As businesses continue adopting cloud solutions, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become the clear market leader. AWS offers over 200 cloud services, ranging from computing power, storage, networking, databases, analytics, machine learning, IoT, security, and more. With such a vast array of services now available on-demand, companies are increasingly leveraging the public cloud for application development and hosting.
However, not all organizations have the in-house skills and expertise required to take full advantage of everything AWS offers. That’s why many choose to work with AWS consulting partners and hire dedicated AWS developers to help them navigate the complexities of the cloud. In this blog, we’ll explore the benefits of working with AWS partners, how to select the right partner for your needs, key considerations when hiring AWS developers, and more.
The Benefits of Working with an AWS Consulting Partner
Getting the most ROI from the public cloud requires specialized expertise that is still relatively scarce for many companies. AWS partners have made major investments in developing skills, best practices, automation tooling, pre-built solutions, and more focused specifically on AWS cloud adoption. Amazon categorizes its partners based on areas of specialization:
Consulting Partners
Help with cloud transformation strategy, total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis, workload assessment for migration suitability, implementation project management, and more.
Technology Partners
Build solutions and products that integrate and extend AWS services for specific use cases and vertical industries.
Training & Authorized Instructor Partners
Help train and certify internal staff on various aspects of AWS.
Managed Service Providers (MSPs)
Manage and operate AWS environments and resources for customers.
System Integrators
Integrate AWS cloud into existing on-premises environments.
No matter where you are in your cloud journey, AWS partners deliver a number of advantages:
Proven Cloud Expertise
Partners start by earning AWS competencies around capabilities like Machine Learning, Data & Analytics, DevOps, Microsoft Workloads, and more. Competencies validate their real-world expertise from working with many other AWS customers.
Best Practices & Methodology
Quality partners employ proven methodologies honed from experience supporting large migrations and build projects on AWS. This prevents costly rework downstream.
Reduced Time-to-Value
Partners know how to best leverage AWS native services to rapidly build cloud solutions instead of reinventing the wheel. This accelerates speed of deployment and time-to-production.
Cost Management & Optimization
Managing cloud spend across hundreds of services is challenging without the right governance, processes, tools and expertise in place. Partners help establish this operational discipline.
Scalability & Agility
Solutions delivered by partners take advantage of cloud native architectural best practices that allow easier scaling, resilience and agility.
Risk Mitigation
Relying on a partner helps mitigate project execution risks that commonly plague large IT initiatives. Their experience smooths the transition to the cloud.
How to Select the Right AWS Consulting Partner
Not all AWS partners have the same service capabilities and strengths. Performing due diligence upfront ensures you choose one that best aligns to your business objectives. Below are key areas to evaluate:
Defined Expertise & Competencies
Look for partners that have invested in attaining relevant AWS competencies like Machine Learning, Microsoft Workloads, DevOps and Data & Analytics. Competencies validate real-world expertise.
Use Case Experience
Evaluate project experience with cloud initiatives similar to yours. This can encompass experience with your vertical industry, specific AWS services being leveraged, compliance needs, global deployment capabilities, and more.
Methodology & Best Practices
Assess how mature their methodology is for cloud migrations and solution development. What accelerators and tooling do they leverage? How do they ensure best practice adoption across architecture, security, operations and more?
Commitment & Investment
Choose partners that have made major investments in AWS with things like achieving Premier tier status, developing solutions and accelerators, maintaining accredited and certified practitioners, cloud Center of Excellence, labs, and more. This demonstrates their strategic commitment to AWS.
Culture Fit
Make sure your executive sponsors connect well with the partners leadership team. Do their values, communication style and vision alignment give you confidence they can execute as an extension of your team?
Successfully navigating large scale cloud transformations requires finding partners that feel like trusted advisors rather than vendors. Taking time to properly evaluate key areas like those above enables those trusted, strategic partnerships to form.
Key Considerations When Hiring AWS Developers
Beyond working with consulting partners, many organizations choose to hire AWS developers as they productize solutions and services on the cloud. Whether you utilize external partners or internal staff, below are some key considerations when hiring AWS developers:
Certifications Matter
The AWS certification program has become the industry standard in validating cloud expertise across both individuals and partners. At minimum, verify architects and developers have obtained relevant Associate certifications like Solutions Architect and Developer. Additional specialty and Professional certifications indicate deeper capabilities.
Architecting Experience
Understand candidate’s real-world experience designing resilient cloud architectures leveraging AWS best practices. Key areas include high availability, disaster recovery, scalability, security, governance and infrastructure as code automation.
CI/CD Pipeline Skills
Implementing robust CI/CD pipelines on AWS demands practical expertise across CodeCommit, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy, CodePipeline, CodeStar and more. Evaluate their hands-on experience building release pipelines.
Cost Optimization Know-How
Controlling spend is crucial given the on-demand consumption model of the cloud. Assess candidates understanding and application of AWS Cost Management capabilities including budgets, forecasts and reservations.
Multi-Cloud vs AWS Fanatic
Aim forbalanced multi-cloud experience rather than AWS-only fanatics. This brings an unbiased perspective regarding the appropriate or best use case fit across cloud options for your application portfolio. But specialized AWS skills remain critical.
Automation-First Mindset
Ensure developers take an “automate everything” approach leveraging CloudFormation, Terraform and scripting. This consistent infrastructure as code approach is mandatory for scalable cloud adoption.
Security Best Practices
Shared security responsibility mandates both cloud providers and customers implement best practice controls. Review how well candidates understand essentials like IAM policies, VPC security groups, encryption, log aggregation, and more.
Big Picture & Detail Focus
The best architects and developers complement broad strategic vision with deep technical expertise into services across the AWS portfolio. Explore both perspectives during interviews.
Passionate Self-Starters
Cloud technology moves quickly socontinuous skills development is imperative. Evaluate how motivated they are to independently learn, experiment, build demos and more using AWS.
Hiring individuals with the right balance of AWS knowledge, hands-on architectural experience, automation skills, security mindset and unwavering passion is key to successfully executing your cloud initiatives. Use the criteria above to ensure you select the best fit candidates.
Final Thoughts
Leveraging AWS consulting partners and dedicated AWS developers has become essential for most enterprises beginning their cloud journey. Partners bring proven methodologies, best practices and independent expertise scaling AWS environments. Meanwhile AWS developers help operationalize solutions through a strong understanding of essential services and architectural paradigms.
Remember the areas of AWS competencies, vertical and project experience, best practice methodologies, strategic commitment and company culture fit when evaluating partners. For individual hires, certifications, architecting skills, CI/CD expertise, cost controls know-how, automation-first thinking, security mindset, big picture strategic vision complemented by technical detail and continuous learning passion all indicate the ideal candidate.
Approaching your AWS journey with the right mix of internal and external skills and experience sets your initiatives up for success. Both partners and developers play crucial roles migrating to and innovating on the public cloud. Leverage the guidance above to build dream teams capable of fully unleashing the possibilities of AWS.