Career Advice
Paul Brown
22.08.2024
FDM’s Tech Week is a regular, week-long online program which we host in various centres around the world. Each daily interactive workshop is info-packed, as our experts address a key, future-focused topic around the technology career space and, more importantly, how you could fit in.
Held every few months, our fourth APAC Tech Week took place in April 2022 with record registrations. Because the most popular topic of the week was Life in the Cloud and Cyber Security, we thought we’d dive a little deeper into this fascinating world and its exciting opportunities.
What is Cloud Computing?
Wikipedia describes cloud computing as “the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage and computing power, without direct active management by the user.”
Basically, what that means is software and services that are accessed through the internet, instead of on your own computer.
During the Tech Week workshop Carles, one of FDM’s star Academy Trainers, introduced us to a quick history and the importance of the cloud. Though ‘cloud’ has been used as a word to describe computer network connectivity since the early 1990s, the contemporary notions of the PAAS (platform as a service) and SAAS (software as a service) Cloud functions have been around for 15 years.
There are many advantages to businesses using cloud solutions, primarily in time and money savings. Because remote servers handle much of the computing and storage, they don’t need expensive, high-end hardware running pricey software that needs regular updating. This allows companies to better focus on what gives their customers real value.
Of course, computing speed over the cloud is only as fast as your internet connection and, yes, Australia’s NBN can handle a pretty good rate of data. (Not as good as Trinidad & Tobago but ok…) Hong Kong and China are comfortably in the top 20, with Singapore taking the prize for world’s fastest!
Another huge advantage is universal access. With so many companies following a hybrid working model, it’s a great boon when that Word doc you were fine-tuning on your home laptop is right there when you fire up your office PC.
However, because your information lives online, there’s always the risk of it getting into the wrong hands. To protect their data from hackers, companies need to have effective security measures in place.
The Cyber Security Imperative
Cyber-attack is a constant and growing threat, with new methods being attempted every day. Carles gave us a graphic illustration of the round-the-clock activities of hackers.
A correlating effect within careers in tech is a large and rapidly growing demand to fill cyber security roles in the public and private sectors.
For example, Project REDSPICE, the Australian government’s recently announced $10Billion initiative creating 1,900 data science, intelligence and cyber security jobs over the next 10 years. In 2021, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released their $39 billion plan to strengthen data security technology. While, aiming to become a tech-driven Smart Nation, the Singapore government has committed $1 billion to build their security capabilities. And Hong Kong is committed to being a Smart City with cybersecurity professionals in the top 5 in-demand tech talent for 2022.
Our other star FDM Tech Week panelist was Sales Account Manager, Ed, who shared some of the cloud and cyber career opportunities within our client partners’ teams in industries such as banking and financial services, consulting and insurance.
Ed points out that demand for cyber professionals in Australia is looking to be 20,000+ over the next 3 years, with some areas going up by 60% year-on-year. Advertised jobs in this space take among the longest to fill and FDM is geared to building that talent pipeline.
Ed breaks down the range of ‘cyber’ roles into 3 broad categories:
Technical cyber security – your more hardcore cyber security engineers tackling trojans, ransomware etc, where you’ll find penetration testers, that particular technical breed who likes to break things.
Middle ground – more of a technical generalist space, requiring some technical understanding but also performing business facing tasks as well. This leads to roles like cyber security operational centre, analysts, system administrators, cloud engineers, systems & network engineers – techy but as heavy on Cyber security tools as the penetration dudes.
Non-technical – more on cyber risk side of things, could be involved with government regulations, ensuring their company is on top of cyber security emerging technology, essentially business analyst type roles but concerned with internal audits, control, assurance and risk as it relates to cyber.
What’s it Like Working in Cyber?
During the Tech Week session, we were fortunate to hear from two of our FDM Consultants who are currently involved in the cyber space.
Maria, who graduated with a Bachelor of Business Technology is an Identity Access Management (IAM) consultant in one of the big 4 accounting organisations. She had no IAM experience before being placed but found that her training in the FDM technical analysis stream gave her the grounding she needed to easily pick it up on the job. She was also very happy to have lots of female role models and support in the cyber team.
Kirin, with a Bachelor of business, joined FDM in the business analysis project support stream and is now in a cyber security role at a big 4 bank. What she particularly enjoys is the freedom to follow her curiosity and do things her way. With guidance, she can experiment with methods and processes to find what works for her.
There is definitely a steep learning curve in cyber but both consultants agree that their environment gave them the opportunity meet and learn from many amazing people – communication is critical.
How Can You Get into the Cloud or Cyber Security?
As Carles suggested, it’s not a bad idea to do a little independent exploration online to see if it’s a world that interests you. For instance, AWS has free training modules to give you an understanding of AWS jobs working in the Cloud, from beginner to advanced. You can get live, hands-on experience with the free Google Cloud training or Qwiklabs which has a free introductory package.
After you apply to the FDM Graduate Career Program, one of our recruitment team will contact you by phone. While they get to know you, they can also recommend resources for you to look into that will help you better understand and prepare for the pathway that best suits you.
FDM’s Technical Graduate Program, offered in all our locations, equips you with everything you need to launch a successful tech career. As Maria discovered, the comprehensive training gives you foundation skills to branch out into an amazing variety of roles. You could have the opportunity to become a cloud engineer or cyber security analyst, but also many more. The sky’s the limit and once you’ve started your tech journey you can develop your skills in any direction you want to go.
Don’t worry if you didn’t major in a STEM subject, at FDM, we know that graduates from any degree background have the potential for a successful career in tech. The number one quality in your favour is your mindset. With ambition, drive, resilience and passion you could launch an exciting career placed as an FDM Consultant. Two years’ experience working as an integrated team member with one of our industry-leading client partners will give your CV the turbocharge that opens doors to unlimited possibilities.
Find out more about working in the exciting world of cloud computing: