Tech with Lucy on YouTube exploded to 150k+ subscribers in just three years. Lucy Wang, the YouTuber behind Tech with Lucy, spoke to me about securing a cloud job at AWS, side projects to build, and cloud technologies to learn.
We even spoke about specific cloud roles, like Cloud Support Engineer, Cloud Architect, Solutions Architect, and software engineer.
With huge growth in large language models (LLMs) driven by uptake of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and JDoodle’s coding tool JDroid, it seems the world’s voracious appetite for cloud computing will be growing faster than ever. The average cloud architect in San Francisco earns around $269k USD total compensation, or about 2 million INR in Bengaluru, according to Glassdoor.
That kind of role can seem unattainable when you’re still studying. And sure, the best and most experienced architects often come with years of experience working their way up as developers.
But there are some shortcuts.
I asked Lucy for her top tips on landing a six figure job in cloud computing. Here are some key takeaways.
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Top three six-figure cloud roles for technologists starting their career
It’s often hard to know what kind of roles to consider. Lucy says “when people think of cloud computing, they bunch it up into cyber security, coding, software engineering. It’s just one of those buzzwords, right?”
She suggests three key roles to explore at the beginning of your cloud career: cloud support engineer, solutions architect role, and cloud architect.
Cloud support engineer
This role involves helping customers troubleshoot immediate issues and generally being the first point of contact through emails, chats or calls. You may be dedicated to a single large account, or support multiple smaller accounts . You may also specialize in cybersecurity services or AI services, or be more of a generalist.
For Lucy, this is a great entry-level role as often the issues you are troubleshooting might help you to learn the cloud architecture. One example she gives is when a server is overloaded. The customer might say, “my website isn’t loading now, or it’s taking my customers five minutes to load my page.”
The cloud support engineer would help the customer directly to make changes to their environment, such as adding more servers, or providing a few options to solve the customer’s problem quickly and efficiently.
Also Cloud support engineers often have pathways to transition into higher-paying roles, such as software engineer or architect.
Solutions architect
Lucy was a Solutions Architect at AWS for two years and believes this is a great option, with internships and associate-level positions available for ambitious students and graduates.
She describes this role as “a technical advisor for customers as they go along their journey of using the cloud.”
The solutions architect must be a subject matter expert, and would help customers design the blueprint for how their applications should be designed.
A key deliverable for Lucy was architectural diagrams. Here’s how she describes the work:
“Once I listened to the customer and heard what they would like to build, and I asked them a lot of follow up questions, I would then come up with a diagram… an Amazon S3 bucket here and then an EC2 server here. And then I link it with arrows and show them, your data will go here and then here. Kind of like a map for them, a diagram so that they can use that as a guide to build it out.”
Importantly, the solutions architect doesn’t actually build the solution. They create the initial high level architecture.
Solution architects also create some technical demos and Minimum Viable Products (MVP) to show the customer what’s possible.
Cloud architect
Lucy distinguishes this role as being more implementation-focused.
A Cloud Architect not only designs cloud solutions but also often oversees their implementation. They take the Solution Architect’s design and ensure it is effectively built using cloud services. In some organizations, this implementation role might be taken on by an infrastructure or DevOps engineer, who ensures the operational aspects are well-managed and the infrastructure is properly maintained.
What if I’m not really technical?
Lucy says it’s a myth that you must be a proficient developer to work in cloud roles.
Cloud companies might also require salespeople to help customers and convince them to select the company’s solutions, marketing professionals to help people understand the products, HR, and all the other supporting business functions.
What cloud infrastructure tools should I learn?
With the growth of Large Language Models (LLMs), AI/ML cloud tools are becoming even more prevalent, with an explosion of cloud infrastructure tools like AWS SageMaker, Azure Machine Learning, Databricks, Datarobot, Dataiku, BentoML, and Google Cloud AI platform.
Access to pre-trained models through services like AWS Bedrock, Cohere, Azure OpenAI, IBM Watson and Hugging Face democratizes these tools even further.
It’s also important to have a solid understanding of general cloud services. Some examples of these tools offered by AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud: For AWS, services like EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) for scalable computing capacity, S3 (Simple Storage Service) for object storage, and RDS (Relational Database Service) for managed databases are foundational.
Microsoft Azure offers Virtual Machines for computing, Blob Storage for object storage, and Azure SQL Database for managed relational databases.
Google Cloud provides Compute Engine for virtual machines, Cloud Storage for object storage, and Cloud SQL for managed databases.
Lucy believes the growth in cloud jobs will continue to expand. If you can master some of these fundamental cloud infrastructure tools it will help you to stay competitive in the job market.
How stand out in a job search
Lucy says that many jobseekers underestimate the importance of creating a personal brand. She started by occasionally posting on Linkedin, to share her experiences as an intern at AWS.
You don’t have to be an expert to start posting:
“So one thing I did was in my final year of the final years of university, I started posting on LinkedIn. Not really sharing things as a subject matter expert or anything but just [sharing] this is my Amazon internship, three months into my Amazon internship, here are five lessons for upcoming interns.”
Though she was creating content for her peers, she also saw that recruiters and startup founders noticed her as well. This was a powerful way for her to build her network to stand out in a job search.
How to ace the interview
Here, Lucy says preparation is the key. One step many applicants usually miss is to develop a 60 second “elevator pitch” explaining their background and interests, and then to tailor the pitch for the audience: the kind of company, and the role of the interviewer. A CEO might expect to hear a different elevator pitch as compared to a software engineer.
It’s a numbers game
Lucy’s final piece of advice is that job hunting is a numbers game: try not to be disheartened by this.
If you apply for 100 jobs, you may expect 20% to respond, and only 10% to interview you, and perhaps to receive one offer.
If you expect these kinds of numbers, it’s easier to handle rejections in a better way. And according to Lucy, each job application becomes a learning experience: “Interviewing is a skill, applying for jobs is a skill…after every interview, you can then use that experience to improve on the next one.”
How to get the best salary in cloud and tech
Lucy explains that tech salaries are generally high. She also adds, rather than optimizing your first roles for salary, pick areas that you are more passionate about.
Author’s note: this resonates with my experience. Even if the role has a lower starting salary, if you draw energy from your work, you’re more likely to progress quickly and find great opportunities in a role you care about.
In her experience, graduate roles in cloud in Australia generally start with a base salary of $100K and continue to grow from there.
She has noticed that developer roles tend to get paid more than solutions, marketing or HR roles.
Sales is another area worth considering if you are less technical but looking for a well-paid job.
“At the end of the day, the salary is honestly a reflection of how sought after your skill set is. If there’s a lot of demand for a particular role and you really fit that requirement and companies are trying to hire for that, you can jump around, and you can negotiate your salary.”
How to learn more about cloud roles
Lucy has a lot of useful tips for early-career technologists looking for a job in cloud. We also talked about how she honed her skills as a YouTuber and built her channel to 150k+ followers. If you found some of these tips useful, make sure to listen to the full episode.
You should also check out Lucy’s YouTube channel for specific advice on jobs, interview tips, and ideas for side projects.
Links
Tech with Lucy on YouTube
CloudBites - Lucy’s weekly newsletter with the latest insights on Cloud and AI
Lucy Wang on Linkedin
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