The 10 hottest cloud computing jobs on Indeed

16 Apr, 2021

Cloud

If you’re looking for job security and salaries averaging over $100,000, it’s a good time to gain cloud skills.

Job skills concept — Image: iStock/t:Radachynskyi

The top three cloud jobs on Indeed right now are cloud engineer, software architect and cloud consultant.

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It is often said that the future looks cloudy. At a time when a globally distributed workforce has meant moving to the cloud or potentially not surviving, and organizations are scrambling to digitally transform their operations, cloud computing jobs are hotter than ever.

Rounding out the top 10 cloud jobs on the site are development operations engineer, senior software engineer, software developer, software engineer, full-stack developer, data engineer and platform engineer.

SEE: 13 career fields with a future: Sustained recovery (TechRepublic)

In the U.S., the average base salary for a cloud engineer is $118,003, according to Indeed. A software architect can make an average of $135,473 in the U.S. and a cloud consultant, an average of $108,233, according to the site.

“In addition to high salaries and job availability, cloud computing professionals also benefit from the field’s flexibility,” according to a Northeastern University graduate program blog post. “Most jobs within the industry can be performed remotely, protecting them from many of the workplace uncertainties brought about during the COVID-19 pandemic and allowing professionals to work anywhere in the world.”

“Essentially, every meaningful consumer application or service that you can think of today is based on cloud technology,” said Scott Bonneau, vice president of global talent attraction at Indeed. “As a result, the demand for cloud talent has shot up over this same period of time.”

It is hard to compare how this year’s top cloud jobs rank to past years as the timeframes are likely different, Bonneau said. But as the chart shows demand has changed over the last few years.

(Methodology: Indeed calculated the percentage change in the share of job postings (per 1M) and the share of job seeker searches containing the cloud terms in the title from March thru March of the respective year. Cloud terms included: ‘amazon webservices’, ‘amazon web services’, ‘amazon webservice’, ‘amazon web service’,’aws’, ‘azure’, ‘google cloud’, ‘cloud’, ‘openstack’, ‘open stack.’)

Many cloud computing jobs do not require a four-year college degree, he said.

“It is becoming increasingly common for software development roles to no longer require a four-year college degree–including many cloud engineering roles. I anticipate this trend will continue into the future,” Bonneau said.

Instead, “practical experience, a demonstrated ability to learn and apply newly learned skills in a professional environment and an ability to be a great team player are often much more key factors than someone’s four-year degree.”

Given that effectively, all consumer software these days is built for and runs in the cloud, the job opportunity is enormous, Bonneau said. “It’s a rapidly evolving field with a ton of innovation, especially right now. I expect this trend to continue.”

He offered some tips for employers looking to hire cloud talent:

Clearly define your talent needs. This sounds easy but can actually be tricky. Do you think you need specific industry experience? Or new college grads? Define your target candidate group, and then focus all your attention there.
Know your value proposition as an employer. What sets the opportunity to work for you apart from the others? Are you mission-driven in a unique way? Find what makes you, you, and lean into that, and make sure every candidate experiences that in each touchpoint they have during the process.

Expand your sources of hire. Once you understand your needs and have sorted how you’re going to convey your value proposition, look for sources of hire where the talent you need might be. There are lots of great sources that often go overlooked, like coding boot camps that may have candidates with non-traditional backgrounds and huge amounts of potential.