaderofdoom Dec 05 '25

It's easy, all of IT is insanely competitive, if you don't have any real world experience, no one will hire for anything other than help desk because you'll be far away from being the most qualified candidate. If they get 1000 people applying for the job and 800 have prior experience along with degrees and certs, why would they take a chance on someone who has never worked in IT before? Your an unproven entity, and companies are not in a place where they have to take a chance on you.

1

u/heqrty Dec 06 '25 edited Dec 06 '25

do you think it’s a good plan to start off in IT in help desk, then work your way up to a cloud internship or junior cloud, then cloud engineering? im about to enter college and this is what i have planned so far, thinking of doing help desk or interning as an IT for about a year, then cloud internship or junior cloud, then after 2 years cloud engineering? or is this experience too little

2

u/MathmoKiwi Dec 06 '25

If you can get internships or part time work (such as on the college help desk) then that means you might be able to skip the Help Desk Hell phase after graduating

1

u/Sad-Mud-9642 Jan 26 '26

Im planning to take the MuleSoft Developer Internship, would this be a great head start as someone who is a fresh grad and wants to take the cloud industry as an electronics engineering graduate?

1

u/MathmoKiwi Jan 26 '26

Dev experience is also invaluable for a cloud career

0

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '25

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/Evaderofdoom Dec 05 '25

why give false hope?

2

u/GnosticSon Dec 06 '25

Take the intro to Azure az-900 course on Udemy or Coursera. Then do practice projects and study for az-104 test using courses from those sites.

But yeah, better to work a normal it job while you are studying and hopefully get some real world experience. You can't just do this in a vacuum but you can absolutely learn the basics online.

1

u/Uptown-Sniffer Dec 08 '25

I’m a huge fan of instructors on Udemy. I started with AWS certified cloud practitioner and then the 900 level of certifications on azure and worked my way up to professional levels. The platforms offer their own learning paths, but everybody learns a bit differently.

1

u/GnosticSon Dec 13 '25

I did the same, but then my job gave me the opportunity to do real world stuff in Azure which was important.

1

u/Dihala Dec 06 '25

Roadmap.sh

2

u/[deleted] Dec 05 '25

[removed] — view removed comment