While the talent shortage may be old news in the tech industry—and in Amazon Web Services (AWS) in particular—the market has become fiercer than ever. Here’s why, and what you can do to tackle it.
The cloud sector’s skills gap has been a hot topic for a while now, and the challenges involved in hiring AWS professionals will be more than evident to any business that’s tried to build out its team in the past few years. But even by the punishing talent market standards we’ve come to expect, acquiring the AWS talent you need to achieve your digital transformation goals is especially tricky right now.
Rates of digital transformation have sped up significantly since 2020, cutting several years off the expected timelines for the adoption of next-generation cloud technology. This digital race, along with the increasing accessibility of cloud platforms, is putting even more pressure on businesses to equip themselves with the tools they need to compete. Just recently, Gartner reported that IT executives view the talent shortage as the biggest barrier to deploying emerging technologies.
The consequences of these unfilled seats could be catastrophic for businesses aiming to thrive in a digital-first world, meaning they miss out on the skills needed to harness technologies like machine learning, advanced storage, and analytics. So what’s driving this hiring squeeze? And what can organizations do to attract cloud professionals that will keep the wheels turning on their projects?
5 reasons why hiring AWS professionals is so difficult
1. The Great Resignation
The pandemic changed many aspects of our world, not least the way we work. In fact, the Great Resignation—which was triggered as an effect of the pandemic—is disrupting every industry, as workers take stock of their careers and what they want from their working lives.
With employees leaving jobs in record numbers, the trend is putting a major dent in retention rates—especially in the tech industry, where resignations increased by 4.5% between 2020 and 2021.
This particularly high turnover in the cloud space could be compounded by a number of factors, such as workloads for tech professionals growing exponentially as the world became increasingly reliant on online services during the global fight against COVID-19. Longer hours, heftier workloads, and the blurring of home and work lives during lockdowns resulted in a growing number of employees experiencing burnout.
According to the latest Jefferson Frank Careers and Hiring Guide: AWS Edition, a whopping 43% of AWS professionals felt burned out during the pandemic.
Of course, burnout isn’t the only reason professionals are voluntarily leaving their roles. Not only are cloud pros handing in their notices because they’re no longer enjoying their jobs, but they’re also being tempted away by more appealing offers. Combine this spike in open jobs with an already significant skills shortage, and your chances of filling your AWS role look a lot slimmer.
85% of permanent employees who work with AWS applications say that, salary aside, workplace benefits are an important factor when deciding whether or not they will accept a job. Here’s what they value most.
What perks entice an AWS candidate to accept or consider a new role?
4 weeks (or more) paid time off
Bonus (monthly / bi-annual / year-end)
Homeworking
Flexible working hours
Health / medical insurance
Retirement savings plan / 401(k)
Shares in the company / reduced priced shares in the company
Company laptop
Education / training allowance
2. Growth in cloud adoption
This one is just simple mathematics: more companies are implementing AWS infrastructure, products, and services than ever, meaning there’s more competition for professionals that can help them not only deploy these technologies but maximize the value they get from their investment on an ongoing basis.
The cloud computing market is set to be worth almost $800 billion by 2028; up from $210 billion last year.
This growth is expected to be driven largely by the adoption of cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, as well as the continued march of enterprises towards cloud-based and multi-cloud solutions.
That’s a lot of new organizations entering the market and competing for talent from the same relatively small pool; a pool that simply does not have enough professionals to go around.
If any further evidence was needed to prove that AWS professionals are in short supply, at the time of writing, AWS itself has over 30,000 vacant roles, the vast majority of which are tech roles like Developer and Solutions Architect.
3. Dissolution of physical restrictions
Remote working is here for the long haul, and cloud professionals are particularly well suited (and equipped) to work from home. But this is proving to be something of a double-edged sword for businesses.
On the one hand, employers don’t need to be held back by a small local talent pool, or the fact that they reside in a less desirable area for tech professionals to relocate to. Being able to cast a wider net and hire employees based, in theory, anywhere on the planet gives businesses more chance of finding the right candidate.
But, on the other hand, the challenge is that the same goes for the candidates themselves. The fact that AWS professionals can now work for any client anywhere in the world has broadened the landscape of opportunities for those with the right skills. No longer constrained by a daily commute, candidates can accept a role anywhere, significantly increasing competition for their skills.
4. Rising salaries
It’s a brutal equation. Demand goes up, supply is short, and so the price rises. Fierce competition for AWS professionals has created a candidates’ market, with employers needing to offer bigger and bigger packages to tempt skilled people through their doors.
According to the aforementioned Jefferson Frank Careers and Hiring Guide: AWS Edition, the average salary of a mid-level Solution Architect in the United States is $175,000.
For particularly in-demand AWS roles, those with enough experience can command salaries of well over $200,000 a year.
And that’s before you get into potentially costly perks and benefits like healthcare and training; considered increasingly important by candidates sizing up their next opportunity.
For businesses without deep pockets, it can feel like a losing battle squaring up against large organizations. That’s not to say that money is the be-all and end-all; if this pandemic has proved anything, it’s that there are some things more important than the bottom line.
But if you’re a smaller organization or new to the AWS hiring market, and you’re still working out what unique value you can offer cloud talent, then you’re likely going to struggle to catch the eye of the right candidate.
5. Digital evolution rates
Cloud is a complex, multifaceted discipline with a huge number of specialisms contained within it. Getting up to speed with the technical minutia of cloud technology is challenging enough for those looking to build a career in the space (and there aren’t enough of those people to begin with). But take into account how fast cloud platforms and services evolve, and another problem arises.
Whenever a new technology emerges, demand from users skyrockets and partners and vendors alike scramble to offer support. With the speed of digital evolution steadily increasing, however, these new trends and tools are popping up faster than the tech workforce can develop the skills to deal with them.
Traditionally, many people working in the tech industry will have learned the foundations of their craft at college or university, studying for degrees in subjects like computer science. Nowadays, the skills in demand from the market evolve far more quickly than large, non-specialist educational establishments can adapt their curriculums. That means that by the time budding new cloud professionals land their first role, much of what they learned could well be moot.
Relying on inflexible and sluggish channels of education to provide a pipeline of talent for cloud roles is exacerbating the shortage.
While upskilling junior hires through on-the-job training may provide a more impactful and agile way of creating new cloud professionals, this method puts additional stress on the already under-resourced AWS professionals whom businesses do have.
In fact, buddying up entry-level employees with more senior professionals and expecting them to train new hires could even add to the risk of burnout and increase staff turnover as a result.
Expert insights from a certified AWS professional
Marko (ServerlessLife) is a full-stack developer, AWS Certified Professional, and serverless advocate with 20 years of experience in the tech industry. He works for Serverless Guru—the industry leader in serverless application development and serverless consulting. Marko also runs his own successful blog. We caught up with him to find out why it’s particularly difficult to hire AWS professionals, and what companies can do to attract and retain the skilled AWS talent they need.
“Hiring an AWS expert is definitely a challenge. There aren’t enough of us, and we are too expensive. We could say that is an insurmountable obstacle and call it a day. However, is it really insurmountable? The same trick your marketing department uses to attract new and, foremost, keep existing customers can be used here. First thing, let’s check what kind of people you are hiring.
AWS experts are ambitious and hungry for new knowledge. You do not see “require a lot of money” in that sentence. We have seen that money is not a decisive factor from the Great Resignation movement.
Of course, compensation should be at least competitive. For me, and probably for most like-minded people, it is not the primary motivator to switch jobs. The main motivator was always not enough opportunity to grow my career and the company’s organizational issues.
1. So, the first thing you should do is make your jobs nice to come to and nice to stay in.
Are employees most of the time fighting the organizational barriers to be able to work? How is motivation? How are employee relations? Are the departments still like silos fighting with each other? Those are challenges no employees want, especially not those that can bail out anytime they want.
2. If you are still expecting your employees to come to the office, then your company is failing to adapt to new ways of working. Covid has proven that remote work can be even more productive. Working in a noisy office was always a huge productivity killer for me. By opening to remote workers, you can hire experts from all over the world. You are not limited to people living in near proximity and who are willing to come to the office.
3. You could also use perks to boost the attractiveness of the job.
Like a free personal computer, free phone, health care…
4. If you cannot provide enough challenging work, there are many things you could do.
Google and many other companies were successful with allowing employees to spend 20% of their time working on a personal project. You should also provide education so people can grow their careers within your organization.
5. You should also try to grow an expert within your organization.
They can start as a junior, which helps a senior. So that they learn, and the senior is not burned with beginner’s tasks—a win-win approach. You could also financially stimulate the senior to transfer their knowledge to the junior.
What can you do about it?
There’s no quick fix for the tech talent crunch. Creating a more robust pipeline of new professionals into the cloud space requires changes on many levels, from how we position tech jobs to appeal to young people and the way we teach cloud skills, to the packages we offer and how we look out for employees’ wellbeing.
The most impactful thing that businesses can do right now to land the AWS talent they need, is to look outside the same pond that everyone else is fishing from. In other words, widen their search for talent.
When the core issue at play is supply and demand, the answer is obvious; increase the supply. With cloud talent creation programs, businesses can partner with specialist training firms that will source, train, and certify professionals that meet specific business requirements. This proactive and tailored approach to creating net new talent helps organizations future-proof their AWS talent strategy—and provides a cost-effective alternative to throwing more and more money at the same small pool of professionals.
At Revolent, we specialize in recruiting and cross-training experienced tech professionals, equipping them with the AWS certifications, consultancy knowledge, and soft skills they need to make an immediate impact on your projects.
“Organizations need individuals with cloud skills to help transform their business, and there is a growing demand for IT professionals with these skills. AWS Training and Certification, along with our training partners, like Revolent, aims to equip the builders of today and tomorrow with the knowledge they need to leverage the power of the AWS Cloud. AWS Training, designed by the experts at AWS, teaches in-demand cloud skills and best practices, and helps learners prepare for AWS Certification exams so they can advance their careers and transform their organizations.”
