Competition for Cloud Pros Fiercer Than Ever

Competition for tech pros skilled in cloud technologies is fiercer than ever, according to a new report in The New York Times. In Silicon Valley, six-figure salaries are common for those with backgrounds in cloud infrastructure; data from the Times suggests that anyone with five years of experience can earn an annual salary of $300,000 (if not more), sweetened with stock options and other perks. Workers with the right combination of skills, meanwhile, face a near-constant barrage of recruiting phone-calls and emails. As Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and Google build out their respective cloud platforms, the demand for those skilled in building and maintaining cloud-system architecture may only increase. That makes things more difficult for smaller tech firms, which may not have the capital to offer highly skilled workers a competitive salary. (One startup co-founder, speaking to the Times, referred to stratospheric compensation as a “Facebook tax.”) According to Dice’s most recent salary survey, the highest-paying tech skills (by average annual salary) that relate to cloud include:

• PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service): $140,894
• OpenStack (used with IaaS deployments): $138,579
• CloudStack: $138,095
• Chef: $136,850

In a highly competitive environment such as the Bay Area, however, salaries only go higher. Over the past year, other tech hubs such as Boston have undergone similar hiring binges, as companies large and small seek the cloud professionals who can help them build out next-generation services.