All about Cloud Engineer

Companies need highly skilled engineers to manage their use of the cloud, including application development, resource allocation and maintenance, and effective use of the features offered by the industry’s primary cloud services—Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. 

And because professionals with these specialized skills are highly valued, they are often well-paid. A cloud engineer’s average annual salary is more than $120,000, plus an additional $10,000 per year in potential bonuses. A key reason for the high salaries is a scarcity of talent. Roughly 90 percent of companies find it difficult to find job candidates with both the technology and business skills required to manage cloud services and other digital transformation initiatives. 

Cloud Engineering

Those in cloud engineering roles assess an organization’s technology infrastructure and explore options for moving to the cloud. If the organization elects to move to the cloud, a cloud engineer is responsible for overseeing the process, referred to as migration, and maintaining the new system. 

Along with these technical skills, cloud engineering requires managerial skills. Engineers are often called upon to negotiate with vendors, coordinate with other IT team members, and communicate with senior leadership about the progress of a cloud migration project. 

Cloud Architecture

These roles focus primarily on assembling the cloud infrastructure, Mullen says. Within a cloud environment, there are numerous computing, networking, and security services that all need to be configured properly. Configuration serves two key roles: To ensure that the right users have access to the right services (depending on their role within the organization) and that the company doesn’t incur unexpected or unnecessary charges. 

Contracts to use cloud services can be as concrete as charging to rent hardware to store data, or as abstract as charging to execute a function within a line of code, Mullen notes. This variability means architects need to pay close attention to the fine print of cloud contracts and compare that to how their organization intends to use a cloud-based service. 

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