WorkingNation logo with the tagline of "Covering the Future of Work"
DONATE
Search
WIP-Maureen-Lonergan
Tags   
Tags 

Help wanted: 29 million workers with cloud computing skills

A conversation with Maureen Lonergan, director of training and certification, Amazon Web Services
By Ramona Schindelheim
-

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | Youtube Music | RSS

Let’s start with a definition: cloud computing is a way to store and access computer data and programs via the internet. That’s an easy definition for an industry that annually generates $321 billion dollars in business worldwide, as well as millions of skilled, good-paying jobs.

Amazon Web Services is the leading provider of these cloud computing services with nearly 32% of the market. With so many clients using their technology, it made business-sense to AWS to start an in-house training and certification program nine years ago to make certain there were enough skilled workers capable of programming and maintaining their products.

Maureen Lonergan, director of training and certification for Amazon Web Services, started the program and continues to expand it as demand for cloud engineers and analysts grows. AWS has set a pretty ambitious goal of helping 29 million people around the world grow their tech skills in cloud computing for free by 2025.

“Right now, technology is changing so fast and companies are moving to the cloud at a rapid rate. A lot of our time (is spent) modernizing people’s skill sets. People that were traditional database administrators or storage administrators, we’re training them on how to operate in the cloud environment,” explains Lonergan, my guest this week on the Work in Progress podcast.

The demand for cloud computing jobs is high and they pay well. You can expect a starting salary of more than $97,000, according to the Robert Half Technology’s 2021 Salary Guide. Highly-skilled and experienced workers can make as much as $163,000 a year.

“We currently have instructor-led training courses that go from one-to-five days. We also have a wide portfolio of digital classes—more than 500 on our platform—that people can consume topics from foundational level courses, like cloud practitioner, all the way to AIML learning tracks for deep practitioners in that space,” she says.

AWS is not doing it alone. “We have more than 130 partners around the globe that are delivering both instructor led training and digital training,” she explains. Some of those partners include YearUp, Per Scholas, and Youth Employment Services.

Lonergan stresses that you don’t have to have previous IT experience to learn cloud computing and launch your career, and cites some examples.

“We have this great story about Jarred Gains, who at the beginning of the pandemic was starting at a gym. He’s a physical fitness trainer and that kind of got pushed to the side given what happened. So he went to one of our partners and was put into this 12-week training program and now is working at an IT company in a new role. It’s totally transformed his life.”

AWS’s re/Start program is a combination of foundational level skills combined with the tech—taking someone that has little exposure to tech and positioning them well for a job in the future, says Lonergan.

“Deleyse Rowe was laid off from an entertainment job on a cruise ship last year during the pandemic. She didn’t have any direct cloud or technical skills, but thought working in tech would be really fun and joined the re/Start program and now is working as an engineer at a tech company as well. We have lots of good examples of people that either lost their job or trying to transition their skills through that program,” adds Lonergan.

You can learn more about all the Amazon Web Services training and certification programs online and in the full podcast. Listen here on this page, or download and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Download the transcript for this Work in Progress podcast here.

Episode 183: Maureen Lonergan, director of training and certification, Amazon Web Services
Host: Ramona Schindelheim, editor-in-chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch, Melissa Panzer, and Ramona Schindelheim
Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0.

You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

Related Articles
Get the latest from WorkingNation
DONATE
Terms of Use
Privacy Policy
Our Mission
Contact Us

© Copyright 2024 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation

Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

Share Bio