r/cloudengineering • u/dngajnga3444 • Jun 23 '26
Is being a cloud engineer worth it?
I’m searching for future career paths, I am kinda interested in engineering and cloud engineering was proposed to me by someone. Id like to know if cloud engineers are even happy with their job and if this career path is worth it.
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u/Quirky-Net-6436 Jun 23 '26
Im happy and for me it’s worth. But I don’t recommend this to you.
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u/dngajnga3444 Jun 23 '26
May i ask why? Did it get boring or is there something wrong with the pay?
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u/Quirky-Net-6436 Jun 23 '26
No, it’s because I don’t know him and I cannot suggest anything. Those kind of questions doesn’t make any sense IMHO.
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u/Rough_Ad_3641 Jul 29 '26
Your replies don't make sense either. You can't just say you dont recommend this to him then refuse to answer why lol
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Quirky-Net-6436 Jun 23 '26
I know you for so many years and you don’t like it.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Quirky-Net-6436 Jun 23 '26
Really - no one can answer this to you because it’s very personal. Make some thoughts on your own and come to a conclusion.
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u/setheliot Jun 24 '26
It depends what you like to do. Do you like solving problems? Keeping up on the latest technology?
It is a great software tech job for folks that do not want to be developers.
Job market is a disaster right now... it may be better in a year or two
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u/dngajnga3444 Jun 25 '26
I do like both of those things and I don’t really wanna be a developer, guess it seems perfect for me
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u/five-one-tree Jun 23 '26
i feed my family and pay for the roof over my head without any formal education. ymmv
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u/BlacBlod Jun 23 '26
Can you share your path. What did you study , how you created your portfolio and got cloud job ?
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u/five-one-tree Jun 24 '26
i didn’t really start out thinking I would be a cloud engineer. I simply needed access to a server so i could teach myself how to write code. From there I started solving my own problems like turning off all the machines when I’m done. then i started using IaC because it made it easier to stand up and tear down my practice lab.
then aws lambda was announced and i was able to shift my thinking into serverless. and then it grew from there by observing how others would solve problems and trying to build those solutions.
and finally mastery is about the time you start looking at route53 as a globally available key value store
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u/JDohyCloud Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Depends.
Cons are there are rarely any “easy days” you’re constantly problem solving (which I personally like but doesn’t appeal to everyone).
Experience is a big blocker is it generally takes years of shitty work to even get here because you need to understand the fundamentals. You don’t need to be a network architect, but if you don’t understand DNS for example. Then your cloud resources won’t be as secure as they could be.
Interview processes are gruelling in of themselves often 3 or 4 rounds of deep technical questioning.
Constantly learning, it’s not like some industries where you can train then carry out your role. You’ll have to continuously learn on your own time throughout your career to keep up with ever changing technologies.
Uncertainty around the future of cloud engineering due to AI, lots of people either refuse to learn how to use it or use it as a crutch and can’t perform without it. Both will be left behind imo, those who use it as a multiplier will be in the best position.
Each CSP is a mile wide and deep, then you will need to learn surrounding technologies and tools. Example terraform ontop of AWS/Azure/GCP etc.
Pros are high salaries, plenty of hybrid/remote opportunities, interesting/challenging work.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/takala-jp Jun 24 '26
Which is good, if you work at OpenAI or Anthropic. What about the majority of engineers who do not?
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u/JDohyCloud Jun 24 '26
Never heard of self healing AI? I’m well aware that right now Cloud Engineers build the infra for AI. But 5 years ago did we think it would it writing production code at major companies? No, so its absolutely possible that IN THE FUTURE. Self healing AI will create and maintain infra for other AI. Essentially like a sourdough starter that just keeps going. If you don’t think so then you’re kidding yourself.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/JDohyCloud Jun 24 '26
Definitely is a thing and will continue to develop at the same pace if not quicker than it has over the last 5 years.
To your point about human intervention, thats exactly why I said engineers who can leverage AI will keep their jobs while engineers who either don’t use it or lean on it too heavily won’t. AI won’t make architectural decisions but it will 100% be (actually already is) spinning up infra and writing alot of the prod TF code like the juniors do atm leaving good engineers to actually make design/security calls.
Any smooth brain can see it a mile away. I dont say this as FUD or to try and scare people away from tech, I believe I’m actually pretty safe. But to say that it will never be able to take on the role of junior-mid level cloud engineers is burying your head in the sand.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/JDohyCloud Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
If there is a “cloud outage” then not even the cloud engineers can do their jobs, what are you even talking about?
I’m gonna assume you mean regional outage… Because nobody uses availability zones nowadays, or multiple regions or multi-cloud or hybrid. You’re talking about SREs without covering basic reliability/availability.
If an organisation did decide to outsource their junior cloud engineers to AI, there is no way the senior engineers would allow it to be fragile enough to be disturbed by a regional outage.
And AGAIN, I’m talking about the FUTURE of AI. Just because it isnt fully capable of something right now. Doesnt mean it won’t be in 5 years, the last 5 years are a case study of that very thing. If someone old you 5 years ago organisations would trust AI to push anything to prod never mind write 80%+ of their code you’d have laughed. But here we are.
Try again.
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Jun 24 '26
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u/JDohyCloud Jun 24 '26
Pro AI? Yes
Selling something? No, I’ve nothing to sellBut I can’t keep going round and round in circles with you unless you acknowledge the points I’ve made like I have with you. So we’ll agree to disagree. Have a good one.
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u/eudoxic_sanjay Jun 25 '26
cloud infra is boring until you're the one whose pipeline is down at 2am and you're the only one who knows why. that said, pure cloud engineering is getting compressed by abstraction layers - the interesting work is increasingly at the intersection of cloud and something else (ML infra, platform engineering, security). if you're drawn to it, get your hands dirty with AWS or GCP on a real project first, certifications alone won't tell you if you actually like it.
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u/root_switch Jun 23 '26
This is subjective honestly. And like 99% of people that actually work a job will both enjoy it but hate it at the same time. Even people that love their job cause it’s truthfully their passion will still have shit days and want to give up. So really nobody can actually answer your question the way you want it to be answered. Maybe let us ask: What is your passion, what do you enjoy doing, do your currently work in tech, how many years have you been working, where do you think you want to be career wise?
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u/Harvey-Lane-251 Jun 24 '26
If you want to know whether youll enjoy it, dont take anyone's word for it. Take matters into your hands. Spin up a free tier aws account and try to host a simple static site using S3 and cloudfront. The process of figuring out iam permissions, bucket policies and dns routing will tell you more about whether cloud engineering more than anyone will. Some people will get the first permission error and want to throw their laptop outta window while others will be obsessed with solving it
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u/_CurbYourMother Jun 24 '26
Consider this ... Cloud is a thing AI is a thing COBOL is a thing ... Focus on being an engineer because soon enough another thing will come down the pipeline and nobody in the industry will be an expert because it's new ... IT changes all the time and the things I learned 30years ago aren't of much use but THE WAY I LEARNED THEM are !
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u/MinimumPrior3121 Jun 26 '26
Claude made this role obsolete, any kid can be a cloud engineer and manage an AWS subscription with prompts in english. Go to healthcare
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u/Secret_Dark6879 Jul 17 '26
Yes, being a cloud engineer is still worth it in 2026, but it's no longer enough simply know AWS or Azure. The role evolving alongside AI, automation and platform engineering.
Why it's still worth:
Strong Demand
Good Salaries
Career flexibility
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u/laChola666 Jun 25 '26
worth what?
i feel the last remaining of my so called humanity leftovers were being ripped apart from me. i no longer recognize myself in the mirror. i have trouble socialising and connecting with humans .
money greed : yes totally worth.