Serverless offers exciting possibilities for tech professionals and organizations across the AWS ecosystem, providing you know how to harness its power effectively.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, that’s often easier said than done—so we reached out to an expert for a helping hand. And when it comes to serverless experts, there’s arguably nobody better than Marko (Serverless Life).
Marko is an AWS-certified professional and serverless advocate with over 20 years of experience in the industry. He has been passionate about serverless technologies since 2017, sharing market-leading insights on serverless architectures and best practices on his blog, Serverless Life. Marko’s contribution to the open-source community and dedication to advancing the technology have also earned him the title of AWS Community Builder.
With 30% of AWS partners in the Jefferson Frank Careers and Hiring Guide: AWS Edition reporting serverless as one of the most in-demand products amongst their clients in the past 12 months, one thing’s for sure—it pays to know how to maximize your serverless potential.
From how talent can overcome the challenges of serverless to what skills organizations need to get ahead, read our full interview with Marko below—and don’t forget to head over to our Careers and Hiring Guide to check out more of his invaluable insights.
What are the main motivators driving the continued adoption of serverless?
Serverless is like a superpower—one developer can build and maintain systems that previously required entire teams.
Cloud providers handle most of the infrastructure, allowing developers to focus on delivering business value. This flexibility leads to faster development cycles and lower total ownership costs. In many cases, serverless systems can be much cheaper than traditional ones, sometimes significantly so. However, savings depend on the cloud provider. For instance, you shouldn’t expect much cost reduction with platforms like Vercel or similar providers that don’t own their infrastructure.
What are the main challenges organizations will likely face with serverless, and what steps can they take to overcome them?
For complex systems, serverless comes with a steep learning curve, as it requires a shift in mindset from traditional infrastructure management to a fully event-driven, microservices-based architecture. Developers must adapt to new patterns of building, deploying, and scaling applications, as well as mastering serverless-specific tools and services.
The developer experience isn’t great, but that has improved with tools that offer remote debugging, like Lambda Live Debugger. This helps avoid the cumbersome cycle of developing, deploying, and testing that often frustrates developers.
Monitoring and troubleshooting are more complex in serverless architectures due to their distributed nature. It’s difficult to get a comprehensive view of the entire system, and troubleshooting often requires gathering logs from multiple components, which can be challenging. While tools for distributed tracing can help, it also adds another layer of complexity that you need to manage.
Moreover, it’s challenging to find developers with deep expertise in serverless, and companies need to recognize that they should pay a premium for these skills. Those that can deliver the work of multiple traditional developers, make their contributions highly valuable and worth the investment.
What core skills and experience do employers need on their teams to utilize serverless to its full potential?
Serverless developers need to wear multiple hats, combining both development and infrastructure responsibilities.
They should be proficient in cloud platforms like AWS, with a strong understanding of event-driven architectures and microservices, and have solid experience with infrastructure-as-code tools for managing deployments and automating infrastructure.
Employers should seek out candidates who can seamlessly balance development with operational tasks, ensuring that serverless systems are both efficient and secure.
What impact has the recent evolution of AI had on approaches to serverless, and what new opportunities does this unlock for organizations?
AI and serverless are a natural combination. Many AI providers expose their services as APIs, which are serverless by nature. This allows businesses to integrate machine learning models and other AI-driven services without worrying about the infrastructure.
This powerful combination unlocks new opportunities for innovation, allowing companies to deploy AI-driven solutions without having to manage complex infrastructure.
How do you expect serverless to evolve in the next few years, and what can organizations do to stay at the forefront of this innovation?
Serverless is steadily proving its value and is on track to become the norm for many applications. However, to make serverless a default solution for everyone, there needs to be more investment in education.
Cloud providers must also continue to simplify serverless offerings, making them easier to adopt and more accessible. Organizations can stay ahead by fostering a culture of continuous learning, investing in serverless training, and keeping pace with the evolving toolsets and best practices in the serverless ecosystem.
For more unmissable advice from Marko on all things serverless, check out his contribution to our Careers and Hiring Guide, and connect with him on LinkedIn, X, and GitHub.
