Hire AWS Developers, Engineers And Consultants

The cloud quickly became a standard for businesses with digital products — and it surely should become a standard for your company as well. Among the many advantages of investing in the cloud, the most critical ones are…

1. Amazing scalability, crucial especially for young startups with high growth perspectives.
2. Cybersecurity measures already in place, helping your product with your own and your customers’ data.
3. Fast introduction of new features and bug fixes via continuous delivery and integration.
4. Cost and space optimization — you don’t have to worry about the servers yourself.
5. Support for collaboration between distributed teams.
6. Easy access to data from virtually anywhere in the world.

But which cloud option should your business choose? For many, the answer is simple — Amazon Web Services or, in short, AWS. As Canalys estimates, the platform is a strong leader in the cloud race, covering 31% of the market. And, according to the respected 2020 Stack Overflow Survey, AWS is used by approximately 30% of professional developers, nearly twice as much as another cloud solution, Microsoft Azure.

Why hire AWS experts?

Whatever type of digital solution you have planned for AWS (e.g. a web app, a SQL database), it’s highly recommended to hire AWS experts to help you smoothly transition to the cloud and leverage its full power. 

How can AWS developers exactly support your business?

1. Provide a smooth transition to AWS from standard servers or other cloud platforms.
2. Implement a continuous delivery pipeline for your product.
3. Provide guidelines and training to other developers and other teams that will work with the cloud.
4. Maintain your product on the cloud to provide great user experience 24/7.
5. Define the best strategy to scale with the power of AWS.

But how to hire AWS experts that will deliver the best results for your unique business? Follow the 10 most important rules below to find and onboard the best people available!

1. Hire AWS developers who are truly proficient with the platform

   A lot of job offers these days requires developers of various specialties to have experience with AWS. Being familiar with the cloud is simply crucial in any kind of digital product — from mobile apps to web projects. But if you plan to hire AWS experts specifically, you need a person who is truly focused on the platform and knows all the ins and outs. You don’t want just anyone but someone who understands all the important parts of AWS stack, including AWS CLI, AWS Lambda, work with APIs, and more. Only by hiring such an AWS expert, you can be sure that your transition to the cloud will go smoothly.

2. Consider hiring AWS certified developers

   If you want to be truly sure of the quality of your cloud solutions, hire AWS certified developers. Be aware, however, that Amazon offers multiple different certifications — which might be a bit misleading.
   
   We recommend looking especially for AWS experts holding one of the following certificates:

   1. AWS Certified Developer Associate (mid-level)
   2. AWS DevOps Engineer Professional (senior-level)
   3. AWS Solutions Architect Professional (senior-level)
   
   

   AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner is an entry-level certificate that can also be considered a plus — but rather for a junior/junior-to-mid position.

3. Find AWS developers experienced in your current tech stack

   For truly effective work, you should hire AWS developers who already know the core of your current tech stack. This should include especially the programming language(s) your main developers use, the frameworks and libraries utilized, as well as any other technology/tool that you consider crucial for your business. In case of any doubts, we recommend discussing your exact requirements with a software consultant or an IT project manager.

4. Prioritize AWS developers with experience in DevOps

   If you are looking to invest in AWS as support for continuous delivery, you should definitely hire AWS developers with previous experience in DevOps teams. The DevOps methodology pushes for bringing new updates, features, and bug fixes to the product fast, assuring your users receive the best possible experience all the time. Mixing DevOps with cloud technology streamlines this process even more.
   
   Additionally, understanding of agile and Scrum should also be considered a must. These methodologies provide further clarification of the development process’ structure, setting clear goals for your tech team and improving their efficiency.

5. Find AWS developers with experience in other cloud platforms

   While understanding of AWS surely should be a priority for someone calling themselves an AWS expert, you should also consider hiring an AWS developer with at least some experience in other cloud platforms, such as Azure or Google Cloud. This is especially useful if you are looking to transition from one of these platforms to AWS or are planning to use two cloud solutions simultaneously (which provides a few advantages, such as easier disaster recovery).

6. Don’t overlook soft skills

   When creating a checklist of the most important skills your AWS expert should possess, don’t forget about the soft skills. They highly affect how effective your candidate will be and how well they will cooperate with their new colleagues.

   Consider especially the following soft skills when you hire AWS experts…

   1. Approachability
      
      To be always open to understanding the current needs of teams working with AWS.
      
      
   2. Researcher attitude
      
      To remember that the world of cloud and AWS is not stagnant and requires constant learning to master it.
      
      
   3. Attention to detail
      
      To secure a smooth 24/7 experience for your customers and teams.
      
      

7. Consider the project fit

   Hire AWS experts with previous experience in products like yours and guarantee your business more efficient development. Start with broader similarities (e.g. a web product, a mobile app) and then narrow it down as much as possible (for example, consider the features of your product that are its main selling points, such as a booking system or an e-commerce functionality).
   
   Such experience is crucial for truly effective development of a digital product — especially if you are a smaller company that needs to deliver results fast. In such a case, you need a developer who can get right into the development process and not one that needs a while to get trained and accustomed to your project.

8. Hire AWS developer based on industry match

   You can power up the development process even more by hiring AWS developers with previous experience in your business vertical. Such experience gives them the knowledge of your target customer and what are the typical roadblocks companies like yours have to deal with on their transition to the cloud.
   
   Once again, the closer the match, the better for your business. Review the resume and portfolio of your candidate carefully and look for companies that tackle similar niche as you do.

9. Don’t forget about the company culture match

   Like soft skills, the company culture match supports collaboration within your team and helps your new employee to blend in easily. This powers up the effectiveness and efficiency of everyone at the office, as well as the overall push for innovation through brainstorming.
   
   What, however, should you consider when reviewing the company culture match? This can include any value that you consider vital to your business — examples include the approach to remote work, preferred style of management, preferred business environment (startup-like vs enterprise-like), or experience with diverse teams.

10. Run a full-scale job interview

    Don’t jump to any conclusions before you run a proper interview with your candidate — only by doing it, you can truly assess their skills. Remember, however, that such an interview should be run by an expert in this technology. If you are not one yourself, you can hire an AWS consultant to run the interviews with you or ask for assistance from a software consultant or an IT project manager.

    What questions can be asked when you hire AWS experts?

    1. Which AWS service would you use for collecting large amounts of data from multiple sources?
    2. What is a Chef Workflow?
    3. How would you approach backing up the environment to make sure all data and configurations can be later recovered?
    4. How would you track changes done in the environment?
    5. What are bad actors in AWS?
    6. What is the Branch by Abstraction technique used for?
    7. When would you use the Classic Load Balancer and when the Application Load Balancer?
    8. Which AWS services would you use if your goal would be to collect and process e-commerce data for real-time analysis?
    9. What is the main difference between stored volumes and cached volumes?
    10. What does it mean that AWS operates on a shared responsibility model?

Who else do you need in your team?

AWS experts can help your business fully leverage the power of the cloud but they cannot be the only people responsible for the success of your product. Depending on what kind of solution you are developing, you might also need other people in your team, such as front-end and back-end developers, machine learning engineers, AI experts, data scientists, web designers, or IT project managers.

Whatever your current hiring needs are, we can meet them. At Ideamotive, we run the industry-leading network of IT talents who are ready to take on a new challenge. When you get in touch with us, our consultants will review your business profile and unique requirements to make sure you are matched only with the experts who truly fit your needs.