The pathway
How you actually get there, here
How you become one varies far more by country than what one does. This is the UK route. Most people take one of these ways in; the right one depends on where you're starting from.
- 1
Cloud Engineer / DevOps Engineer
2-4 years in a hands-on engineering role.Skills to master
- Deep practical experience with cloud services, strong IaC skills, understanding of CI/CD pipelines, and a good grasp of operational best practices. You've been building and deploying, now you want to design.
You're ready to move on when
- You're often the one suggesting architectural improvements in your current role, not just implementing them.
- You're comfortable designing and deploying complex infrastructure from scratch.
- You're keen to move beyond just building to *designing* the 'what' and 'why'.
- 2
Senior Software Developer (with Cloud Focus)
3-5 years as a developer, with significant exposure to cloud deployments.Skills to master
- Strong understanding of application design patterns, performance optimisation, and how code interacts with cloud infrastructure. You've probably already containerised apps and deployed them to Kubernetes.
You're ready to move on when
- You're not just writing code; you're thinking about the whole system, how it scales, and how it's deployed.
- You're often involved in discussions about infrastructure choices and have a good understanding of cloud services from a developer's perspective.
- You're looking to broaden your scope beyond application code into the underlying platform.
- 3
Solutions Consultant (Cloud Vendor/Consultancy)
2-3 years working for a cloud provider or consultancy, helping clients design solutions.Skills to master
- Broad knowledge of cloud services, experience translating business requirements into technical designs, and strong client-facing communication skills. You've advised, now you want to build and own.
You're ready to move on when
- You're looking for a more hands-on, in-depth role where you can actually build and own the solutions you design, rather than just advising.
- You have a good overview of different cloud patterns and can articulate their trade-offs.
- You enjoy diving deep into technical details and seeing a project through to completion.