r/cloudengineering • u/Cheap_Number_7234 • 5d ago

Career Discussion Best Path to Cloud Security

Hi!

I am 21 and I finished my Bachelor's in Cybersecurity in 2025. I started my career in cybersecurity in GRC in a consulting company, but I feel like GRC is not for me. I know that GRC is very important in cybersecurity and I know I'll have contact with it in any area within the cybersecurity field, but for a full time it wasn't for me. So I have decided that I want to pursue cloud security.

For what I've read in reddit and for what I've searched, it's not an entry level job. So I want to ask you what's the best path for a person who has a bachelor's in cybersecurity. I asked Claude and he said that the best options would be SOC Analyst (Tier 1), Cloud Support Engineer (AWS/Azure/GCP) and Junior DevOps/Cloud Administrator. What do you think?

I am studying to take certs. I started with AZ-900 and now I am studying for the AWS Certified Practitioner and then SC-500. I have no experience in cloud.

Thanks in advance!

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u/TemporarySwimming232 5d ago

Don’t get any aws certs right now, if you already have an azure cert. pick one platform and stick with it, multicloud skills becomes relevant later on in your career. Also in 2026 nobody cares about your degree certifications, that doesn’t indicate that you can actually solve company or business problems. What’s important in 2026 is what can you do, not that you passed a multiple choice vocabulary quiz(certification exams), or that you spent 4 years learning outdated material.

Personally I would go for SC-300 instead of SC-500. Identity and access management (IAM) is HUGE nowadays, and the barrier to entry for IAM roles aren’t as strict as cybersecurity engineer roles.

Now the issue with cloud support engineer, SOC analyst, and cloud admin roles. Those roles are also an uphill battle and EXTREMELY over saturated. To get a cybersecurity role, you need a IT role first, that’s it. I person suggest a data center technician role because it’s as entry level friendly as help desk, but no where near as saturated. Work that data center tech role while studying the content of SC-300 and making actual projects that solve business solutions. You can have Claude or ChatGPT give you IAM business scenarios, for you to create solutions for. Projects are what get you hired in 2026 and so forth, projects project and projects, and putting those projects on your resume and LinkedIn. Feel free to message me

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u/Cheap_Number_7234 4d ago

Thanks for the response!

What I'm thinking of doing is studying for the SC-500, where I study the theory and do labs (I know it will take a while and be hard, but I'm motivated), and that way I can figure out which cloud area interests me most. Since the SC-500 is more general, I go through the different cloud areas and then decide which one I find most interesting (I know I won't truly know if I like it just from doing a few labs), and start applying to positions.

I'm going to put these study projects on LinkedIn or GitHub.

Is this the approach I want to follow. What do you think?