The competition for top talent in cloud computing is heating up as giants of the platform like Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. battle with each other and the thousands of other businesses rushing to expand their use of the technology.

Demand for online tools skyrocketed during the pandemic as people worked, schooled and entertained themselves from home. This trend has left some companies struggling to find people to staff their Web operations, triggering the biggest current talent need in the tech industry.