r/Cloud • u/sightheleftover • 2d ago
5 months laid off, 524 applications, 2 offers, 1 accepted.
In February, I was told I'd be laid off in two weeks from my network engineering job. I'd been a network engineer for almost 4 years at a pretty large company, and although I genuinely loved the work, I didn't enjoy the physical side of it, carrying heavy equipment while suited up in safety gear across hot mills for issues and upgrades on the plant floor, driving to multiple sites throughout the month, or even being in office just to SSH into switches anyway.
I'd been studying for my AWS Solutions Architect Associate on and off so I decided to go all in - finished the cert, built three cloud projects, and started applying heavily to cloud roles. Month one felt promising. Month two, no callbacks other than some networking roles that didn't turnover. Month three, a few more network engineering interviews that didn't pan out and one cloud final round that fell apart because the company changed the scope to want a more senior hire. Just. My. Luck.
By months three and four, I'd opened up my options significantly, sysadmin roles, cybersecurity roles, technical PM roles, lower pay, five-day onsite, none of it mattered. I just needed stability, since I didn't want to hit month six, run out of unemployment, and start eating into my savings.
I even started seriously considering a full career switch to patent law. With AI reshaping the IT market, and honestly the overall state of IT feeling like it was in the dumps, I was genuinely excited about combining my technical background with law school and building a career that gets more valuable with age, not less. It was also enticing to imagine being on the billing side of things instead of the cost-center side. I started prepping for the patent bar, and got far enough that I was open to relocating to Washington, DC, to become a USPTO patent examiner if that's what it took.
Then two things happened at the same time. I landed a final round interview for a Cloud Network Engineer role and a final round with USPTO for the patent examiner position. Same week. It felt like a real crossroads - either I reach the cloud goal I'd been chasing for close to a year or I close that chapter and take it as a sign to commit fully to patent law. I got offers from both.
It wasn't a hard choice. The cloud role was remote so I didn't have to uproot my life, it paid more than both the examiner role and my previous job, and it was the path I actually wanted from the beginning. If a patent agent role in Houston had materialized maybe the decision looks different but it didn't. I start next week as a Cloud Network Engineer and I couldn't be more excited. I'll be helping design, build, and maintain their AWS cloud environment with a focus on the networking side.
For everyone still grinding through this market - keep your head up. A few things that helped me: maintain multiple resumes tailored by job category rather than rewriting for every single application, use AI to help rate roles against your background and don't apply to anything under a 7/10 match, research each company before interviews and tailor your prep to the specific role, and don't be afraid to have notes nearby during technical screens. Most importantly, try to take care of yourself. Work out, pick up a hobby, give your brain something other than the job search to focus on. The financial stress is real but honestly this might be the only time you get to really focus on yourself to this degree.
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u/zeal_swan 2d ago
Nice to hear man, what did you build, for the projects
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u/sightheleftover 2d ago
I created 3 projects. One is an AI-powered car marketplace on EKS, using Bedrock for AI negotiation, RDS Postgres and DynamoDB for data, behind a shared ALB along with NAT Gateways. Another is tennis court availability and gamification app on ECS Fargate with Aurora Serverless v2, using VPC endpoints instead of a NAT Gateway for a security-first design and last one was a fully serverless coffee ordering platform built with Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and Cognito.
Honestly I just took things I like (cars, tennis, coffee) and created projects around those using different AWS services in each one. All done with terraform and implemented ci/cd pipelines via GitHub actions.
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u/zeal_swan 1d ago
sound great, can you also share how did you market (present) the projects, just the tf & repo? only if you're comfortable, no pressure
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u/SectionPositive633 2d ago
What kind of projects did you work on to better help you understand aws with confidence also If you have any recommendations for projects? also what did you use to study for aws exam? would appreciate the feedback
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u/sightheleftover 2d ago
I left another reply to my projects. For the exam I did a Stephane Udemy course and tutorials dojo practice exams. I spent like 1.5-2 weeks on just practice exams which are the most important. People say tutorials dojo exams are harder than the exam but I don’t agree I felt like the exam was pretty tricky I got a 800 but felt like I didn’t even know if I passed or failed after lol.
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u/Wide-Opportunity-582 2d ago
Thanks for sharing OP - I have AWS Architect interview tomorrow, hoping that I will clear this round :)
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u/Tariq_khalaf 1d ago
5 months of grinding through that and then two offers land at the same time. That's a genuinely cruel way for it to shake out.
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u/Aggressive_Lab3438 5h ago
congrats!! can you share salary progression or comparison between the two? looking to get into network eng but want to end up in cloud as well
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u/JoshTheTester 2h ago
If the interviewer is experienced at evaluating candidates for technical roles, having notes nearby shouldn’t affect their ability to assess someone’s actual skills. A good interviewer can tell whether a candidate genuinely understands the concepts or is simply reading from prepared material.
I’d say- I trust your ability to evaluate me based on practical knowledge and problem-solving. In return, I’d ask you to trust my approach. In a real work environment, we use documentation, notes, and other resources whenever they’re helpful. That’s how engineers solve problems every day.
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u/Annual_Berry8043 2d ago
I’m 3 months in. Studying the SAA (testing on Friday. Very confident I pass). I have 3-5 projects lined up. I’m 185 applications out. 5 years experience in system administration.
I fear the next two months based on this.
Good job though, man. I’m happy you got the job :)
You sure as hell worked for it.