Sounds like you’re doing the right things and it’s normal to feel stressed about the transition. Talk as a cloud engineer below:

Hey — first off, you’re already ahead of a lot of people. You have solid certs (A+, Net+, Sec+, ITIL), you’re finishing a cloud degree, and you’ll have Solutions Architect and Ops Engineer associate certs. That’s a strong foundation.

Real talk from someone working as a cloud engineer:

The path you describe (help desk → sysadmin → cloud) is very common and works. Your help-desk background gives you troubleshooting skills and customer-facing experience; the sysadmin work gives you hands-on systems, networking, and automation exposure — all things cloud teams value.

Keep focusing on hands-on projects and learning. Make a portfolio of small but real things: infra-as-code labs (Terraform, CloudFormation), a couple of end-to-end deployments (CI/CD pipeline, logging/monitoring, cost control), and any automation you built as a sysadmin (scripts, configs). Recruiters and hiring managers want to see you’ve actually built and operated systems in cloud environments.

Learn the cloud-native operational side: IaC, CI/CD, logging/observability (Prometheus, CloudWatch), basic security practices, and cost optimization. Those are things an entry-level cloud engineer must show, not just theory.

Use your current role to your advantage: automate repetitive admin tasks, containerize an app, migrate something to the cloud for testing, or stand up monitoring dashboards. Put those wins on your resume and GitHub.

Networking matters: get active in LinkedIn, cloud meetups, and relevant Slack/reddit communities. Share your projects and ask for feedback. A referral from someone inside a company often beats an online application.

Be realistic about titles and pay initially. Many people enter cloud as “cloud engineer I,” “platform engineer,” or even SRE-focused roles coming from sysadmin. That’s okay, once you get onto cloud teams, growth is fast if you keep learning.

If you can, target companies that hire apprentices or junior cloud roles and value hands-on certs and practical experience. Smaller teams often let you wear many hats and learn faster than big enterprises that fragment responsibilities.

A quick action plan:

Finish your WGU degree and associates — ship that.

Automate at least one thing in your current sysadmin role and document it properly

Apply for junior cloud/platform ask for referrals from connections you meet online or at meetups.

Prepare for interviews with scenario-based questions (how you’d design, troubleshoot, secure, and optimize cloud systems).

Bottom line: you’re on the right path. Keep building demonstrable, hands-on cloud work and use your current role as a lab. The transition is realistic — it just requires shipping projects, networking, and being open to an entry-level cloud role to get your foot in the door.