2019 will be the year of the cloud system maker

There's a culture in the US called the maker culture, a hipster phenomenon. Related to the hacker culture, it represents a technology-based extension of the DIY culture that revels in the creation of new devices or systems.

I've been a maker for years. For me to feel like I'm accomplishing anything, I need to build physical things such as racing drones, motorcycles, books, on-demand video courses, and, yes, cloud-based software systems. If I don't make things, I feel a bit empty and unfulfilled. I know there are many people out there who share this condition.

Being a maker involves taking some sort of risk. The risk of failure is the reason many nonmakers use to avoid building things or systems. Dare I say that nonmakers are typically holding leadership positions, typically supervising the makers? This has been the way it's been for hundreds of years.

However, those who make stuff are moving up in status and pay these days, and that's especially true in the cloud. Look at any recent job board: The top cloud and IT gigs are for those who build things—architects, engineers, developers, database developers, data scientists, and AI specialists.

While you could certainly say this has always been the focus in IT, the better-paying gigs with more status have been in IT planning positions, where nothing actually gets made. In the past, there was a clear separation between those who plan and direct and those who built. Now we're removing that separation through the use of cloud computing and devops, as well as other technologies.

Today, those who make also plan while they make. We've done this to optimize the value that we get out of technology by removing the separations among planning, developing, and operating. Today, these are often carried out by a single person. The culture is less formal, as are the processes, and nothing stands between the maker's ability to make things to solve business problems or meet a need of the market.

This is why I'm stating that 2019 will be the year of the cloud system maker. Those will be the hottest positions that will pay the most money. I also think those positions have the job satisfaction potential to make up the happiest group of staff or workers. I'm already one of them.