I switched my career to AWS in my mid 30s. I could have done it faster if I did not make these three mistakes.

Welcome, new readers! A brief intro about me: I am currently a Principal SA at AWS, where I have been working for the last 5.5 years. I have designed and implemented multiple world-scale projects, mentored hundreds of students to get into high-paying jobs, including FAANG, and am a bestselling author and speaker. But it didn't start all rosy...

#1 Being good is NOT enough

You see, I was not getting any cloud interview calls, but I was deep on AWS fundamentals. I have done many hands-on. And I even had AWS certifications. I was trying for months to get an interview, but no luck. I could not figure out the reason. I was not even looking for an increased salary. Then, one of my coworkers, who had less experience and less AWS knowledge than me, landed a cloud job. That got me curious, and I investigated and figured out my biggest mistake.

Being good is NOT enough, you need to prove that you are good. The first layer of interaction between you and the hiring manager or recruiter is your LinkedIn profile. You may have done a lot of prep and hands-on, but if they are not displayed in your LinkedIn, then the chance that you'd get picked is random. If there are three of you in the market (Tom, you, and Harry), and Tom and Harry only have surface-level knowledge, and they mostly BS when asked AWS questions. But if you have a subpar LinkedIn, then Tom and Harry, the recruiter, will give them the interview.

You put all this effort into learning AWS, so make sure you demonstrate it in your profile. This will ensure you get the interview and the offer. And yes, the hiring manager showering you with money in the above diagram!

#2 Not every technology is created equal

This mistake costed me eight years. I am not kidding. You see, I started my career in legacy technology, mainframe. I was a very hardworking student. I applied the same mentality in my new job out of college. I bought books on mainframe, and I went deep. I learned under the hood. And I thought, by going deeper and deeper, my salary and prestige would go higher and higher. In real world, not everything is created equal. No matter how hard you work, how deep you go some technologies have a way lower salary and opportunity ceiling than others. Areas like mainframe QA, testing, on-premises support, etc., have a limited salary and growth range.

We think that if we work super hard, then, of course, we will be able to keep making more money on these technologies. Truth be told, some part of this matrix or misconception is reinforced by the managers. Remember, a manager's goal is to keep good team members around. The director of mainframe projects kept telling me that I would get promoted soon and make more money, and other great projects would be coming to the mainframe.

The truth is, even a person with five years of cloud experience will get more money than a ten-year experience person in QA or mainframe. Even if I get a promotion in legacy technology, my salary will never be more than the hottest technology.

You cannot fight the trend. I realized this late, ten years into my career. Then I finally realized this. And switched my career to the cloud, even going against the chance of my promotion in Mainframe. You need to take a good, hard, data-driven look at your current technology. And if the technology you are in is not the trend, no matter how much expectation you have from your hard work in this legacy tech, you have to start right now to switch to the future technologies.

#3 Technical superiority blindness!

I used to believe that if I knew the technical details, then I was superior. I looked down upon people who were higher than me but didn't know what was going on technically. Following that logic, in a presentation or a conversation with executives and recruiters, I would only talk about what I thought was the most valuable—technical details. But here is the kicker - executives do NOT need to know the technical details. If you give them unnecessary tech details, they will bypass you and go to others for information (yep, that happened to me!). Even the recruiter will think you are just talking mumbo jumbo to fool her and you will never get the interview call.

I realized that I needed to talk technically to technical people and strategically to executives. Remember, it's the executives who have the funding for the projects.

You have to package the technical details from a strategic angle. After I realized this and implemented it, recruiters started giving me interviews. Executives started calling me more and more, asking for project information instead of bypassing me and going to my manager and team members. Now, I am able to drive millions of dollars worth of projects by working with both technical teams and C-level executives.

Do you suffer from any of the mistakes above? if yes, fix it, and I promise that your journey to the cloud will be faster!

If you have found this newsletter helpful, and want to support me 🙏:

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Keep learning and keep rocking 🚀,

Raj