Is AWS a Good Career Path?

Source:-southfloridareporter.com

Amazon Web Services or AWS introduced by Amazon in 2006, provides companies of all sizes with an infrastructure platform in the cloud. Several services for cloud computing are offered by AWS like computing power, storage, and management along with gaining access to global computing infrastructure.

The most prominent services offered by AWS are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud(EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service(S3). Other services provided by the company include database and analytics services, developer tools, applications, and much more.

There is a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22 percent in spending on public cloud services and infrastructure by 2023, as reported by IDC. The investment of $229 billion in 2019 will move to $500 billion by 2023, says IDC.

The public cloud market is expected to reach $236 billion by 2020 and AWS is expected to retain its position on the top over its competitors namely, IBM, Google, and Microsoft. There are many companies that rely on AWS for keeping their business functional like Dow Jones, Netflix, Expedia, Comcast and many more.

With all these facts, it is obvious that a career in AWS and achieving an AWS certification can be a great move if you wish to select the right career path.

A Career in AWS
A career in AWS can be stable and promising because it is at the top of the list of widely used public cloud platforms. With just one segment (Infrastructure as a Service or IaaS), AWS leads the pack. IaaS provided by AWS, as stated by Statista, alone holds 33% of the market that is as much as that held by the two of its competitors namely Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.

Moreover, there is an exponential growth seen in the AWS market share in other segments too. AWS has been ranked as the fastest-growing public cloud that is predicted to increase from 42% in 2017 to 52% by 2020.

Around 60% of the total public cloud job postings in the market are AWS-related. Since there is a shortage of professionals with cloud computing skills, there are plenty of job postings and therefore it can prove to be a great boost to your career if you go for a certification in AWS.

According to Forbes, Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Machine Learning will be crucial for increased cloud computing being adopted by companies by 2020. In other words, AWS is going to be crucial for IT professionals because AWS is the leading cloud computing service that companies of every size are adopting.

Learning AWS
There are a lot of resources like books, manuals, courses, AWS practice exams, AWS Communities that are available to help you prepare for the certification exams. The certifications in AWS were introduced in 2013, and these resources let you start and grow your career in AWS. You need to choose the right option from the many sources available. Other things to consider are your budget, time and quality study material. Through self-study is a good option, most people believe that a well-recognized training provider can give you the best training course according to your location and time constraints along with the most reliable course.

Categories of AWS Certifications
You can choose from a lot of AWS career paths that are based on the role and the solution. The role may be of cloud practitioner, operations, architect and developer. The solution may include storage, machine learning, and AWS media services. The available AWS Certifications are:

AWS FOUNDATIONAL LEVEL CERTIFICATION( 1 Certification)
The certification is AWS Cloud Practitioner-Foundational that includes an introduction to cloud computing.

AWS ASSOCIATE LEVEL CERTIFICATIONS(3 Certifications)
The Certifications are

AWS Solutions Architect- Associate.
AWS SysOps Administrator- Associate.
AWS Certified Developer- Associate.
This includes in-depth knowledge of AWS architecture, development and operations.

AWS PROFESSIONAL LEVEL CERTIFICATIONS (2 Certifications)
The Certifications are:

AWS Solutions Architect- Professional.
AWS DevOps Engineer- Professional.
A deeper understanding of AWS architecture and engineering.

AWS SPECIALITY CERTIFICATIONS (3 Certifications)
The Certifications are:

Advanced Networking- Speciality.
Big Data- Speciality.
Security- Speciality.
This includes a detailed understanding of specialty areas related to AWS.

Attaining AWS Certification
After going through a course(self-study or training course) you need to acquire the certification by appearing for the exam. Currently, AWS offers one Foundation, three associates, two professional and three specialty certifications. To acquire any certification, a candidate needs to pass an exam with multiple-choice questions.

For the Foundation-level exam you need to pay $100 and you get 90 minutes to complete. For associate-level, the fee is $150($20 for practice exam) and the duration is 130 minutes. Professional level and specialty exams are of 170 minutes with a charge of $300. The certification holders are required to recertify every two years.

Over to You
Because of the huge demand and competitive pay scales, AWS Developer is an excellent career choice. The average salary of an AWS Developer, according to zip Recruiter is $127,000 per year. When you gain experience and upskill yourself, it is only going to grow. The highest-paid among other IT professionals are the AWS Certified professionals. The average salary of AWS certified candidate, according to a salary survey conducted by Global Knowledge, is $113,932.

So, a career in AWS is definitely rewarding. AWS Certification training is the best option if you really wish to make your career in cloud computing. The course from a reputed training center can help you boost your career, an increment in salary and let you move into the new opportunities in the IT world.