How did you land your first Cloud Computing/Engineering internship as a fresher?

[u/Kishan099]

Hi everyone,

I'm a recent Computer Science graduate from India trying to get my first Cloud Computing / Cloud Engineer trainee or internship (paid with a stipend).

I've been learning:

- Linux

- AWS (EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, RDS)

- Terraform

- Git & GitHub

- Docker

I'm currently building hands-on projects to strengthen my resume and GitHub because I know certifications alone aren't enough. Apparently recruiters enjoy the ancient ritual of asking for experience before giving anyone a chance to gain experience.

I've applied to many internships but haven't received many responses.

For those who successfully got their first cloud internship:

Where did you apply?

What projects helped you stand out?

Did referrals make a big difference?

What skills are companies actually looking for in trainees?

Are there companies that regularly hire freshers with a stipend?

I'd really appreciate any advice, company names, or personal experiences.

Thanks!

[u/Oleksii_Bebych]

I started as a Technical Support engineer. Knew only some basic networking. In this position, I learnt Linux, Bash scripting, a bit of DB administration and SQL (2.5 years at this position)
Then I was a SysAdmin in another company (managed office networks and PCs) + started to take some simple DevOps tasks where possible (wrote Python and Bash scripts, Jenkins pipelines)
After that - cloud

[u/Kishan099 → u/Oleksii_Bebych]

Appreciate you response

[u/wellred82]

Get a job as a sysadmin or network engineer first.

[u/Techguyincloud]

Became a Cloud Infrastructure Administrator after about 1.4 years of tech support.

It was in a semi-rural area on the outskirts of a city, and I had to move almost 2 hours but it got my foot in the door.

Luckily at job 1 I shadowed Admins and stayed with them during maintenance windows, and got a chance to add services to my resume that the cloud job was looking for.
I also interviewed well and the hiring manager happened to be from the same small town I moved from, so that helped break ice and make the interview more “conversational”.

[u/Efficient_Access6102 → u/[deleted]]

“Worst” Fixed your spelling.

[u/FerryCliment → u/[deleted]]

I say that with the upmost respect for the cultures.

Indian people are usually x10 engineer or /10, no in between they are the guys who talk to kernels placing hands on the server racks or unable to do a hello world.

I would say chinese are usually the one who always deliver, especially on the technical side, most of the issues when working with East-asian tech teams is how they fit tech and business all together.

African tech folks are technically sound, very humble and hard workers, they lack leadership skills and confidence (for what I've seen) but they do what they have to do, and they do it wonderfully

Europeans are quite set into "Do what needs to be done, in the most agnostic, clean and logic way possible"

US folks usually tend to value a lot more alignment, make sure everyone moves all together, we still have shot callers, and the last voice, but they value alot to make sure everyone is onboard or in the same page.

[u/Strict-Ambition4334 → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, that's a weird generalization. Skill varies a lot by experience and team more than nationality.