3 Answers
Kevin,
I think that depends on many things. Like your background (system admin, network engineer, developer), skill level, and where you live. So it’s hard to say what a starting salary would be. If your just starting your career in IT/Computer Engineering your salary would be lower.
Echoing what Harrison said, comes down to your background. The kind of work you’d be doing in a role would dictate the salary, more than the certification itself. Certifications can definitely help get you the roles, but experience plays a large part in it.
Expanding on the location aspect, it depends a lot if GCP skills are in demand in your local job market. I know where I live in Melbourne, Australia, there are plenty of jobs in GCP, but only about 10% of the amount in AWS. Local market research is important.
Also it really depends on which route you have selected to go down. For example, here is a basic Junior Cloud Operation Engineer Job Specification:
• Proven experience working with the Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Wider knowledge of AWS/Azure is desirable, but GCP is the main focus of the role so I would argue it is the key requirement.
• Commercial experience working with DevOps/CI/CD tools and technologies including Docker, Kubernetes, Ansible, Jenkins and Terraform.
• Good skills in scripting and programming (e.g. Bash, Python).
• Experience with Windows and/or Linux operating systems.
• Good understanding of networking (WAN, LAN, VPC, VPN).
• Understanding of Agile (Scrum) methodologies.
These will change depending on what area you are looking to go down.