Cloud computing can bring you many benefits, including pay-as-you-go pricing, increased agility, and scalability. However, Cloud adoption is not a mere lift-and-shift operation. To succeed with it, you need an experienced team. Yes, Cloud software engineers are the backbone of any organization that operates with large volumes of data. That is, virtually any modern enterprise. Such professionals are responsible for developing, deploying, testing, and maintaining Cloud-based solutions and the Cloud environment, ensuring you use Cloud resources to the fullest.
But how to find experienced Cloud software developers for your organization? Let's explore the critical skills you should seek and take a look at some real-life N-iX Cloud-related success stories.
What can your business achieve with Cloud software developers by your side?
Higher cost-efficiency
Effective use and allocation of your resources are among the key advantages of cooperating with skilled Cloud-native software engineers. Experienced Cloud experts will help optimize your Cloud resources, thus making your solution more cost-efficient. There are four main ways to do that. Let’s view them in more detail:
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Cloud costs reduction
The cloud-based approach allows you to interchange and combine various cost tiers of storing and computing resources depending on the current requirements of your system and/or future capacity needs.
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Optimization of Cloud resources
Your Cloud-native software engineers will help you efficiently manage the use of your Cloud resources and boost the speed of the development process. For instance, they can enable the automatic running of the infrastructure when there is a higher load on your system and turn it off automatically when the load gets lower.
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CI/CD processes automation
Automating the provisioning of IT infrastructure and setting CI/CD processes with Infrastructure as a Code can have a great impact on your business. This will decrease the volume of required manual work and free up the time of your Cloud software engineer.
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Use of third-party services
Partnering with a trusted vendor will allow you to benefit from services offered by different Cloud providers (as reliable vendors usually have partnerships with AWS, Azure, and GCP) and easily combine them with custom tools to cover your needs sufficiently.
Boosting performance
Cloud professionals can simplify system scaling and configuration across different development and production environments. This, in turn, enables quick scaling of the resources of your infrastructure up or down according to traffic fluctuations. As a result, the overall performance of your Cloud-based solution will become more efficient with a Cloud software engineer by your side.
Keep your solution up-to-date
An experienced vendor keeps tabs on innovations. If a new service that optimizes certain elements of your infrastructure and thus can make your solution more cost-effective is released, or a new solution to your business case becomes available, a trusted tech partner will be the first to know.
Skills you should look for in a Cloud software developer
The tech stack of Cloud software developers differs from project to project and depends on product complexity and specific requirements. However, your experts need to have a deep understanding of various hosting types, security principles, scalability, networking, and an array of tech domains. Let’s view these areas of expertise in more detail:
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Strong experience with key Cloud hyperscalers
Partnerships with AWS, Azure, and GCP are vital to consider when browsing through companies to hire Cloud-native software engineers from. AWS, Azure, and GCP designations mean vendors have undergone rigorous audits and passed the certifications. That, in turn, means that the company has enough experience and success stories to match the passing requirements.
For instance, N-iX is an AWS Consulting Partner, Gold Microsoft Partner, and a Google Cloud Partner. We have achieved these and other designations due to constant work and improvement. Over the years, N-iX has successfully delivered over 200 Cloud projects, with 30+ migration readiness assessments and migrations just in the last year. We have worked with midsize businesses and large enterprises, including some Fortune 500 companies and industry leaders, helping them transition to the Cloud and get the most out of this journey.
Learn how to hire the best Cloud developers
2. Cloud migration expertise
To overcome the various obstacles that come with cloud migration, it is a reasonable choice to opt for a vendor who possesses enough experience to ensure a seamless transition to the Cloud, reduce infrastructure expenses, and attain greater flexibility.
Take a look at the success story of Cloud migration for one of our clients.
AWS Cloud migration for USA-based audio streaming platform (under NDA)
Our client made the decision to upgrade their legacy system and shift it to AWS, aiming to reap the advantages of a Cloud, including enhanced availability, security, performance, and an improved customer experience.
The N-iX team helped the client complete the end-to-end Cloud transformation by migrating to microservices. Our Cloud software developers migrated platform core functionality from Windows to Linux machines. The system is now managed using Kubernetes, which results in greater portability and significantly enhanced scalability. In addition, we developed a new subscription solution that features real-time updates, improved subscription functionality, and added new features like Alexa Skill Account Linking to streamline the subscription process and enhance the user experience.
With N-iX, our client was able to:
- Increase portability and scalability of their platform;
- Improve user experience;
- Simplify platform maintenance.
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Expertise in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) enables clients to access computing, networking, and data storage resources via the web, allowing businesses to manage their infrastructure remotely without requiring physical access to the data centers. Organizations store their data on the provider's servers and can manage them through an API or dashboard if needed.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) offers an on-demand environment for application development platforms and tools that are accessible to customers via the internet. PaaS allows engineers to deploy custom software without the need to manage server infrastructure, data storage, and databases.
In cloud computing, SaaS (Software as a Service) involves a third-party vendor providing clients with a fully functional application hosted on the Cloud rather than just a set of tools for building one, as is the case with PaaS or IaaS. SaaS offerings involve the highest level of vendor involvement among all cloud computing models. The SaaS provider is responsible for managing both software and hardware, ensuring the security of applications and data, and maintaining the system. Therefore, for the successful delivery of cloud-related projects, it is essential to choose a vendor with strong experience in IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS.
For instance, this is the story of our client, that benefited from SaaS platform development.
Code Worldwide: SaaS development for marketing automation
Our client provides marketing automation SaaS solutions to over 10,000 businesses in 113 countries across the globe. With the help of this solution, businesses can automate their essential marketing communications of all kinds, including advertising materials and brand experiences.
N-iX professionals helped Code Worldwide to:
- support a large number of tenants;
- streamline tenant onboarding and setup,
- automate AWS infrastructure support;
- improve time to market by optimizing CI/CD process.
Also, our Cloud software engineers have supported the system, set effective communication among different services among the solution, and ensured its stability.
Learn how to find the best SaaS developers for your project
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DevOps expertise
Your potential vendor should have solid DevOps expertise and be able to help with the following:
- Cost audit. DevOps experts can choose the services that are the best fit for your business, optimizing the costs for Cloud-based solutions;
- Support. DevOps experts automate the maintenance process and let Cloud-native software engineers focus on their jobs;
- Migration. When moving from an on-premise data center to the Cloud or in the case of Cloud-to-Cloud migration, DevOps can make up a significant part of the work that needs to be done.
Take a look at the real-life DevOps success story of a leading global IoT manufacturer.
Modernizing the solution with DevOps best practices for global connectivity provider
Our client offers products for businesses that require connectivity and enterprise-grade performance. The secure modules, IoT connectivity plans, software, and platforms that our client provides to its customers enable end-to-end IoT deployments for other businesses.
However, they needed to modify their current solution to make it more efficient. N-iX Cloud experts achieved that by making it Cloud-agnostic and modernizing the used technology stack.
Together with us, this company has managed to:
- Improve customer outreach by going Cloud-agnostic and providing the customers the possibility to install the IoT portal in their environments;
- Enhance workload management as well as optimal resource usage by implementing integrations with Prometheus, Grafana, and Graphite monitoring tools;
- Simplifying the installation of the IoT solution for customers by compiling a step-by-step installation guide;
- Automate development and deployment processes by implementing the CI/CD pipeline.
What risks can you face by partnering with inexperienced Cloud software engineers?
Hiring a team from a trusted software engineering vendor will help you avoid a number of challenges. Let’s view them in more detail.
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Communication issues
The hard skills and experience of your development team are surely vital. However, they can be improved and adjusted to your project in the work process. Meanwhile, your Cloud software engineer’s ability to communicate clearly and be a team player is something that cannot be corrected as easily. Thus, vendors with long-standing experience choose the professionals not only by their engineering skills but also by their ability to collaborate and work in a team.
So, if you want to establish clear and effective communication – go for a vendor with at least 10 years of experience, with a proven track record of successful partnerships.
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Increased project costs
If inexperienced engineers make mistakes or do not have the necessary skills to complete tasks efficiently, it can result in additional costs. This could include increased development time, additional resources required to fix errors, or hiring more experienced engineers to take over the project.
An experienced vendor, at the same time, will ensure that your team has the needed skillset and resources to bring your project to successful completion.
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Poor resource management
If you cooperate with Cloud software developers that lack expertise, you risk paying extra for suboptimal use of resources, higher cost of the environment, and its low flexibility. What’s more, you risk your Cloud investments not paying off. One of the main points of Cloud adoption is the high scalability that can be achieved with the Cloud. However, if your team does not possess the required experience, you may be left with your solution as it is, with little ability to change it.
So, finding a trusted partner is a must for the overall success of your project.
Why hire Cloud software engineers from N-iX?
- During our 21 years of market presence, we have built strong partnerships with the key Cloud vendors: AWS, Azure, and GCP. We are AWS Consulting Partner, Gold Microsoft Partner, and a Google Cloud Partner. These partnerships allow us to provide top-notch consulting services and offer special deals to our customers.
- By choosing N-iX, you can speed up your digital transformation with our comprehensive Cloud expertise. N-iX Cloud software engineers by your side will help you with Cloud assessment, Cloud migration, and access to the latest technologies and best practices.
- We have 400 highly skilled and experienced Cloud experts on board that will help you go through all stages of Cloud adoption to unlock the power of Cloud-native application development for your business.
- N-iX tech experts specialize in Cloud strategy development, Cloud-native services, application transformation, Cloud migration, on-premise support and automation, DevOps, as well as CI/CD automation and optimization.
