The convergence of the rise of Automation, Cloud computing and DevOps has led many people to think that the medium to long term future of the Systems Engineer is bleak. Thinking that if everything is in the Cloud and we have automated “all the things” what is the value of the VMware, server, storage and network architect and engineer? The answer is in the classical Leigh Matthews statement “nothing is ever as bad or as good as you think.” There are still Mainframes out there, 20 years after people thought they would go away.

The reality is that 3-4 years ago everyone thought that everything was going to move to the Public Cloud.  The maturity of the market has resulted in a realisation that some things just don’t belong in the Public Cloud and that a Hybrid Cloud will be the predominant architecture for many years to come. Organisations are realising that a more pragmatic fit for purpose/best of breed approach works best. 

However, we all need to evolve to stay relevant and complacency will definitely result in limited job opportunities.

Here are 6 things you can do to stay relevant and ahead of the market.