[scarface74]

Money and optionality.

10 years ago after staying at one company for 9 years and before that at another for three doing mostly C and C++ with a smattering of VB6, Perl, and JavaScript, I looked at where most of the jobs were in my local market - a major metropolitan area with a lot of Enterprise Java/.Net and web jobs.

I had two offers one for $20K more than I was making as a C++ developer and one as a high entry level .Net developer paying only $7K more (yeah wage compression is real). I took the second offer. I knew in 3 years my options were going to be limited for C jobs.

10 years and 4 additional jobs later and making $70K more, it was the right decision. There are very few jobs making what I make now in my local area for C developers, plenty for “Enterprise” developers/architects.

Going back on topic about certificates, I’m again at the same crossroads. I got to where I am being mostly a backend developer/architect with very little modern front end experience. Also, in my local market, “full stack web developers” are becoming a commodity and make less than I do now.

So along with learning $frontend_framework_of_the_week just to check off the box, I’m working on AWS certs, since they are still marketable and the only way I can make the next jump without going into management is by being an overpriced “implementation consultant”.

[toyg]

Aws won’t be marketable for long. It’s the sort of skillset that is a prime candidate for offshoring, and the bar to enter is very low.

[scarface74]

There are basically a few parts to dealing with AWS:

Net ops: traditional networking, patching, security groups, manually provisioning resources, web based load balancer, and the kinds of things you do on prem. This part is easily outsourced. Also companies that just do a lift and shift of an on premise mindset usually would be better off with a cheaper VPS solution or even colo.

Devops: CLoudFormation (Infrastructure as Code), Code Deploy, CodePipeline, OpsWork (Chef?). Most of the outsourced labor and honestly most of the AWS support companies don’t have a clue about this.

Development: Databass optimizations with SQL and NoSql data stores (DynamoDB, ElasticSearch), Autoscaling, SQS, SNS, lambda, etc. Again, most outsourced labor don’t have a clue about this either.

Most “AWS Architects” come from a traditional networking background and that’s all they know. They take their knowledge and map it very badly to AWS.

Someone who has done full stack software architecture and knows AWS inside out from a development, devops, and net ops perspective will be competitive.

Just like all other outsourcing, companies keep the “architects” in house or local and outsource the commoditized development.

Straight “AWS Architects” make less than “full stack developers” and wages for both seem to be stagnating in most of the US. Architects/Team Leads are making more but that’s stagnating too. But good “Implementation Consultants” who can combine both are making more. If you can market your consultants as “Cloud transformation consultants” (Yes I died a little saying that) you can make a lot more.