Recently, Rackspace and NASA joined together and produced OpenStack. Having launched in 2010, it’s quickly boomed to become one of the best open source communities in the world. As a user of OpenStack you can either manage your data via a RESTful API command-line tools or a web-based dashboard. The bonus of all of this? It’s free!

As a member of a startup company, you may want to become invested in the world of open source communities, such as OpenStack. As a new business however, you may see the benefit of this new era platform but may be daunted by the idea of adopting this new technology.

This is where an OpenStack Expert will come in handy, commonly known as a Cloud Engineer. How’s that for a title? The difference, here, between a run of the mill Cloud Engineer and an OpenStack Expert is that the latter has specific skills to work on OpenStack, whereas their counterparts may not.

If you plan to use OpenStack as your main platform then it is recommended that you look for a specific OpenStack Engineer.

While OpenStack offers courses for the public via their Training Marketplace, it can be as simple as clicking on freelancer.com and searching for OpenStack Engineers or experts. Freelancer.com gives these sought after new-age professionals a platform to market their skills to the public.

Freelancer.com will let you know who you are dealing with, as you browse through their qualifications, experience and history of past projects. It couldn’t be easier!

The qualifications that an OpenStack Expert should have under their belt should be clearly outlined. They would have obtained this via one of three routes, namely –

OpenStack’s Training Marketplace utilizing one of the following companies – Rackspace, Mirantis, The Linus Foundation and SwiftStack, to name a few.

OpenStack’s Documentation Guide comes equipped with summit videos, books which can be purchased and an open forum to hear from other users.

OpenStack Bootcamps – the companies mentioned above in the Training Marketplace offer these bootcamps on many levels. Look out for the Advanced level as a notation against your OpenStack Expert’s resume.

In addition, the OpenStack Expert should be able to show you their experience in the way of references from their past clients. Via Freelancer.com you will be able to seek out past employers by obtaining their Freelancer user name and sending them a message of enquiry.

The engineer also receives a star rating on Freelancer, which will show you their level of ability and potential to be further referred. With these nuggets of gold building up their reputation, you want to nab one of them soon and utilizing Freelancer to do so makes for easy hunting.

If you’re looking for a solution for your OpenStack needs or if you are looking to trial a freelancer to see if they provide the levels of expertise you are looking for, using a platform such as Freelancer.com is a fantastic option.

Simply log onto the Freelancer.com website and search through a bank of talented freelancers who are willing and able to provide their services to you for your project.