Hello Reader,

If you listen to the loudest voices online, you’d think cloud careers are over. AI agents will design architectures. AGI will explain that to the executives. Coding agents will write everything.

As per Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei - Software engineers will be obsolete in 6 - 12 months. And they are the brightest and smartest. If they are doomed, what chances do us, the mere mortals, have?

If you look at open Solutions Architect positions, even at AWS, or Microsoft, or Google, it looks something like this:

SA at AWS job posting:

SA at Microsoft job posting:

Kind of strange that they don't even have Gen AI mentioned, or just one bullet. Why is that? If we believe the headlines, shouldn't everything be Gen AI? To understand, let me give you couple real data points.

The Lambda Question

Recently, I interviewed a candidate for my startup. I asked: “Can AWS Lambda scale vertically and horizontally?”

The candidate said, “I don’t know. I’ll just ChatGPT it”. You couldn’t answer to interviewer couple years back “I will just google it”. Interviews are not about googling dry information. They are about how you think.

That Lambda question is just the start. The real signal comes from the follow-ups:

• When would you scale vertically?
• When would you choose Lambda vs EC2?
• What are the cost implications?
• What are the operational tradeoffs?

Let's Imagine He is Hired!

I generate thousands of lines of code using AI for my startup. I was coding for a new feature. Claude asked me to create a new table or do a scan on a Dynamo table which would be very inefficient. Screenshot of the chats below (confidential info redacted):

I told Claude that GSI can support more than two fields - table scan is not needed:

It still gave wrong answer, so I asked it to read the blog:

It changed the tune!

Now, going back to previous scenario, let's say we hired the guy who doesn't know about cloud, but very good at prompt engineering, and agentic coding. He'd have accepted all these changes and created way more code than needed.

Professionals with Cloud, DevOps knowledge can master Gen AI and become powerful, but the reverse is not true!

And that's why FAANG and top companies prioritizes folks who know the fundamentals and system design.

Just this week, 2 SA Bootcampers got amazing jobs. I am not saying this to sell my cohort - my cohort is full, and next one is couple months away, I am saying this to share that they got those jobs because they crushed the cloud, and system design, and behavioral interviews. Do you need to learn Gen AI? Yes, the core concepts, but you also need the Cloud parts. Gen AI is a tiny part of the SA interviews.

We’ve Seen This Before

When Cloud emerged, on-prem professionals panicked - “Data centers are dead. All the jobs of managing VMs are done for”

What happened instead? New roles were created:

• Cloud Architect
• Cloud Security Engineer
• DevOps Engineer
• Hybrid Cloud Specialist

I was a Principal Solutions Architect at AWS the same way - I came from on-prem (mainframe to be exact!), and then I upskilled on cloud. The same pattern will repeat with GenAI - professionals who thrive will know cloud concepts, and Gen AI.

So, if you’re transitioning into cloud, or doubling down on your career:

• Learn system design.
• Understand how cloud components actually work.
• Use AI intelligently.
• Stay accountable.

AI is a tool. Your thinking is the differentiator.

If you want to see more examples where Gen AI messed up, and I had to drive it, check out this video:

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

Checkout my bestselling courses on AWS, System Design, Kubernetes, DevOps, and more: Max discounted links​

AWS SA Bootcamp with Live Classes, Mock Interviews, Hands-On, Resume Improvement and more: https://www.sabootcamp.com/​

Keep learning and keep rocking 🚀,

Raj