AWS Career Path: Key Skills, Jobs, Training, and Salaries in 2022

Several companies have migrated to the cloud in response to the pandemic in the last two years, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is among the most popular cloud solutions. This has given rise to a much greater demand for AWS professionals. Let’s understand what a career in AWS looks like, the skills an aspirant needs to develop, and the salary one can expect in 2022. 

AWS Career: Key Skills to Develop

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon, is a secure cloud computing platform. It offers over 200 fully-featured services from data centers across the globe and has millions of customers, including startups, large enterprises, and leading government agencies. AWS enables users to do several tasks like securely storing all files on the cloud for easy access, using managed databases like MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, or SQL Server to store information, and sending bulk communication and content to customers. 

AWS Career: Key Skills to Develop

Technical professionals with AWS skills can look forward to several career paths based on AWS roles or specific cloud services. For example, one could become an AWS cloud practitioner or solutions architect or develop specializations such as machine learning and storage management.

A career in AWS would mean pursuing unexpected paths and seeing things from different perspectives. One would be constantly challenged and required to think out of the box. This is because AWS works towards constant evolution and aims to change the face of technology. Some of the best-paying AWS jobs based on certification are AWS certified solutions architect, DevOps engineer, sysops administrator, and certified developer. 

An individual must develop a certain set of skills to prepare for an AWS career, which are:

1. Communication

Strong verbal and written communication skills are essential for working as an AWS professional. The roadmap to creating efficient systems is powered by collaboration. Experts in different departments need to work closely to achieve that, and communication plays a key role here. 

For example, suppose someone wishes to be an AWS cloud architect. In that case, being great at designing won’t amount to anything if they cannot explain their vision to software developers, managers, and fellow architects. They should be able to present their ideas via emails, documentation, and presentations in a way that sounds convincing. 

2. Programming languages

Python and Java are the most extensively used programming languages among AWS professionals. While coding is not necessarily a prerequisite for all career paths in AWS, it is, in general, important for an AWS professional to understand programming to create viable, logical solutions that would work as intended. 

Certain roles such as developer and DevOps engineer require in-depth knowledge of coding since these are development-related positions, whereas solutions architects or sysops administrators don’t need a background in programming. However, a basic understanding of programming languages is recommended for any AWS career pathway, as application development is an important use case for the company’s cloud infrastructure. 

3. Networks

Creating a secure cloud-based solution without understanding networks can be a challenge. This is why certain roles demand a familiarity with a few networking concepts – like domain name system (DNS), transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), content delivery network (CDN), and, virtual private network (VPN). 

One should also be able to construct cloud networking blueprints using public and private subnets, internet access, and VPC peering using AWS CloudFront, AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), and services like AWS Route 53.

4. Problem-solving 

Problem solving and analysis are crucial parts of working with AWS. This includes collecting information and identifying fundamental patterns and trends in simple to moderately complex data. 

For example, a major part of the job as a solutions architect comprises designing solutions to meet customer needs and business goals, developing technical solutions, and pre-sales deliverables in support of customer goals. The AWS platform is based on a principle of constant improvisation, which requires a solution-oriented mindset.

5. Observability 

Observability is one of the fundamental skills needed to work with AWS. Observability refers to the skills and techniques involved in measuring the state of IT infrastructure so that the organization can better optimize its systems. 

Through observability skills, you can transform AWS configurations to achieve the desired end state, which is necessary to support the organization’s business operations. It also allows technical professionals to track the impact of automation and optimize automation scripts. 

The following steps are involved in implementing observability:

• Data collection from infrastructure nodes
• Data analytics
• Decision-making and action points 

6. Cloud security

Traditionally, enterprises have been cautious when it comes to hosting their data in the cloud. However, cloud security has significantly evolved over the course of time, encouraging more confidence among the users. This responsibility lies with the cloud security professionals, resulting in an increased demand for AWS professionals with security skills. It could be lucrative for individuals to pursue a career in AWS cloud security. 

7. DevOps 

DevOps is one of the top-most skills to have for someone who wishes to pursue a career in AWS. Operational excellence is achieved through automation, and DevOps engineers play a role in the process. DevOps automates operations like monitoring, testing, integration, and deployment while moving code from development to production. 

DevOps emphasizes constant development, integration, and deployment, which benefits software as a service (SaaS) applications that thrive on the cloud. This is a revolutionary model that has brought innovation to businesses, making it a valuable AWS skill. 

8. Cloud migration and multi-cloud environments

The Multi-Cloud Management Survey conducted by a market intelligence company IDC in August 2019 found that 93% of respondents were using multiple infrastructure clouds for their business operations. Even within multi-cloud, organizations tend to have heterogeneous environments that are difficult to adopt, maintain, and optimize. 

For instance, the survey found that 81% of respondents use a mix of multiple public clouds along with private clouds, 11% rely on multiple private clouds, and 5% use several public clouds together. However, these enterprises often face a shortage of permanent employees who can help them with their cloud migration efforts. This creates an incredible opportunity for people with cloud migration experience on their resumes.

9. Containers 

Containers are a common approach to encapsulating the code, configurations, and dependencies of your application into a single object. Containers run as resource-isolated processes and share an operating system deployed on the server, ensuring speedy, reliable, and consistent deployments independent of the environment. 

One of the most crucial skills for AWS professionals to master is containers. Expertise and expertise with Docker, Jenkins, and Kubernetes are highly valued. Containers are gaining popularity because they enable enterprises to create hybrid apps, package batch processing operations, and scale machine learning models. In fact, AWS’s container services are quite extensively used, and Amazon E2 is one of the most popular containerization enablers on the market. 

10. Serverless architecture 

Today’s industry-standard technologies and programming languages make it possible to move serverless applications from one cloud to another vendor. Serverless application development has become a niche in itself, as these services are easy to scale up and make changes to. 

It’s far more than just improved server abstraction, and many firms are now prioritizing it. Over the past few years, products such as AWS Lambda were the most in-demand from clients, and AWS professionals must be familiar with serverless architecture. 

11. Infrastructure as code 

Infrastructure as code (IaC) transforms infrastructure management by allowing technical professionals to optimize IT systems through software code. One can deploy machine-readable configuration files that remotely and automatically bring about changes in the IT infrastructure instead of putting in manual effort or using physical control systems. 

IaC allows users to provision infrastructure in a declarative and automated manner. It enables the use of the same tools (for example, Git) and processes (for example, code review) for the infrastructure that you use for your code. IaC on AWS has been implemented with the aid of the CloudFormation service, which requires the knowledge of resource provisioning using JSON or YAML languages.

12. Identity and access management (IAM) 

IAM keeps track of a system’s user identities and access rules. To leverage AWS IAM, you need the ability to understand and enforce access policies and restrictions, which will govern the environment. Using IAM skills, technical professionals can impose access boundaries within AWS so that its services can be leveraged only by authorized entities. An AWS professional should know about the three main elements that make up an IAM policy: 

• The PRINCIPAL(s) decides whom permissions are granted to. 
• The ACTION(s) specifies what is done.
• The RESOURCE(s) specifies which properties are being accessed.

See More: Common AWS Services Explained: EC2, RDS, S3, VPC

AWS Training and Jobs in 2022

AWS offers a wide range of courses to choose from, and people willing to enroll in these courses can pursue them online as well as offline. The training can be taken up according to either the role – architect, cloud practitioner, developer, and operations – or the solution – advanced networking, data analysis, machine learning, and security. While AWS courses are provided by various sources, the most reliable source recommended is AWS itself. 

Types of training

The platform provides two types of training – classroom training and digital training.

1. Classroom training

The official AWS Classroom Training solution offers live classes with AWS-accredited instructors who teach in-demand cloud skills and practices through presentations, discussions, and hands-on labs. There are essentially three training options:

• Public classes: There are classes available virtually or in-person from AWS or one of the many global AWS Training Partners.
• The “train your team” option: A team has the opportunity to learn together and gain the skills they need with private training from AWS.
• A local training partner: Classroom-based training can also be delivered by local AWS training Partners endorsed by AWS.

2. Digital training

For someone who prefers a more flexible approach to learning, there are also self-paced digital courses on the AWS Skill Builder platform. It offers free, on-demand courses developed by the experts at AWS. Digital training has a number of benefits, including helping people achieve their goals, making it easier to stay on track, gaining more experience alongside work, and allowing them to directly learn from the source.

The fundamental courses provided by AWS are: 

• AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials: This course is helpful for any technical professional or business user whose job role relies on the cloud. It offers an overall understanding of how AWS infrastructure works and how one can better utilize its capabilities to drive success in sales, marketing, HR, finance, and other verticals.
• AWS Cloud Essentials for Business Leaders: This course helps students learn how cloud strategy helps the leadership team achieve business objectives and how a business uses cloud technology to realize business value.
• AWS Cloud Essentials for Business Leaders – Financial Services: This course helps you understand how to drive successful digital transformation in the financial services industries and helps you learn cloud strategy that will help your leadership team achieve business objectives.
• AWS Technical Essentials: This course is perfect for those with technical roles who want to learn the fundamentals of identifying AWS services to make informed decisions about IT solutions. 

See More: Hybrid Cloud: Basics of IBM, AWS, Azure, Google and RedHat Cloud

Key training modules

Here are the five key training modules that aspiring AWS professionals can explore:

1. Architecting on AWS 

This training module is ideal for solutions architects, solutions-design engineers, and developers seeking an understanding of AWS architecting. You’ll learn to discover services and features to develop resilient, secure, and highly available IT solutions in the AWS Cloud through a series of use case scenarios and hands-on learning. 

This is an intermediate-level course and takes three days to complete. This course is typically undertaken when preparing for the AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate exam but can prove useful at any stage of your AWS career.

2. Developing on AWS

Software developers, solutions architects, and IT professionals who want to improve their development skills using AWS Services can opt for this course. It will teach them how to construct secure and scalable cloud applications using AWS services and developer tools such as the AWS Software Development Kit (SDK) and AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) under the guidance of an expert AWS instructor. 

Professionals looking to appear for the AWS Certified Developer – Associate exam should definitely explore this training module. It is also helpful for software engineers building cloud-native competencies.

3. DevOps engineering on AWS

This training is perfect for DevOps engineers, DevOps architects, operations engineers, and system administrators. You can go through this training module before sitting for the AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional exam, and also if you are looking to learn about infrastructure as code, microservices, monitoring, and logging in AWS. Further, communication and collaboration skills are covered in this course.

4. System operations on AWS 

This training module teaches system operators and anybody else in charge of system operations how to set up, configure, automate, monitor, secure, maintain, and troubleshoot the services, networks, and systems on AWS that are required to enable business applications. 

The training module covers AWS tools, capabilities, and best practices you need to become a successful systems operations manager. In addition to a SysOps career, it also helps you prepare for the AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate certification exam.

5. AWS cloud essentials 

This training module is for anyone interested in learning the basics of the AWS cloud, regardless of technical role. Given that AWS is so popular, it is helpful to know the basics of AWS, its security policies, architecture model, and pricing approach. 

The training module also teaches professionals how to obtain prompt AWS support if they run into any issues with the infrastructure. In addition, this course assists individuals in preparing for the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner test.

AWS Jobs and Salary: What to Expect in 2022

Now let us look at the top AWS jobs in 2022 and their salaries, based on PayScale data last updated on March 02, 2022: 

• AWS developer: This job asks for a certified AWS developer who can build cloud-native applications, test them, and aid in application migration to AWS. The annual average salary for this job role is $104,000 per year in the U.S. 
• AWS sysops administrator: This job role is meant for professionals with AWS system management skills. It involves managing day-to-day AWS workloads and implementing security and compliance controls. The annual average salary for this job role is $111,000 per year in the U.S. 
• AWS associate solutions architect: A solution architect’s job is similar to that of a SysOps administrator, but they will also be responsible for designing resilient cloud systems. The annual average salary for this job role is $117,000 per year in the U.S.
• AWS DevOps engineer: Like an AWS developer, an AWS DevOps engineer’s job involves software development – but in this case, the software development lifecycle must follow DevOps principles, and it requires considerable collaboration with the production team. The annual average salary for this job role is $123,000 per year in the U.S.
• AWS senior solutions architects: This is an advanced job role for AWS professionals, where the solutions architect is expected to provide strategic guidance and aid in overall enterprise outcomes. The annual average salary for this job role is $135,000 per year in the U.S.

AWS professionals are well paid, and a career in this field can be highly lucrative if you have the right skills. As per PayScale data last updated on March 02, 2022, the average salary for AWS professionals is $109,000 per year in the U.S. This includes professionals from across different disciplines such as site reliability, software development, and data engineering. 

• An entry-level AWS professional makes between $70,000 and $90,000 per year. 
• A senior AWS professional earns between $135,000 and $166,000 per year. 
• AWS salaries can vary across different jobs. For instance, the average salary of an AWS site reliability engineer is $120,000 per year, while that of a data engineer with AWS skills is approximately $97,000. 
• Certified AWS professionals are the highest-paid professionals. As mentioned in the previous section, AWS certified developers, system administrators, solutions architects, DevOps engineers, and senior solution architects earn upwards of $100,000 annually. 

See More: How COVID-19 Is Impacting Women in Tech: Q&A With Nancy Wang, AWS

Takeaway

Demand for technical professionals with cloud expertise is constantly rising. AWS, specifically, is an attractive career path for professionals interested in the field of cloud computing, cloud-based application development, and cloud infrastructure management. In fact, the right AWS skills would make you an invaluable asset for any digitally-focused organization. 

Managed service providers, system integration companies, corporates, and Amazon itself, are some of the leading employers of AWS professionals. In the last two years, many companies have migrated to the cloud for the first time, which is another reason why a career in AWS is highly promising. 

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