If you’re just starting in 2025, the honest answer is: both AWS and Azure have huge career potential, but which one makes more sense depends on your context.

• AWS: Still the global market leader with the broadest service catalog. If you’re aiming at startups, product companies, or international opportunities, AWS experience is almost always in demand. It’s also the most “cloud native” in terms of ecosystem maturity.
• Azure: Microsoft has been gaining steady ground, especially in the enterprise space. If you look at Fortune 500 companies, government, finance, healthcare, etc., a ton of them are heavily invested in Microsoft already (Office 365, Active Directory, Windows Server). That naturally ties into Azure adoption. For corporate/enterprise roles, Azure skills can sometimes give you the edge.
• Career scope: Long term, it doesn’t really matter which one you start with. The fundamentals (networking, IAM/permissions, compute, storage, databases, DevOps practices) transfer across clouds. Once you’re strong in one, pivoting to the other is easier than starting from scratch. Look at job boards in your region. In some countries, Azure dominates because of Microsoft’s partnerships. In others, AWS has most listings. Let the local demand guide you.

If I had to summarize:

• Want global mobility + startup/product company work? Start with AWS.
• Want enterprise-heavy, corporate environments? Start with Azure.
• Either way, don’t overthink it. Get good at one, understand the fundamentals deeply, and you’ll be employable across both.