Thanks to an increasingly data-filled world, many companies are relying on cloud computing to store and analyze data instead of buying their own servers or hard drives. And by extension, that means they need Cloud Engineers. Ahead, we’ll break down what a Cloud Engineer does, the top programming languages they use, and the skills they need for the job. Ready to dive in? Check out our cloud computing courses to build a foundation for cloud careers and certifications.
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What does a Cloud Engineer do?
A Cloud Engineer is a Software Engineer that focuses on migrating data from local servers to cloud-based services. Once those systems are up and running, Cloud Engineers keep them maintained and updated. Cloud Engineers often write front-end or back-end code, but they also need to be familiar with cloud computing tools and concepts like:
- How to structure a cloud-based application for performance and security
- The best practices for engineering in the cloud
- A strong understanding of AWS, GCP, and/or Azure
Want to learn more about cloud computing? Try our platform-agnostic course Intro to Cloud Computing to learn about cloud computing fundamentals, different deployment models, and the pros and cons of the major cloud platforms.
Top programming languages for Cloud Engineers
Some languages are more popular than others for creating applications that run in the cloud, and learning one or more of those languages will give you an advantage in landing a job as a Cloud Engineer. Here are the best languages for cloud development:
Python
Python is one of the most popular and widely used programming languages today, so it makes sense that it’s one of the top languages Cloud Engineers use. Google also offers Python-based tools for Google Cloud, so it’s a great choice for cloud development.
Python’s extensive libraries and cross-platform support make it easier to write software for and manage all the diverse parts of a cloud environment’s development life cycle. Python is also a multi-paradigm language that can be used to write in a procedural, functional, or object-oriented programming style, giving it a lot of flexibility.
Go
Golang, or Go, is programming language developed by Google and is the newest programming language in this list. Despite its relative newness, its capacity for speed and performance, along with its standardized APIs, make Go great for cloud development.
Golang is a low-level language, like C or C++, but it has high-level features that make it easier to use and less verbose than other low-level programming languages. It supports concurrency, package management, parallelism, and garbage collection. And because it’s low-level, it’s also faster and has much smaller executables than other languages on this list.
Ruby
Ruby is a popular beginner-friendly programming language that’s secure and supports many features. It’s so popular that there are over 60,000 frameworks and libraries in the language, so creating an app with Ruby is a straightforward process. Compared to many other languages on this list, you can deploy an application to the cloud with a lot less code using Ruby.
Java
As Java users say, “Java is everywhere” — and that includes the cloud (as you can see in Microsoft’s Azure). Java is a general-purpose, object-oriented language that you can use for many programming tasks.
Java is also a highly portable language, meaning that you can take the Java code compiled on one system and run it on another, as long as you have the Java Virtual Machine installed on the other machine. This makes it an extremely useful language in a distributed, cloud-based environment.
C#
C# is a popular language in the Microsoft ecosystem. It’s the most popular language used in Microsoft’s ASP.NET framework. ASP.NET is used to create dynamic, robust web apps that run on Windows Server.
Recently, C# has become a cross-platform language that can also run on Linux and Mac OS using the .NET Core framework. This change has made it even more popular for cloud development, especially on Linux.
Node.js and JavaScript
Node.js, first released in 2009, implements server-side services using JavaScript. It quickly became popular because it allowed front-end developers that traditionally used JavaScript to write back-end code without having to learn a new language — which means front-end developers can use Node.js to create complete cloud applications.
How to start your career as a Cloud Engineer
While you will need some training to build your skills, you don’t need a computer science degree (or any degree at all) to get many of the cloud engineering jobs out there. What’s most important is to have problem-solving skills, a grasp of some of the programming languages we mentioned, and an eagerness to learn.
Fortunately, you can start learning today. Check out the courses below to get started with the languages we covered in this blog. All of these courses are great for beginners and will teach you the fundamentals of programming, as well as the ins and outs of the specific programming language. And with Codecademy Pro, you’ll able to earn a certificate upon completing each course, giving you more material to add to your portfolio or LinkedIn profile so that you can land a job as a Cloud Engineer.
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