Advice From AWS Heroes on Transitioning to a Career in Cloud
AWS Heroes Amy Tseng, Filipe Barretto, Liz Fong-Jones and Ben Kehoe share advice on cloud careers and making the most of communities.
Mark Pergola
Amazon Employee
Published Mar 4, 2024
Last Modified Mar 12, 2024
One question that many people ask members of the AWS community is, "How can I transition to a career in the cloud?" The cloud is growing and dominating how we build technology. Migrating to the cloud is accelerating as generative AI becomes the next big thing and the cloud enables storing and handling the data necessary to leverage it.
There isn't one way...or one role...when it comes to a cloud career. But many people have found their path by connecting with those who have journeyed ahead of them. Technical communities are an amazing resource for those who are cloud-curious (and for seasoned builders). AWS Heroes are a community of expert technology builders outside AWS who have contributed incredible efforts to their field, helped others learn and grow in communities and tested and provided critical feedback to AWS on its services.
We sat down with AWS Heroes Amy Tseng, Filipe Barretto, Liz Fong-Jones and Ben Kehoe to ask them common questions about cloud careers, including:
- What's your advice for transitioning to a cloud career?
- Is it better to be a generalist or specialist in the cloud?
- Why are technical communities important?
What's exciting is each of these AWS Heroes is a passionate expert in a different area of cloud technology and that makes for exciting variety in discussing cloud careers.
- Amy is a Data Scientist and Engineer. She's also a change agent and leader who has transformed organizations and knows how to build strong teams.
- Liz is a Developer Advocate and Site Reliability Engineer who now serves as a Field CTO and has contributed greatly to Observability.
- Filipe is a Founder and Cloud Practice Leader who has run AWS User Groups and has a passion for IoT and community.
- Ben is a Distinguished Engineer for Serverless with a background in cloud robotics.
Transitioning to a Cloud Career
In this video, AWS Heroes Amy Tseng and Filipe Barretto discuss transitioning to a cloud career, especially for beginners or self-learners, and how technical communities can be a valuable part of the process.
Why Technical Communities and Learning in the Open are Important to Growing
AWS Heroes Ben Kehoe and Liz Fong-Jones provide helpful tips and insights into the importance of connecting to a technical community. They emphasize the value of 'learning in the open' and sharing successes, failures and acquired knowledge with others to speed growth.
Should You Specialize in the Cloud or Be a Generalist?
Amy and Filipe discuss whether it's best to become a generalist or a specialist when up-skilling in the cloud. Drawing on personal experiences and perspectives, they highlight the importance of curiosity for generalists, the need to understand context for specialists and the reminder that everyone starts at the same point when learning cloud technology.
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AWS fosters community because we know the power sharing knowledge and building relationships has on careers and projects. To connect with an AWS Hero in your area or in a particular field of expertise, visit the program page here. AWS User Groups are an easy way to start connecting with and learning from community. Find a meetup near you. You can also follow #AWSCommunity and #AWSHeroes on LinkedIn and X, and network with Heroes through social media.
Any opinions in this post are those of the individual author and may not reflect the opinions of AWS.