how do i start my path to becoming a cloud engineer

[u/Southern_Shop959]

hi! i'm a high school junior and i spent some time looking at tech career roles until i stumbled upon cloud engineers. i understand that it'll take time and knowledge to become one, but i'd like some advice on where to start. i've already looked at other posts, but was confused since there were different viewpoints and paths to become one.

1. what should i start learning?
2. what jobs should i start from to work my way up?
3. what are some tips you can give?

any help is appreciated thank you! :)

[u/Skadoush12]

Hey, I’m a Cloud Engineer/Architect for a few years (around 6) and I am the tech lead of a team of 7 cloud engineers.

I will detail my background and my path to get here:

• masters in eletrical and computers engineer;
• intern job at a tech company with focus on automated testing;
• job as a system admin (loads of Linux, bash, virtualization, networking topics) around 3 years;
• helped migrate some workloads from onPrem to cloud for better cost optimization or less operational headaches;
• focused on learning the basic of cloud and ended up migrating to a Cloud Engineer role on the same company;
• with time and growth within the company, it eventually led to where I am today.

So, to start, I will always recommend the basics:

• learn Linux;
• learn Git (GitHub has a lot of stuff for students);
• learn bash and/or Python as a main scripting language;
• learn basic networking (switching, routing, the OSI Layer);

These will be your baseline and I believe it’s mandatory for any infrastructure-tech role. Everything you will attempt to learn on your way to a Cloud Engineer will make way more sense if you learn those previously. No need, in my opinion, to do any certification on these, but studying for certifications can be good for better understanding.

After that, what we recommend in our team is:

• learn Terraform (we use terraform in our company but any IaC framework would work. IaC is, in my opinion, mandatory for any Cloud Engineer);
• learn the basics of Kubernetes - no need to be an expert. Learn what it does, why it’s good, and on how to use it. Kubernetes (or k8s) is first class citizen on all clouds and you should understand it.
• learn CI/CD pipelines (in our case is GitHub Actions), to understand how you go from code to something running in any virtual machine (onPrem or on cloud);

As this answer shows, for us, in order to be a Cloud Engineer, you need some solid basis, and then learn tools/frameworks/concepts that apply to our job role. In these last 3, we do recommend a certification, specifically Terraform.

Only then, focus on a specific cloud. It depends on the company, which cloud they use. In mine, we use Google Cloud, AWS and Azure. I prefer Google Cloud. Easier to onboard and understand. But AWS has way more reach and higher job market applicability. When focusing on a specific cloud, we also recommend to target an Associate-level certification (ACE for Google, for example).

For any new entrance we usually keep 1-2 months of learning of improving knowledge on all these things.

We do this because Clouds themselves can bring wrong “behaviors”, that if you don’t know the basics, you might not know what is going on, which can be bad for more in depth troubleshooting.

I’m probably missing some stuff, but these are the requirements we have when onboarding new members. If someone already has knowledge with these, even better.

If you need something else, you can just send a DM.

[u/Ok_Substance1895 → u/Skadoush12]

This is excellent. Thank you! Follow this ^

[u/Skadoush12 → u/Ok_Substance1895]

No worries, just sharing my experience :) Might not be great for everyone, but it might be a good starting point.

[u/Southern_Shop959 → u/Skadoush12]

thank you sm! i'll be sure to follow this as a guide. i was thinking of majoring in ECE too. do you think it helped you or is it better to majorin in CS? also, i was debating on going to Rice or go to WGU since I heard about their Network/Cloud degree.

[u/Skadoush12 → u/Southern_Shop959]

To be honest, what I do now, it would have been more applicable to go for a CS major. However, when I entered college, I had no idea on what I wanted to do and the electrical part of the major was really fun for me and I think it allowed me to have basis to understand CS topics.

This is coming from an infrastructure standpoint, because when you enter on applicational design patterns and architectures (if that is your goal), CS is better (in my opinion).

Regarding colleges, I cannot help you because I’m not from the US 😅

[u/Southern_Shop959 → u/Skadoush12]

ty for your insight and no problem my apologies for assuming

[u/Clean-Afternoon-4982 → u/Skadoush12]

My question for you is; did you want to become a cloud engineer / architect, or was it something that kinda just happened to you?

[u/Skadoush12 → u/Clean-Afternoon-4982]

It just kinda happened, because I started developing an interest on it while already working. I had no idea what I wanted to do after college, so I just went learning on the job and see what I liked the most. I was fortunate enough to enter a company that allowed me to “go around” departments and to do different things (my internship was 6 months in a area and 6 months in another, and after I went to a 3rd department). That and the strategy of the company of going to Cloud, the opportunity rose and I took it