Are you interested in a career as a cloud developer? With many businesses investing in cloud infrastructure, cloud development has an excellent career outlook. It has been estimated that in early 2022, almost 70% of all business and company infrastructure will be relying on the cloud. Not only that, but the number of apps using the cloud tripled in just 3 years. To find success in this career path, there are a variety of skills you should work to obtain. We will go over what it means to be a cloud developer as well as some of the skills needed to find success in this role.
The Role of a Cloud Developer
Although the specifics of a position may vary depending on the needs of the organization, cloud developers are often a “jack of all trades” in the technology world. They develop software to interface with cloud-based infrastructure to achieve business objectives. As a result, they need to have a firm understanding of software, cloud computing, and business practices.
Many people often think of cloud developers as being software developers who specialize in cloud-based solutions. However, this is still a very broad range of software and may include software-as-a-service, infrastructure-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service delivery models.
The Skills Needed To Be a Cloud Developer
Every position you consider as a cloud developer will likely have unique requirements depending on the industry or organization. Nonetheless, there are a few key areas of competency that almost everyone in this career path should master.
Programming
Knowledge of coding is an important part of this job. This may include developing software, programming APIs, and scripting interfaces within cloud resources. A strong understanding of the principles of computer science helps significantly with these focus areas. Additionally, experience working on software development in teams is important as it teaches efficiency, collaboration, and greater functionality of the end-product while preventing errors or exploitable bugs that might occur outside of a team setting.
Most positions call for proficiency in specific languages. Some popular options for cloud developers include Java, .NET, PHP, Python and Ruby. For programming APIs, knowledge of XML, JSON, SOAP and UDDI are in demand. It is also helpful to have a strong understanding of non-programming development skills such as documentation and versioning tools.
Database Management
Data is a major element of cloud computing. For many organizations, being able to reliably store, rapidly scale, and efficiently manage large data sets is one of the biggest draws of the cloud. As a cloud developer, you should expect to be familiar with various database technologies such as SQL Server, NoSQL, MySQL and Postgres.
Beyond knowing database tools and their query languages, it is also important to know how to structure, manage, and maintain databases. Depending on the organization, cloud developers may be responsible for designing their own data architecture or implementing plans created by an architect. In either case, understanding the best practices of data management is essential.
Systems Architecture/Cloud Infrastructure
Similarly, it’s valuable to know how to develop high-quality software solutions, specifically those built using cloud infrastructure. You should understand how cloud computing resources enable your software. You should also have a strong understanding of how the various components of your software fit together. This may be something planned by a more senior team member, however, it’s valuable to understand the reasoning behind the system architecture.
Networking
All cloud solutions rely on networking to deliver value. Due to the remote nature of cloud resources, it’s important for cloud solutions to be able to perform excellently over the internet. The hardware component of this is handled by the cloud services provider. However, cloud developers understand networking concepts so they can optimize their software’s performance.
Security
Cloud services are typically more secure than their on-premises counterparts. Nonetheless, any cloud-based software needs to be properly configured and take advantage of cloud security tools to ensure maximum security. Cloud developers should be familiar with encryption, permissions management, and general network security concepts. In some organizations, there will be cloud security specialists. However, on smaller teams, the cloud developers may handle the implementation of security measures.
Start Learning the Skills of a Cloud Developer
To become an effective cloud developer, you need to practice a variety of different skills. Fortunately, you can begin mastering them today with INE’s cloud courses. INE provides in-depth training on cloud fundamentals, popular cloud service platforms and specialist areas such as architecture, development and administration.
