Hire the Top 3% of Freelance AWS Developers

AWS Developers Are in Ever-higher Demand

Cloud computing growth is blistering. End-user spending is expected to grow 20.7% to nearly $600 billion in 2023, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the king of the hill, having consistently held more than 31% of the market from 2017 through 2022. As the primary alternative to on-premise servers, cloud computing offers pay-as-you-go pricing models, making it simpler than ever to budget for new products and scale them as needed.

AWS is ubiquitous. It offers a staggering variety of cloud services for projects of all sizes, which sets a high bar in terms of domain knowledge—especially for companies wishing to avoid unnecessary expenditure while scaling. The combination of a skill involving a particularly complex technology and an exponential growth in demand make it a challenge to find the right person to fill an AWS developer role.

This guide details how to identify quality AWS developers, write an effective job description, ask effective AWS interview questions, and decide on the ideal candidate for your needs.

What attributes distinguish quality AWS Developers from others?

An AWS developer plays a crucial role in any organization. They can build, deploy, and manage applications on Amazon’s highly scalable and reliable cloud infrastructure. Quality AWS developers distinguish themselves through their proficiency in using various AWS services—such as EC2 (computing), S3 (storage), RDS (database), Lambda (serverless functions), and more—in order to use the best solution in terms of both performance and costs.

They have a deep understanding of infrastructure as code, using serverless, Terraform, or CloudFormation to build replicable architectures, and are familiar with general programming languages such as Python, as well as user permissions and CI/CD best practices.

Complementary AWS Developer Skills

Given the breadth and depth of AWS’ service offering, there are many related technological skills worth assessing in an AWS developer candidate. The most important skills that complement AWS cloud expertise are:

1. Familiarity with cloud computing concepts – An understanding of virtual machines, networking, and user permissions is essential for an AWS developer.
2. Strong experience with infrastructure as code (IaC) – A developer who knows how to use tools like AWS CloudFormation, AWS Serverless, AWS OpsWorks, or Terraform can help automate the deployment process and track its details in source control.
3. Familiarity with DevOps practices – Effective AWS developers can set up and advise on CI/CD pipelines, testing, and deployment strategies.
4. Experience with containerization – A candidate’s knowledge of Docker and Kubernetes is highly beneficial, as many organizations use containerized applications to help apps scale and avoid lost development time by ensuring development and production function the same way.
5. Proficiency in at least one high-level programming language, usually Python or JavaScript – This expertise enables an AWS developer to customize deployments and interservice interfaces.

Other skills may be equally high on your requirements list, depending on your project—especially for those that are underway or that have been planned by someone with the appropriate expertise.

How can you identify the ideal AWS Developer for you?

Identifying the right AWS developer starts by understanding your specific needs and the scope of your project.

Junior developers are best for routine tasks and smaller projects, as they’re still learning the ropes. They should not be in charge of building architectures from scratch but can be taught to manage and monitor them, as well as potentially resolve minor bugs. Mid-level developers have more experience and can handle larger problems, as well as build common infrastructure from scratch. Senior developers are industry veterans with a broad and deep understanding of AWS services. They can create complex and optimal infrastructures specific for the business needs from scratch and guide their peers to avoid costly traps.

If you need to create a common infrastructure, a mid-level AWS developer should be able to handle the problem; however, if you need top-of-the-line architecture, especially in the case of uncommon infrastructures, then you will need a senior developer. A junior developer may be able to deal with simpler cases, such as deploying a generic website or API. This is especially true if services such as AWS Lambda and CloudFront are an appropriate solution, as they are easy to set up and they scale well. However, a junior developer will likely not make the best choices related to performance and costs.

Additionally, AWS offers courses developers can take to become proficient with its services, from general cloud classes to classes that focus on niche skills. Your hiring process should include identifying candidates who have AWS skill certifications.

How does AWS work?

A high-level understanding of AWS’ value offering will help you choose the right candidate for AWS cloud development. Like every cloud provider, it offers services that use its extensive network of data centers.

By using these services, a company avoids the need for its own data centers and on-premise servers, and the associated physical infrastructure, maintenance, upgrade costs, risks, and insurance. When a company needs to scale up or down, they pay only for what they use. This can be a more cost-effective option, especially for companies that have variable or unpredictable resource needs.

Companies can choose from a wide range of AWS services to best meet their needs and tailor their infrastructures to the specific requirements of their application(s). AWS has hundreds of services; AWS specialists help companies navigate them in a cost-optimized way.

What is the difference between Amazon S3 and EC2?

Since S3 and EC2 are two of the most commonly used AWS offerings, you may encounter them on candidate résumés or during interviews. Knowing how these and other common services increase developer productivity can increase the fruitfulness of your selection and interview processes as you evaluate engineers or consultants.

In short, S3 is a service that AWS developers use for storing and retrieving files, and controlling their access—a pay-as-you-go, cloud-based file share. In contrast, developers use EC2 for running custom software. An EC2 instance is a virtual machine, a computer within a computer to which you can add memory or processing power with the click of a button.

EC2 instances have enough space for the operating system and software you need to run on them, but they’re not intended to store more than that. S3 and other AWS storage solutions, like Elastic Block Store (EBS), complement EC2’s functionality. AWS developers know well that S3 is the choice to manage files that are uploaded or downloaded by users. In contrast, EBS is the choice for app-internal storage; it provides decoupled disk volumes. Both options are easy for a cloud engineer to expand, as needed.

How to Write an AWS Developer Job Description for Your Project

Writing an effective AWS job description is crucial to attract the right talent. Start by clearly stating your needs and project scope, including the level of expertise required, specific AWS services they should know, and any additional experience and skills that will be beneficial. If you don’t know which services to specify or don’t have strong requirements, provide a good description of the expected end result.

In order to attract the right candidates, be sure to center the job description around the appropriate role:

• Solutions architect – An expert who designs the right infrastructure for particular business needs, optimizing performance and costs, as a traditional architect designs a building.
• DevOps engineer – An engineer who implements the solution provided by the Solutions Architect, setting up CI/CD pipelines, and handling deployment, like the builder of a building.
• SysOps administrator – An admin who handles day-to-day monitoring, security, and user permission management, like an apartment concierge or building manager.
• MLOps engineer – A DevOps engineer who specializes in data-focused infrastructures commonly used for machine learning, AI, and data science.

What are the most important AWS Developer interview questions?

Given the breadth of AWS, you’ll need to customize questions based on the specific subskills you seek. However, any quality AWS developer should know the answer to these general questions:

What is an ARN?

An Amazon Resource Name (ARN) is a unique identifier assigned to nearly all AWS resources when they are created. As ARNs are ubiquitous in AWS, a candidate familiar with AWS should know what they represent. A good follow-up question: “Are ARNs globally unique or unique only to the account?” The correct answer is globally unique.

What is IAM?

IAM is the Identity and Access Management system of AWS. It contains all users, roles, and policies (permissions), and is therefore one of the most important aspects of AWS.

What is the difference between a user and a role? What are some sample use cases?

A user in AWS represents an individual with unique credentials (password or token), while a role is an entity that can be temporarily assumed by users or services:

• Users are prone to human error. Roles, which define and limit possible actions, reduce the likelihood of unintended changes. For example, an administrator doesn’t need full permissions at all times but does need certain permissions in certain instances. A role can be customized accordingly.
• Services cannot function as users. Assigning roles to services is the only way to grant them the permissions they need to function. For example, a Lambda function that needs to read a file from S3 requires a role that allows that behavior.

What is CloudFormation? Why is it used?

CloudFormation is a service provided by AWS that allows the definition and management of infrastructure as code. It enables the creation of a template that describes the desired resources and their configurations. It helps with automating the deployment and management of AWS resources, which improves efficiency, reduces manual errors, and facilitates infrastructure scalability.

Beyond these technical checks, ask some general questions to gauge a candidate’s experience and soft skills:

Can you describe your experience working with AWS?

Answers will vary depending on the exact roles and experiences of the candidates but their responses should include specific services they’ve used, which will likely include the most widely used services: RDS, EC2, Lambda, S3, and SQS/SNS. Inquire about some of the services each candidate mentions. They should be able to explain the service briefly and in layman’s terms, as well as the advantages that using the service has over self-hosting.

Can you describe a complex technical problem you solved using AWS and how you approached it?

Candidates should be able to answer this question robustly. They should be able to explain which services they considered and how they would be implemented (e.g., using the AWS Managed Services or self-hosting). All answers should address cost-effectiveness, security, and scalability—three very important aspects of any cloud architecture:

• Cost-effectiveness – AWS Managed Services are typically easier to set up and monitor than their unmanaged counterparts; however, they come with an added monetary cost. Candidates should be able to name alternatives they would have benchmarked.
• Security – Candidates should be able to explain what policies (permissions) were created for the different parts of their solution and how messages were passed between the services.
• Scalability – Auto-scaling enables the setting of a baseline resource allocation and provides the ability to temporarily increase resources during usage spikes to prevent outages. These extra resources come at a higher cost, but with correctly configured infrastructure—and if usage is compatible with this spike pattern—it can be a very cost-effective solution.

Can you provide examples of how you have successfully delivered projects on AWS within tight timelines and budget constraints?

Candidates should be able to explain the choices they made, focusing on how their decisions were simpler and better in terms of budget. In addition to architectural changes aimed at decreasing costs, organizations can also get discounts when committing to usage. For example, reserving an instance over a long period of time can result in more than a 50% discount; using DynamoDB on-demand—instead of provisioned—capacity can increase the cost tenfold but may be more cost-effective in applications where unpredictable usage peaks occur. Many services also offer auto-scaling, allowing cost savings when activity is low. Finally, many modern companies have an AI or analysis instance run at a given interval in order to process the new data and update the model. If this is not time-sensitive up to some hours, then using spot instances can be a very simple way of saving money.

Follow up by asking candidates how they would change the architecture if they had infinite time but the same budget constraint. What if they had an infinite budget but a tight timeline? This will require candidates to present alternative solutions on the spot.

Why do companies hire AWS Developers?

Cloud deployment has made the creation and management of IT infrastructure much simpler and more scalable without the need for large initial investment. It has therefore become the dominant way to use computational resources. The most common strategy is to hire AWS developers because AWS is the largest and most diverse global cloud provider with a strong track record of uptime and reliability. However, while using such a provider makes deployment and management simpler, that is not the same as it being easy: To use AWS infrastructure correctly and optimize its pricing requires a lot of technical skills. As such, AWS developers have become increasingly important in organizations, even if smaller teams or projects may require their talents only on a part-time or seasonal basis.

AWS attracts and employs the world’s top cloud engineers, which not all companies can do—but they don’t need to because they can access that engineering experience as AWS clients. The popularity of AWS among companies is self-perpetuating: Developers learn AWS because it’s ubiquitous; companies have a larger hiring pool if they choose AWS. Plus, in the increasingly complex and hazardous environment of the modern internet, companies rely on AWS’ vital security features, like the IAM system. Built for enterprise-level customizability, IAM allows companies to customize the access granted to various engineers while they collaborate.

AWS’ ease of scalability, pay-as-you-go model, and diverse and numerous services help make it the most common cloud provider and keep skilled AWS developers in high demand. The expert advice from this guide will help you write a good job description to attract the right developers to your company, filter out underskilled candidates with helpful interview questions, and ultimately identify the perfect candidate for your AWS-based project.