Thoughts on working for a company that uses cloud infrastructure vs. Their own data centers?

Apr 2, 2021 4 Comments

What are your thoughts on working for companies that use cloud infrastructure like Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure or Google GCP vs. Their own data centers (or hybrid)? I have 2 YOE, and I've only ever worked with AWS. While I have never worked with data centers, I only ever hear bad stories from my coworkers who have, and how things took forever and it just wasn't good. But this is capital one we're talking here, so it's definitely not close to data centers at a more techy company.

Should I avoid companies that don't use the cloud after having been spoiled by AWS lambda, dynamoDB, etc.? The company in question (Verizon Media) told me that I would not be working on the infrastructure side since they have dedicated teams for that. I am curious on people's thoughts since I have no experience with that.

I have an offer from another company, a start-up, that uses AWS exclusively, but the offer is lower TC and no equity / stock.

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TOP 4 Comments
  • H-E-B Grocery / Eng
    v28a3b

    Go to company page H-E-B Grocery Eng

    v28a3b
    Avoid companies with their own server farms. The next company you work for after that will wonder why you haven’t had cloud experience in a while
    Apr 2, 2021 1
  • Datadog
    warA88

    Go to company page Datadog

    warA88
    If you are building applications, I think the quality of the platform you run your code is what will matter for you more than cloud vs data center. Borg is frankly nicer than anything I've seen built on the cloud. I'm sure there are plenty of examples in the other direction.

    If you're building the platform, I would recommend spending some time with a data center company. Being exposed to what the metal looks like and how it behaves is very valuable even if you don't want to do that forever.
    Apr 2, 2021 0
  • Amazon
    BlingKing

    Go to company page Amazon

    BlingKing
    Getting new hardware is a lot more painful and has a lot of lead time. Operational load is almost always at least an order of magnitude higher. You'll get a lot of war stories out of the whole deal.
    Apr 2, 2021 0