I currently work as a Junior Web Developer at a medium-sized company and enjoy my job. However, after taking a Distributed Systems course at university, I developed a growing interest in the infrastructure side of technology.
In my search for infrastructure roles, I’ve noticed that cloud-related positions dominate the listings, especially for someone at my experience level. I’m considering a switch to this field but need some clarity to ensure it’s the right decision.
First, regarding certifications, I’m aware there are many options for different experience levels. However, I find the preparation for these certifications to be a hassle. I prefer learning by building projects at my own pace rather than through lengthy theory texts or video courses. Additionally, exams tend to cause me a lot of anxiety. How essential are certifications in this field? Can I pursue a career without them or with only a few to kick-start my early career?
Second, as I said before, I’m very interested in the infrastructure part and… I don’t know if I want to stay my whole life working on Cloud, I’m afraid that if I enter this field I’ll get stuck with only a few ecosystems (like AWS or Azure), ideally I’d like to work with actual computers rather than with cloud, so would it be possible to make a switch from Cloud to on-prem infrastructure in the future?
If you say you want to work on the infrastructure side of things, that means networking. Routing and switching. Get a CCNA and you can get a job at 75k in most major cities. Few years experience and eventually a CCNP will put you at about 125k.
Right now, the milk and honey of cloud/data center stuff is NFaaS(network fabric as a service), aka SDN(software defined networking), aka IAC(infrastructure as code) but at the end of the day it’s about working and managing infra as a product of SDLC. You’ll need a strong networking foundation, familiarity with one or more programming languages, familiarity with working with SCMs, familiarity with IAC methodologies, familiarity with Ansible, familiarity with Jinja2, etc. If you have all that and you’re a rockstar engineer you’ll be at about 150k as an NFaaS engineer.
Otherwise, other “cloud” roles are going to be 100% server side. Don’t know much about that side of the house.