Amazon Web Services
How to hire top AWS developers
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest cloud-computing platform on the market. If you want to leverage the power of the cloud for your business, an AWS developer can help. Or if you're still unsure about AWS you should seek our cloud consulting services to help you make the right decision.
So how do you hire AWS developers? What follows are some tips for finding top AWS developers on Upwork.
How to shortlist AWS professionals
As you’re browsing available AWS consultants, it can be helpful to develop a shortlist of the professionals you may want to interview. You can screen profiles on criteria such as:
- Industry fit. You want an AWS developer who understands your industry so they can help you figure out how best to build cloud solutions tailored to your business.
- Project experience. You can screen profiles for experience with projects similar to yours. Bonus points if they have a portfolio showcasing past accomplishments or code.
- Feedback. Check reviews from past clients for glowing testimonials or red flags that can tell you what it’s like to work with a particular AWS developer.
How to write an effective AWS job post
With a clear picture of your ideal AWS developer in mind, it’s time to write that job post. Although you don’t need a full job description as you would when hiring an employee, aim to provide enough detail for a contractor to know if they’re the right fit for the project.
Job post title
Create a simple title that describes exactly what you’re looking for. The idea is to target the keywords that your ideal candidate is likely to type into a job search bar to find your project. Here are some sample AWS job post titles:
- AWS developer needed for deployment and maintenance of an enterprise app
- Seeking software engineer (AWS, EC2, Java)
- Need an AWS developer with experience in DevOps
AWS developer project description
An effective AWS development job post should include:
- Scope of work: From AWS IoT to big data analytics, list all the deliverables you’ll need.
- Project length: Your job post should indicate whether this is a smaller or larger project.
- Background: If you prefer specific AWS certificates or technologies, mention this here.
- Budget: Set a budget and note your preference for hourly rates vs. fixed-price contracts.
AWS developer job responsibilities
Here are some examples of AWS developer job responsibilities:
- Design, build, and maintain software infrastructure
- Implement cloud storage solutions
- Provision virtual servers and containers as required
- Identify and troubleshoot performance bottlenecks and availability issues across the technology stack.
AWS developer requirements and qualifications
Be sure to include any requirements and qualifications you’re looking for in an AWS developer. Here are some examples:
- Desired AWS technology (EC2, S3, RDS)
- Software development
- API development
- Server-side development
- IT infrastructure
AWS Developers FAQ
What is AWS?
AWS is a cloud services provider and development platform that gives developers everything they need to take advantage of the cloud. It enables you to build websites, cloud storage solutions, IoT products, machine-learning-powered apps, and more with Amazon’s global network of servers. Since AWS is a collection of tools with broad applications, it’s important to find someone experienced using AWS with the technologies found in your project’s technology stack.
How much does it cost to hire an AWS developer?
The first step to determining the cost to hire an AWS developer will be to define your needs. Rates can vary due to many factors, including expertise and experience, location, and market conditions. Learn about the cost to hire an AWS developer.
Common AWS developer mistakes
Failing to optimize for computing costs: Are you provisioning too many or too few computing resources from AWS? The platform provides a wide range of options for pricing Amazon EC2 instances, including on-demand, yearly reserved, and spot instances. A cost analysis should be performed to determine that you’re provisioning no more and no less than the capacity you need.
Not implementing a cloud-optimized security strategy: A common mistake is to simply port over preexisting security best practices when moving from physical IT infrastructure to the cloud. A conventional perimeter-based security model won’t work for the cloud, however. Instead, all parties, from developers to operators, must be aware of the potential security impact of their activities. Clever use of access controls and automation tooling can programmatically enforce security best practices across an organization.
Managing infrastructure manually: If you’re still clicking around the web-based management console to configure and manage your cloud infrastructure, you’ve probably noticed how hard it is to document and make your processes reproducible for others to follow. The console may be fine for smaller apps, but large, complex projects such as SaaS deployments will get unruly fast. Fortunately AWS CloudFormation gives you everything you need to automate the creation of resources such as EC2 instances, subnets, and security groups. By creating templates through CloudFormation you can save time and avoid errors of manual configuration management.
AWS tips and best practices
Use Auto Scaling groups for all EC2 instances
In a typical AWS-powered web application, web servers will run on virtual machines in collections of Amazon EC2 instances called Auto Scaling groups.They enable your app to automatically add virtual machines to scale computing power with changing workloads. It’s considered best practice to use Auto Scaling for all EC2 instances including single instances. Not only does it make it easier to work with virtual machines as logical groups, but it’s also free and takes care of the monitoring of EC2 instances for things like CPU usage or the number of requests the load balancer has received.
Pay attention to CloudWatch
CloudWatch is a monitoring tool that receives alerts for various metrics from all of your AWS services. It provides a handy dashboard from which you can graphically monitor the performance of various metrics across your entire stack, enabling you to track CPU usage, disk usage, network data, memory, and more.
Back up your data
AWS provides many tools for backing up your data. Whether it’s backing up your EBS volumes using Amazon EBS snapshots or creating an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) from an active EC2 instance to save it as a configuration template for future launches, AWS gives you everything you need to back up your data and resources.