Cloud Engineer : Roles Responsibilities And All You Need To Know

The way Cloud Computing has emerged over the last couple of years and the subsequent rise of Cloud Engineers is nothing short of incredible. So, no surprise that the role continues to grow in prominence with employers. This article will help you understand some of the important Cloud Engineer roles and responsibilities. You can learn more from the Cloud Computing Online Course.

Let’s get started.

Cloud Engineer Roles and Responsibilities

A Cloud Engineer is an IT professional responsible for a number of  technological responsibilities under Cloud Computing. I will assume that you are aware of what Cloud Computing is. If not, please go through this article: What is Cloud Computing?

Getting back to the subject at hand, here are some of the responsibilities of a Cloud Engineer:

• Maintenance and support
• Management
• Planning, design and development of an application on Cloud

That means your role as a Cloud Engineer may vary depending upon the vertical you serve. You may serve as:

• Cloud Security Engineer
• Systems Engineer (Cloud)
• Cloud Developer
• Cloud Architect
• Network Engineer (Cloud)

Just so that I am clear, these are just some of the designations. Nowadays Cloud Service Providers have a lot of services to offer. This means whether you are a Data Scientist, Game Developer, or a Management Consultant, there is something you can do using the Cloud. Because the Cloud is everywhere, there is tremendous variety in roles and designations.

However, if we focus on the fundamentals, we can bucket Cloud Engineers into three overarching categories.

Major Types Of Cloud Engineers

The three major categories are:

• Solutions Architect
• Cloud Developer
• System Operations Engineer

Based on above categories Cloud Engineer roles and responsibilities may vary. Let me throw some light on each of these roles:

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Solutions Architect

These are the individuals who will be involved in designing the infrastructure and applications. Therefore, they must possess advanced technical skills and experience in designing distributed applications and systems on the Cloud platform. Simply speaking, they are responsible for creating blueprints of application designs.

These are some of their responsibilities:

• Designing and deploying dynamically scalable, available, fault-tolerant, and reliable applications on the Cloud
• Selecting appropriate Cloud services to design and deploy an application based on given requirements
• Migrating complex, multi-tier applications on Cloud Platforms
• Designing and deploying enterprise-wide scalable operations on Cloud Platforms
• Implementing cost-control strategies

You can even check out the details of Azure with the Azure Course online.

Cloud Developer

It is pretty clear from the title that these individuals are responsible for coding and development of applications. They are expected to have knowledge of the best practices related to Cloud architecture. Cloud Developers are also involved in developing, deploying, and debugging cloud-based applications. They are expected to have:

• Expertise in at least one high-level programming language
• Skills for developing, deploying & debugging cloud applications
• Skills in API usage, command line interface and SDKs for writing applications
• Knowledge of key features of Cloud Service Providers
• Understanding of application lifecycle management
• Ability to use continuous integration and distribution pipelines to deploy applications
• Ability to code to implement essential security measures
• Skills in writing, correcting and debugging code modules
• Code writing skills for serverless applications
• Understanding in the use of containers in development processes

Join our Google Cloud Certification program to know more about Google Cloud Architecture.

System Operations Engineer

These individuals are system administrators who take over once the application is designed and developed. They are responsible for managing and monitoring most of the activities that follow the process of development. They should possess the following skills:

• Relevant experience as a systems administrator in a systems operations role
• Ability to work with virtualization technology
• Experience in monitoring and auditing systems
• Knowledge of networking concepts (e.g., DNS, TCP/IP, and firewalls)
• Ability to translate architectural requirements
• Ability to deploy, manage, and operate scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant systems
• Knowhow to implement and control the flow of data, to and from a service provider
• Capability to select the appropriate services based on compute, data, or security requirements
• Abiity to estimate usage costs and identify operational cost control mechanisms
• Capability to migrate on-premises workload to service providers

I hope the distinction between the three is clear and easy to understand. This brings us to the end of this article on ‘Cloud Engineer Roles and Responsibilities’. In case you are wondering how one becomes a cloud engineer and what approach to take to become one, here’s an article to answer all your questions: How To Become A Cloud Engineer?

This brings us to the end of this article. I hope I cleared some of your doubts about Cloud Engineering. In case you plan on taking your knowledge on Cloud Computing to the next level, then Edureka’s Cloud Architect Course may just be the thing you are looking for. If you have any queries related to this article please leave them in the comments section below and we will revert as soon as possible or join our GCP Training in Charlotte.

Happy Learning!