Build your cloud engineering career,
step by step

200+ pages covering salaries, certifications, roadmaps, interview prep, CV guides, and portfolio projects. Honest, practical, no hype.

Start here View roadmaps

What the Career Hub is

The Career Hub is a free, honest guide to the business side of cloud engineering: how to get in, how to progress, how to get paid well, and how to keep growing. It does not sell courses, certifications, or bootcamps. It tells you what actually works.

Everything here is written for people who want to work in cloud professionally, not just tinker with it. That includes complete beginners, people switching from IT support or software development, and experienced engineers who want to level up their salary or move into specialist roles.

200+ career pages
11 topic sections
free no account needed

All Career Hub sections

Getting Into Cloud

What cloud engineers do, how to break in, and whether it suits you. 15 pages.

Salary & Money

UK, US, and global salaries by role, skill, and level. 25 pages.

Certifications

AWS, GCP, and Azure cert guides, study plans, and honest ROI. 20 pages.

Career Roadmaps

Role roadmaps, transition paths, and time-based learning plans. 20 pages.

Interview Prep

Cloud, AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, and Terraform interview questions. 25 pages.

CV & Applications

CV guides, LinkedIn optimisation, GitHub portfolios, and job boards. 20 pages.

Portfolio Projects

Beginner to advanced builds: serverless, Kubernetes, Terraform, and more. 20 pages.

Skills & Tools

Terraform, Docker, Linux, Python, debugging, and real-world ops. 20 pages.

Real World & Day-to-Day

What the job actually looks like: incidents, on-call, burnout, and growth. 14 pages.

Industry & Strategy

Market trends, AI impact, platform comparisons, and 10-year thinking. 16 pages.

Cheatsheets

Terraform, Kubernetes, Docker, Linux, interview, CV, and roadmap references. 18 pages.

Free Career Tools

Cloud Career Path Builder

10 questions. Personalised path with a 30/90/180-day plan, certification guide, and project suggestions. No data stored.

All career tools

View all free career tools. All run entirely in your browser. No data is sent to any server.

Certifications vs skills vs portfolio: what actually matters

The most common question from career changers: "Should I get certified first, or build a portfolio first?" The honest answer is that it depends on where you are. Here is a practical framework.

What Best for Gets you past Not a substitute for
Certification Proving baseline knowledge to HR screeners and ATS systems Applicant tracking filters, recruiter phone screens Hands-on skills; a cert alone won't get you through a technical interview
Portfolio projects Demonstrating you can actually build and deploy things Technical interview conversations, GitHub profile checks Formal credentials; some employers require certs as a baseline
Hands-on skills Performing well in technical assessments and on the job Technical rounds, take-home tasks, day-one performance Getting the interview in the first place without a cert or portfolio signal

The practical answer for most people: get one entry-level cert (AWS Cloud Practitioner, AZ-900, or Google Cloud Digital Leader), then build two or three portfolio projects while studying for an associate-level cert. See what order to take cloud certifications and portfolio project ideas.

Common career mistakes to avoid

  1. Collecting certifications instead of building skills. Five certs with no hands-on projects is weaker than two certs plus a strong GitHub portfolio. Certs open doors; skills keep you in the room.
  2. Waiting until you feel "ready" to apply. Most cloud engineers applied for their first role before they felt fully prepared. Apply while still learning; the process teaches you what gaps to fill.
  3. Targeting the wrong level. Applying for senior roles with zero cloud experience wastes everyone's time. Junior and associate-level roles are where you build the foundation that makes everything else possible.
  4. Ignoring salary negotiation. Cloud engineering is a high-demand market. The first offer is rarely the best one. See how to negotiate your cloud salary.
  5. Picking a platform based on hype, not market demand. AWS dominates the job market in most countries. If your goal is employment speed, AWS associate-level certification gives you the widest pool of roles. GCP and Azure have strong niches. See AWS vs Azure vs GCP for your career.
  6. Not treating the portfolio as evidence. A portfolio project that is just code on GitHub with no README, no architecture diagram, and no explanation of what it does will not help you. Treat each project as a case study.

Best pages to start with

Not sure where to begin? Start with these. They are the most-read pages and cover the foundations.

Getting Into Cloud

Salary & Money