How I'd Become a Cloud Engineer in 2027 If I Started From Zero — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00If I had to start again from today,
2. 0:01here's how I'd become a cloud engineer
3. 0:03moving into 2027. Now, I've been through
4. 0:05about 400 job postings in cloud
5. 0:07engineers. They're going to earn a lot,
6. 0:09160k to almost 230k base. It's kind of
7. 0:13crazy, but the cool thing is two out of
8. 0:15three of them don't even mention a
9. 0:16degree. Now, most of the roadmap videos
10. 0:18you're going to see are going to tell
11. 0:19you to get certifications first. I am
12. 0:22the complete opposite. Fewer than one
13. 0:23out of 10 of these job postings even
14. 0:25mention a certification. What they do
15. 0:27mention is building things using
16. 0:30different cloud providers, using
17. 0:31Terraform. And I'm going to show you the
18. 0:32method that I have seen work extremely
19. 0:35well for people in our community. Now,
20. 0:36there is four levels to this. Level one
21. 0:38is run, as in running a server yourself.
22. 0:40Level two is deploy, as in deploying
23. 0:42things on the cloud. Level three is
24. 0:45automate, which is about getting code to
25. 0:46do it for you. And then level four is
26. 0:48land, as in landing the job. Now, one
27. 0:51thing I want to let you know though is
28. 0:52this is not one of those videos where
29. 0:53I'm going to tell you you can land it in
30. 0:5430 days. I do not want to lie to you.
31. 0:56This is a roadmap where I give you
32. 0:58realistic time frames and resources at
33. 1:00every single stage so that you can
34. 1:02actually land this role. I'm going to
35. 1:04quiz you as we go along as well, but
36. 1:05before we get started, we need to know
37. 1:07what a cloud engineer actually is. To
38. 1:09put it simply, a cloud engineer builds
39. 1:11and runs the servers, networks, storage
40. 1:14that a company's apps live on on
41. 1:16platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure. These
42. 1:19days it's mostly using code rather than
43. 1:21clicking around a console. And of
44. 1:22course, AI is definitely changing this
45. 1:24landscape. And that is something I know
46. 1:26people are going to ask in the comments,
47. 1:27is AI going to kill this job? Now, when
48. 1:30you look at the data, it's actually kind
49. 1:32of the opposite story. Companies are
50. 1:34spending more on the cloud than ever and
51. 1:35it's growing even faster than it did in
52. 1:37the past. Every AI tool that you run is
53. 1:40running on someone's cloud. And somebody
54. 1:42has to build that to keep it all
55. 1:44running. However, certain aspects of the
56. 1:46job are actually shrinking. For example,
57. 1:48a system admin role is decreasing even
58. 1:51according to the US government. And out
59. 1:53of the 400 job postings I looked to,
60. 1:55only two were junior cloud engineer
61. 1:57roles. So, even though AI is creating
62. 1:59more cloud work, it is getting harder to
63. 2:01get into the job at an entry level. Most
64. 2:03people get into this job landing in
65. 2:05another specific job, which we'll cover
66. 2:07in level four. But first, let's get into
67. 2:09level one. And level one is run, as in
68. 2:12running a server by yourself. If you've
69. 2:14never opened a terminal before, this is
70. 2:16probably the level that you're at right
71. 2:18now. Now, a question I see all the time
72. 2:20in the comments is, do I need to know
73. 2:22how to code? And the short answer is
74. 2:24yes, you will need to know Python. About
75. 2:26two out of three of these job postings
76. 2:27mention Python, so it is a skill that
77. 2:29you need to have. It's probably not as
78. 2:31in-depth as what you imagine, because
79. 2:33you're just needing Python to run a few
80. 2:35short scripts. And of course, AI is
81. 2:37going to help with this, but it pays to
82. 2:38know the fundamentals. Additionally, I
83. 2:40also see people ask, which cloud
84. 2:42provider do I start with? It's a good
85. 2:43question. AWS, GCP, or Azure. Now, the
86. 2:47biggest cloud provider is AWS, and most
87. 2:49of the job postings do mention AWS. So,
88. 2:52if you're unsure where to start, I'd
89. 2:53recommend starting there, and they also
90. 2:55have the most generous free tier.
91. 2:56However, depending on the country and
92. 2:58the sector that you're looking to get
93. 2:59into, I'd recommend doing a little bit
94. 3:01of research into what is actually most
95. 3:03popular in your area. Instead of
96. 3:05spreading yourself widely across three
97. 3:06clouds, I'd recommend picking one and
98. 3:08going deep into that. Once you know the
99. 3:10concepts, it's transferable across the
100. 3:12three. Now, with those questions
101. 3:13answered, let's go into the four skills
102. 3:15that you need to conquer this level.
103. 3:17Skill number one is the Linux command
104. 3:19line. The servers you look after usually
105. 3:21involve Linux, and there is no screen
106. 3:23and there's no mouse. It's just a
107. 3:25terminal. So, you need to be comfortable
108. 3:27logging in, installing things, and
109. 3:28reading logs from the Linux command
110. 3:31line. Skill number two is networking.
111. 3:33This is how a request gets from
112. 3:35someone's phone to a server. So, things
113. 3:37like the domain name, IP addresses,
114. 3:39ports, DNS, it's all important to learn.
115. 3:41If a website is not loading, it's
116. 3:43usually stemming from one of these
117. 3:44different issues. Now, for a free
118. 3:46resource to learn these with a cloud
119. 3:48provider at the same time while you
120. 3:50build a portfolio, I'd recommend this
121. 3:52website, Network. I'll leave a link to
122. 3:54it in the description down below. This
123. 3:55project series is entirely free and you
124. 3:57will learn those skills through an
125. 3:59entire project roadmap. Skill number
126. 4:01three is scripting. We kind of talked
127. 4:03about it before, but Python and Bash are
128. 4:05very important here. A script is going
129. 4:07to stop you from doing repetitive tasks
130. 4:09over and over again. And yes, AI can do
131. 4:11this for you, but if you don't know what
132. 4:13you're asking for, then AI is not going
133. 4:15to do anything. Now, the last skill in
134. 4:16this level is Git and Git gets
135. 4:18overlooked a lot, but it is very
136. 4:20important in the job world. The code
137. 4:22that you are writing and the code that
138. 4:23you are changing lives in Git. Now, in
139. 4:26order to learn this, I'd recommend this
140. 4:27project series. They are all free as
141. 4:29well. I'll leave it in the link down
142. 4:30below. You're going to learn the Git
143. 4:32fundamentals through this four-part
144. 4:33series. Now, the reason I recommend
145. 4:35projects is so important because as you
146. 4:37are going through and doing these
147. 4:39projects, you actually document your
148. 4:40work and you're going to be building
149. 4:42your own portfolio. Recruiters don't
150. 4:45care, as we established, about degrees,
151. 4:47certifications. They care about proof of
152. 4:49work. And the best way right now is to
153. 4:52show your skills hands-on through
154. 4:53projects. So, make sure you are
155. 4:55documenting your work. Now, whatever you
156. 4:57build here, let's add it to your
157. 4:58portfolio and we're going to keep adding
158. 4:59to this throughout the video. Now, that
159. 5:01wraps up level one because you know how
160. 5:02to run a server, but level two is about
161. 5:05deploying, as in deploying things to a
162. 5:07real cloud provider. If you work in IT
163. 5:09support or you are a developer, this is
164. 5:10probably the stage that you're at right
165. 5:12now. The question I see a lot at this
166. 5:14level is, "Do I need to learn every
167. 5:16single AWS service?" There are hundreds
168. 5:19of services and no, you do not. You need
169. 5:22to know four really well because most of
170. 5:24it connects back to them. So, with that
171. 5:26onset, let's go through these four
172. 5:27skills. Skill number one is permissions
173. 5:30and on AWS, we call this IAM. It decides
174. 5:33who and what is allowed to touch what.
175. 5:35If you get this wrong, things are going
176. 5:37to break and people will get access to
177. 5:39things that they shouldn't have access
178. 5:41to. I'd recommend this project, which
179. 5:42I'll put on screen, to learn about IAMs
180. 5:45with a hands-on project. Skill number
181. 5:46two is learning about servers, and on
182. 5:49AWS they call this EC2. It's the same
183. 5:52Linux servers in level one, except in
184. 5:54this case you are renting them by the
185. 5:56hour, and you can have one or you can
186. 5:57have hundreds. This is the backbone of
187. 5:59pretty much every company that you know.
188. 6:01Skill number three is storage and
189. 6:03databases. Every company is going to
190. 6:05have files and data that they need to
191. 6:06keep somewhere. This project right here
192. 6:08was the first project I ever did
193. 6:09learning about S3, and you can do this
194. 6:12series on databases, which is really
195. 6:13useful. I'm all about giving you actual
196. 6:15resources that you can learn for free.
197. 6:17And skill number four is the networks
198. 6:19all around this. This is what we call a
199. 6:21VPC or virtual private cloud. It's your
200. 6:24own private network on AWS and decides
201. 6:26what can be reached and what can't. If
202. 6:28you already did the networking series in
203. 6:30level one, you will be ahead in level
204. 6:32two. All right, so before we do level
205. 6:33three, let's actually do a little quick
206. 6:35pop quiz. If you get three out of three,
207. 6:37drop it in the comments down below. I'm
208. 6:39not going to give you the answers.
209. 6:40Question one, you log into your server
210. 6:42from the terminal, but the website won't
211. 6:44load on your browser. What do you check
212. 6:46first? A, whether the server has run out
213. 6:48of space. B, whether the port the
214. 6:50website uses is open in the firewall. Or
215. 6:52C, which version of Linux it is running.
216. 6:55Start typing your answer in the comments
217. 6:57below. Question number two, your app
218. 6:59needs to read files from S3. What is the
219. 7:01right way to give access? Is it A, put
220. 7:04your own personal AWS password in the
221. 7:06code. Is it B, make the S3 bucket
222. 7:09public. Or is it C, give the server a
223. 7:11role that can only read that one bucket.
224. 7:13And question number three, you are
225. 7:15setting up a VPC. Where does the
226. 7:17database with the customer's data go? Is
227. 7:19it A, somewhere public so the website
228. 7:21can reach it. Is it B, somewhere private
229. 7:23that the internet can't reach it. Or is
230. 7:25it C, it doesn't actually matter, it
231. 7:27just needs to have a password. Argue it
232. 7:28out in the comments if you get three
233. 7:29from three. So now we can move on to
234. 7:31level three, which is about automating.
235. 7:34As in automating everything that you
236. 7:36just did by hand with code. If you've
237. 7:38built a lot of projects on AWS already,
238. 7:41this is probably the stage that you are
239. 7:43at. And this level is the one that most
240. 7:45job postings ask for explicitly. Now,
241. 7:47this level again has four key skills.
242. 7:50Skill number one is infrastructure as
243. 7:52code, which usually means Terraform.
244. 7:54Instead of manually clicking around AWS,
245. 7:56you write the servers, the networks, the
246. 7:58permissions in a file that configures at
247. 8:01build and one command that builds it
248. 8:03all. This means you can build the same
249. 8:05setup in minutes and your entire team is
250. 8:06going to get access to this. Skill
251. 8:08number two you need to learn is
252. 8:09containers and orchestration. Now, of
253. 8:11course, I'm talking about Docker and
254. 8:13Kubernetes here. This is about packaging
255. 8:14everything your app needs into
256. 8:16containers so that your app can run the
257. 8:18same on anyone's machine. Kubernetes is
258. 8:20then learning how to orchestrate these
259. 8:22effectively. Kubernetes is actually in a
260. 8:23lot of job postings, so it's definitely
261. 8:25a skill that is still in demand. Here's
262. 8:27a cool series on Kubernetes that you can
263. 8:29check out. Again, I'll leave it in the
264. 8:30description. Skill number three is
265. 8:32pipelines. And this is what we call
266. 8:34CI/CD. Every time a developer changes
267. 8:36the code, it gets tested and then
268. 8:38shipped on its own. This is so that
269. 8:40nobody is manually copying files onto
270. 8:42the server. A lot of mistakes get caught
271. 8:44inside the CI/CD pipeline. And I'd
272. 8:46recommend doing the six-day DevOps
273. 8:48challenge where you're going to build an
274. 8:49entire CI/CD pipeline. And this looks
275. 8:51very impressive on resumes. And lastly,
276. 8:54you have skill number four, which is
277. 8:55monitoring. And this is one I see a lot
278. 8:57of people skip. When something slows
279. 8:59down or breaks, you know what to look at
280. 9:01and what to do before customers even see
281. 9:03it. This is learning things like alarms,
282. 9:05dashboarding, logs. Four out of 10 of
283. 9:08these job postings mention being on
284. 9:10call. So, you're going to be the one
285. 9:11woken up in the middle of the night and
286. 9:13you should know what to do rather than
287. 9:14being just sleepy and unaware what is
288. 9:17actually going on. You're probably still
289. 9:18going to be sleepy, but at least you
290. 9:20should know what's going on. And ladies
291. 9:21and gentlemen, this brings us on to
292. 9:22level four, which is land, as in you're
293. 9:26going to land this job. Leave a like,
294. 9:28subscribe, do all that cool stuff
295. 9:29because I need to say that so that you
296. 9:31can do that and it helps the video.
297. 9:33Please. Anyway, let's get back to it.
298. 9:34Now, even if you've done levels one to
299. 9:36three effectively, a lot of people still
300. 9:39struggle with actually landing the job.
301. 9:41And that usually comes down to four
302. 9:43things. The first of which is where you
303. 9:45aim. Now, a lot of these job postings
304. 9:48require years of experience, often five
305. 9:51plus years. It's most likely that your
306. 9:53first job is not going to be a cloud
307. 9:55engineer. For most people, it is getting
308. 9:57into IT support, help desk, cloud
309. 10:00support, and junior DevOps roles that
310. 10:02actually are your starting point. If you
311. 10:03are working in a tech role within a
312. 10:05company, put your hand up for every
313. 10:07cloud-related activity that you can. The
314. 10:10easiest way is to move horizontally or
315. 10:12vertically within a company rather than
316. 10:14jumping around too much. The easiest way
317. 10:16to get in that cloud engineering door is
318. 10:18by doing one of those roles or something
319. 10:20adjacent. The second is your project
320. 10:22write-up and how specific it is to the
321. 10:24job that you are actually going for.
322. 10:26Let's say you've done all these projects
323. 10:28individually or even you've built
324. 10:30something like a CI/CD pipeline. You
325. 10:31want to tailor your resume to that
326. 10:34specific company. Now, a good way to do
327. 10:36this is by using this create function on
328. 10:38NextWork where you can actually create
329. 10:39your own project. Now, you can paste in
330. 10:41a prompt that I'll leave it in the link
331. 10:43down below, and then you can go to a
332. 10:44platform like LinkedIn or Indeed and
333. 10:46actually click on a job. Go ahead and
334. 10:49copy in that link and then add it to the
335. 10:51bottom of this prompt, and then you can
336. 10:53say something like, "I want you to look
337. 10:56at this job description and tailor the
338. 10:58project towards landing that job." You
339. 11:00can then hit continue and you're going
340. 11:01to get asked a few different questions
341. 11:03to go ahead and actually create your own
342. 11:06individual custom project. Be specific
343. 11:08to the companies that you're working on,
344. 11:10and maybe it's a few hours extra work.
345. 11:11Yes, but it is going to help you stand
346. 11:14out massively. So, here are some
347. 11:15questions I need to ask. How much
348. 11:17hands-on experience do you have with
349. 11:18AWS? Let's just say I'm new to
350. 11:20everything. What access do you already
351. 11:21have for this project? We got AWS and
352. 11:24GitHub, and we're okay to keep it under
353. 11:26$5, and we have some of these, but I'm
354. 11:29not sure which version. We'll go ahead,
355. 11:31we'll answer these questions, and then
356. 11:32the project will get built for us. And
357. 11:34here you will see a project as it's
358. 11:36generating right now, and it will be
359. 11:38custom to you. You can just literally
360. 11:40just fill in these questions as we
361. 11:41talked about before, and you get
362. 11:42documentation to add to your own resume.
363. 11:44The third people struggle with is
364. 11:46applying for roles. Yes, you can apply
365. 11:48for a job on a company's LinkedIn or
366. 11:50even their hiring portal, but what I'd
367. 11:52recommend is going over and above. Make
368. 11:54sure that you're DMing people within
369. 11:56that company, and it's not asking for
370. 11:58something big. I like to think of it as
371. 12:00the 5-second rule. Make sure that the
372. 12:02first thing that you ask in a DM takes
373. 12:04less than 5 seconds to respond to or
374. 12:06think of. It should not be something
375. 12:08that requires the other person to do an
376. 12:10extraneous task. Also, think outside the
377. 12:12box. Go to that actual company's
378. 12:14building, print out your CV, give it to
379. 12:16someone, bake them a cake, do things
380. 12:18that will stand out. Trust me, it works.
381. 12:21And the last one is practicing your
382. 12:23interview skills. As you create all
383. 12:25these projects, make sure that you are
384. 12:27able to explain it to someone. I like to
385. 12:29explain things to my mom, and I know
386. 12:30that if she gets it, then the interview
387. 12:32hopefully is going to get it. For
388. 12:34reference, Mom, if you're watching, I
389. 12:35know that you don't really have any
390. 12:36interest in what I'm saying, but I
391. 12:38really love you and appreciate you.
392. 12:39There's also plenty of websites that you
393. 12:40can use to do mock interviews as well.
394. 12:42So, that takes us to the end of the
395. 12:44video. I hope you enjoyed it. Leave a
396. 12:46like, subscribe, do all that cool stuff,
397. 12:48and I will see you in the next one.
398. 12:50Peace.