Have you been wondering what cloud computing roles we have here at Microsoft? Or how we evaluate cloud computing talent? If so, this is the series for you.

Make sure to take a look at the full series:

Part 1: Cloud computing talent: What is it?
Part 2: Cloud computing talent: Who is it?
Part 3: Cloud computing talent: What do we look for?
Part 4: Cloud computing talent: What if no cloud?

Thank you to Chandra Prasad for his insight throughout this series and to Yunus Mohammed for his assistance on Part 2.

Today, we finish up with the peerless Chandra Prasad on Part 5, "Cloud computing talent: Where do I go from here?"

What are the career opportunities you see for cloud computing talent in the years to come?
We believe that we are just in the beginning of the paradigm shift towards the cloud. It is really an exciting time since this kind of a transformation happens infrequently.

The move towards smart devices that are constantly connected with your personal information stored in the cloud is still in its infancy and we think that this trend will continue to dominate over a number of years in the future. The cloud also acts as the nexus point for interactions between people and we will continue to see more and more social interactions that are facilitated by the cloud.
 
Enterprises are also moving more of their applications to the cloud to leverage the scale and lower costs that the cloud enables. A few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine enterprise email being placed outside the boundary of the enterprise, but today this is a growing trend. Over time, enterprises will continue to leverage cloud computing for other applications as the reliability and security guarantees increase and their level of confidence grows.
 
Given the trend both in the consumer software market and the enterprise software market of moving towards the cloud, we expect that there will be increasing opportunities for cloud computing talent for a long time to come.