No tech background, can you still become a strong cloud engineer?

Yes, you can. The defining quality of a cloud engineer is to keep learning: the more you learn, the better you work with the technology. Keeping abreast of emerging AWS services, attending conferences and events, and reading good documentation are how you become sought-after. The AWS best practices are a solid place to start.

The edge was never the background, it's the discipline to keep learning faster than the tools change.