Cloud journeys: Cloud career guides for newcomers

Pluralsight is proud to support the growing community of cloud gurus by sponsoring the Cloud Career Journeys book by Prasad Rao and Ashish Prajapati.

If there’s one constant in cloud, it’s the importance of the cloud community. As part of our Cloud Career Journeys blog series, we now turn to the Liberators—cloud professionals who use their expertise to teach others and grow the cloud community.

Keep reading for tips for a successful cloud career, regardless of whether you consider yourself a Liberator. You’ll also get insights from real-life Liberator Neal Davis, founder of Digital Cloud Training.

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Liberators use their cloud experience and technical expertise to teach, encourage, and inspire newcomers to enter the cloud community space. By combining education, mentorship, and community, they act as career guides and mentors for aspiring cloud technology professionals. 

You might think of Liberators as cloud leaders and influencers. And while that’s often true, you can be a cloud Liberator even without years of experience in the field. As long as you’re sharing your journey and knowledge with others, you’re helping others succeed, even if you don’t always know it.

Research the job market to uncover the cloud services, tools, and skills organizations are looking for. Use this knowledge to guide your learning journey, select cloud computing courses, and ensure you build relevant skills for in-demand cloud jobs. 

“I’ve been in the industry as the technology has been progressing and the business practices have been progressing,” says Neal. “And then when I see it evolving, I just go straight in and start learning the technology that I’m seeing on the horizon, the stuff that’s becoming popular, and earn some certifications. And then that puts me in the position to get into the right jobs.”

Get all of Neal’s insights.

Learn one cloud in depth and then broaden your skill set. “In terms of the clouds themselves, focus yourself,” advises Neal. “Whether you choose Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, or AWS, it doesn’t really matter. Choose the one where you see the opportunities in and that interests you the most. Sometimes it depends on your background as well.”

It’s also important to build cloud-adjacent IT skills. “Make sure that you learn some other skills as well, because when you go out into the job market in the cloud, you’re going to need some programming skills,” says Neal. “You’re going to need to understand Linux. You’ll probably need to know Terraform. You might need to know Kuberneters and other similar technologies.”

Not sure where to start? Look at job descriptions for cloud roles and the skills they require. You can also check out lists of essential tech skills to learn.

You need soft skills like communication and problem solving to translate your technical expertise into business value. If you’re talking with a business leader or non-technical person, you need to explain what you’re working on and how it impacts the business in a way they can understand.

“We can all build great technical skills by just learning, learning, learning,” says Neal. “But we need to be able to communicate.”

Problem solving is also a crucial soft skill for cloud professionals. If something isn’t working, get hands-on to find out why. What can you do, with the limited resources you have, to find a solution as a cloud technician? 

“You need to be able to solve problems for companies,” says Neal. “That’s what they’re hiring you for, and the only way you really learn how to do that is to actually get your hands dirty.”

You don’t have to learn alone. Go to forums and online groups to look for a study buddy or career mentor who can share advice and hold you accountable. Seeing how others approach or solve problems can also augment your learning. 

“Get some assistance from someone who’s been there and done it,” says Neal. “And you can start modeling them a little bit. Start looking at, you know, how do they think what they do? What are the actions that they take? Because if you model what other people do who’ve been successful, you’re probably going to be successful yourself if you stick with it long enough.”

Networking will help you get recommendations, references, and even cloud computing job opportunities.

“[There are people] out there just saying look, ‘I just learned this’ or ‘I just earned this certification’ or ‘I just tried to learn these subjects and I had some challenges,’ and they get flooded with responses because people want to be involved in that. They want to help you. They want to listen to you. Maybe they’re inspired by you. And so that helps you to build up that network,” says Neal.