Today Java is one of the most widely used and popular programming languages and software development platforms in the world. The technologies related to the Java ecosystem are applied in the majority of hot and trending tech niches, such as artificial intelligence, Big Data, blockchain, Internet of Things, and cloud computing.
As companies these days are increasingly jumping on the cloud computing bandwagon, and Java remains the main development language for enterprise applications, cloud development became one of the major job market niches for Java coders.
So today we are going to talk about Java in cloud development: what you need to know to get a job as a Java Cloud Developer, which tools and technologies are the most important in this field, what exactly Java cloud developers work on, and how much do they earn.
Java cloud development tools and technologies
First, let’s look at the most common Java cloud development tools and platforms that you need to be familiar with in order to work in this niche.
There are multiple tools, as well as guides, code samples, and documentation, provided by Amazon to simplify the development of Java applications on the AWS cloud computing services platform.
The AWS SDK for Java simplifies use of AWS Services by providing a set of libraries that are consistent and familiar to Java developers. It provides support for API lifecycle consideration such as credential management, retries, data marshaling, and serialization. The AWS SDK for Java also supports higher level abstractions for simplified development.
Amazon also provides AWS toolkits for the most popular IDEs, such as IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse. AWS Toolkit for IntelliJ IDEA is an open source plugin that makes it easier to create, debug, and deploy Java applications on Amazon Web Services. With this toolkit, you can get started faster and be more productive when building AWS apps. The toolkit provides an integrated experience for developing serverless applications, including assistance for getting started, step-through debugging, building, and deploying from the IDE.
As an addition, there are multiple AWS-focused open source Java libraries available on Github.
2. Oracle Java Cloud Service.
Oracle also has its platform for Java applications, which is based on Oracle Cloud service.
Oracle Java Cloud Service simplifies the creation, configuration, and management of Java EE application environments in the cloud, including an Oracle WebLogic Server domain. You can run any workload in Oracle Java Cloud Service, and easily scale out your environment based on current business requirements.
This service has a simple wizard allowing you to rapidly create an Oracle Java Cloud Service instance, which is a complete application environment provisioned on top of the infrastructure provided by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The service instance includes Oracle WebLogic Server as the application container, and Oracle Traffic Director as the software load balancer. Optionally, during provisioning, you can specify Oracle Coherence for caching and data grid functionality.
3. Google App Engine.
Google App Engine cloud computing platform also has its set of tools prepared for Java developers.
App Engine offers developers a choice between two environments for Java applications: standard environment and flexible environment. Both environments have the same code-centric developer workflow and scale quickly to handle increasing demand. They allow you to use Google’s serving technology to build web, mobile, and IoT applications quickly and with minimal operational overhead.
4. IBM SmartCloud.
IBM, just like other tech giants mentioned above, also has its cloud computing services platform, IBM Cloud, and offers a set of Java APIs. They are based on the DeveloperCloudClient interface, which holds a number of methods to manage the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise platform and a number of plain old Java objects, which represent each type of resource and object managed by the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise. Java API uses the RESTful API behind the scene.
5. Heroku.
Heroku is another widely popular cloud platform as a service, which supports a number of languages, including Ruby, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go. Java is also on the list of supported languages.
Heroku makes it easy to deploy and scale Java apps. It is capable of running Java applications across a variety of Java implementations and includes support for framework-specific workflows. Regardless of how your source is delivered, Heroku runs it in a smart curated container with your choice of JVM version.
6. Cloud Foundry.
Finally, there is Cloud Foundry, an open source cloud application platform as a service that was originally developed by VMware, later transferred to Pivotal Software, and now is managed by the Cloud Foundry Foundation.
Cloud Foundry Java Buildpack repository, which is designed to convert artifacts that run on the JVM into executable apps by identifying one of the supported artifact types (Grails, Groovy, Java, Play Framework, Spring Boot, and Servlet) and downloading all additional dependencies needed to run, is available on GitHub.
Requirements for Java Cloud Developers
Now let’s look at some of the most typical requirements for Java cloud developers, based on job descriptions for currently open positions in this field.
The basic package to be qualified as a Java cloud developer would make a solid experience in Java Core, J2EE, and most popular Java frameworks, as well as two years or more in cloud development.
Hands-on experience in Java Core, J2EE, Spring, MVC, Web Service, Hibernate, HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, XML, SQL Server, Visual Studio.
Strong experience with cloud platforms and their services.
Minimum 2 years of experience with cloud development, automation and scripting.
There are quite many positions titled AWS Cloud Developer, especially in the United States, and their requirements understandably include experiences with Amazon’s cloud platform, and often AWS Certification as well.
Minimum 2 years of work experience focused on Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud architecture, operations, DevOps, or administration.
AWS Certification.
Understanding of AWS development tools and technologies (serverless technologies (SNS, SQS, Lambdas).
Other frequent requirements for Java cloud developers are these:
Strong hands-on experience and understanding of data structures, algorithms, etc.
Experience designing and building solutions within a cloud-based microservice architecture, using docker containers and RESTful API’s.
Experience working with cloud frameworks like Oauth.
Familiarity with continuous integration and delivery tools/practices (e.g., Jenkins, Bamboo, Concourse, Puppet, Chef).
Java Cloud Developer’s job responsibilities
Of course, Java Cloud Developer jobs can be very different from each other in terms of actual tasks and responsibilities, but here are some of the most common and specific things programmers working in these positions are required to do.
Conceptualization of the design for the application/functionality.
Development of robust and user-friendly Java-based web applications.
Design and Implementation of AWS architectures and environments.
Design of Native Cloud application architectures or optimization of applications for cloud platforms.
Gathering requirements and project specifications for cloud applications.
Java J2SE, J2EE, Spring development per project needs.
How much a Java Cloud Developer can make?
And finally, let’s talk about money. What salary a Java Cloud Developer can expect to get?
According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary of a Java Cloud Developer in the U.S. is $127,353 per year or $61 per hour, with a minimum being $50,500 a year (5% of jobs) and $182,500 a year as a maximum salary (3% of jobs). According to PayScale, an average Senior Java developer with cloud computing skills makes around $130,000 per year in the U.S.
And these figures are likely to stay at the same level or get even higher, as experts predict cloud-related job roles to be some of the highest-paid ones in the tech industry in 2021.
As companies these days are increasingly jumping on the cloud computing bandwagon, and Java remains the main development language for enterprise applications, cloud development became one of the major job market niches for Java coders.
So today we are going to talk about Java in cloud development: what you need to know to get a job as a Java Cloud Developer, which tools and technologies are the most important in this field, what exactly Java cloud developers work on, and how much do they earn.
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