What is a Cloud Engineer? What Do They Do?

In this day and age of cloud computing platforms, which are increasingly being used by software companies around the world, the reliance on onsite data centers and server rooms is becoming less and less as time goes on as a result of technological advancements. There has been a lot of discussion about cloud computing since around 1996, but it really came into its own around 2006 when Amazon.com released its first Elastic Compute Cloud product, which has since become a worldwide phenomenon.

Now, what exactly does cloud computing mean? This term gives a broader picture of the availability of computer resources like storage devices, computing power, high capacity networks, applications, physical and virtual servers, etc at a reasonable rate. In simple language, it means the availability of resources over the internet as per the demand. The main technology behind cloud computing is virtualization which means the separation of one physical computing device into two or more virtual devices which are capable of performing different computing tasks.

Benefits of cloud computing:

1. Cost Effective

2. Reliability

3. Flexibility

4. Security

5. Efficiency

6. Ease of access

There are different types of cloud deployment models and cloud services available. The three main cloud deployment models are:

• Public cloud: It means the availability of resources over the public internet to multiple organizations.
  
• Private cloud: This means the availability of resources to a single organization over a private internal network.
  
• Hybrid cloud: It is a combination of both public and private clouds.

Different cloud services are:

• IaaS(Infrastructure as a service): It is also known as Hardware as a Service. It provides virtual hardware that replaces physical hardware and enables high-performance computing.
  
• PaaS(Platform as a service): It provides a runtime environment. It also adds operating systems and softwares to IaaS. 
  
• SaaS(Software as a service): It is a software licensing and delivery model where applications are subscribed to and accessed over the internet.

This was the basic insight on cloud and cloud computing. With cloud adoption growing at an exponential rate, cloud experts are often in high demand. As a result, new job roles are emerging in the cloud industry, such as that of a Cloud Engineer. Now let’s deep dive into what is cloud engineering and what does a Cloud Engineer do?

What is Cloud Engineering?

Cloud engineering is the term associated with the concept of cloud computing. It helps in using the tools and methods of engineering to maximize the advantage of cloud resources to provide solutions to business problems.

Who is a Cloud Engineer and What Do They Do?

Cloud engineers are IT professionals who are responsible for designing, developing, maintaining, and troubleshooting cloud infrastructure on a daily basis, as well as communicating with end users.

Cloud Engineer on the whole combines various cloud-related roles and each role emphasizes a particular kind of cloud computing. Among the many roles that cloud engineers can play are cloud architecting (conceptualizing cloud solutions), cloud development (employing cloud coding), cloud administration (managing cloud networks), and cloud security.

The following skills are required for a cloud engineer:

• Degree in Computer Science or related fields.
  
• Must be a problem solver
  
• Knows how to troubleshoot technical issues.
  
• Data analytics skills are also required.
  
• Must have the ability to think critically and creatively for planning and developing cloud applications.
  
• Knowledge of some of the cloud platforms.

The Demand for Cloud Engineers:

Since the market is booming in cloud technology and most companies are migrating their business to the cloud, there is great demand for cloud engineers and their related roles. By 2022 there will be a huge demand for such kinds of jobs and one can get a good pay scale according to their work experience in the field.

Cloud Engineer Salary

The salary of a cloud engineer depends on various factors like skills or profile, location, experience, and company. Below we are going to discuss each of the factors separately.

Pay by Experience

Experience plays a major role in deciding one’s salary structure. As you climb the ladder of knowledge in a cloud career, the pay structure gets better according to that. The more you learn, the more you earn.

Beginners: An entry-level cloud engineer with 1-2 years of experience in India has an average annual salary of around Rs 5,40,000 p.a.

Mid-Senior: Engineers at this level have experience of 5-8 years. Their approximate salary in India is Rs 10,00,000 p.a.

Expert: Engineers at this level have experience of 10-15 years. Their approximate salary in India is Rs 21,00,000 p.a.

Experience	Average Salary (per annum)
Beginner	Rs 5,40,000
Mid-Level	Rs 10,00,000
Expert	Rs 21,00,000

Pay by Location

Different locations have different demands of a specific technology and role. 

India:

Here we have discussed the salary of the cloud engineers in major IT hubs in India i.e. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra.

Karnataka offers the highest salary among the three states and it is approximately around Rs.17,94,332 p.a. Below mentioned table gives insights of other states as :

State	Salary (per annum)
Karnataka	Rs. 17,94,732
Maharashtra	Rs. 16,00,398
Tamil Nadu	Rs. 13,17,345
Uttar Pradesh	Rs, 10,35,650
Haryana	Rs. 9,00,000

The image given below shows the difference in salaries by location:

Source

United States:

Now talking about salary insights in various US locations, New York pays the highest salary to a cloud engineer which is approximately around  $137,674 per year, and the second highest salary is offered in Reston which is around $136,579 per year. The below-mentioned table gives a glance at payout offered in different cities: 

Source

Pay by Company

As most companies are moving towards the cloud, the demand for experts in this technology is increasing and salary varies depending upon the company. Here is the list of some top companies along with their salary which they offer to the cloud engineers in India:

Company	Salary (per annum)
Nivio Technologies	Rs. 18,53,084
Microsoft	Rs. 14,00,000
Microland	Rs. 13,45,871
Adobe	Rs. 7,60,000
HCL Technologies	Rs. 7,00,000

Next here is the list of the annual salary of some major recruiters in the US:

Company	Average Salary (per annum)
Resolute Technologies, LLC	$170,000
VMware	$160,996
Amazon	$135,000
Accenture Cloud Engineer	$127,329
Microsoft Cloud Engineer	$114,986

Pay based on Profile

There are different roles related to cloud computing which one can opt for as a Cloud Engineer and based on those roles salary also differs. So here is the list of salaries of cloud engineers based on their profiles:

Job Role	Average Salary (per annum)
Solution Architect	$123,140
DevOps Engineer	$133,378
SysOps Engineer	$108,047

How to Become a Cloud Engineer?

Cloud Engineering is a field that is evolving at a great pace. Any particular path or steps are not there to be an expert in any kind of field, it’s mere hard work, dedication, and interest to learn something new and remain updated. 

First of all, having a clear idea of what a person wants as a profession in cloud engineering is very important because cloud engineering is just like an umbrella that encompasses many other professions related to it and each profession has a different requirement for its expertise. Following are the requirements to become a cloud engineer:

• Qualification: The first thing one needs for being a cloud engineer is to gain a bachelor’s degree in computer science or related fields so that the person has technical knowledge of system infrastructure, software, and other technical subjects. Having a master’s in the specified technology will provide better job opportunities because of having an advanced level of knowledge.
  
• Programming Language: One should learn programming languages like JAVA, Python, Ruby, etc as it will be beneficial while performing your job. Apart from these languages, you should be familiar with cloud services like Hadoop, AWS, and Azure.
  
• Acquire Relevant Skills: Cloud computing skills like cloud security, cloud deployment and migration across multiple platforms, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc.
  
• Gain Practical Experience: Having hands-on experience in technology through open-source projects or internships will be of great help when you will be looking forward to such kinds of job profiles. 
  
• Acquire a Certification: Then finally gaining certification from professional cloud providers like Amazon, Microsoft or Google will indicate the level of your skill and hands-on experience in the technology.

The career Path of a cloud engineer is mentioned below:

1. Learn Software concepts

2. Gain knowledge in cloud concepts like basics, deployment models, clustering, serverless cloud model, CI/DI, virtualization, etc.

3. Gain knowledge of cloud tools like VMware, dockers, Jenkins, etc.

4. Get certified in any of the cloud platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, Azure

5. At last, apply for jobs and gain experience.

Cloud Engineer Skills

Each cloud engineer role demands a specific kind of skills to be an expert in and some of those skills are listed below:

1. Database skills: Cloud professionals should have hands-on knowledge of cloud database management, MySQL and Hadoop.

2. Storage skills: Cloud professionals should have an understanding of what kind of storage (personal cloud, public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud) their organization needs based on the available data. 

3. Linux: Many companies use Linux for cloud development, so it’s important for a cloud engineer to have a basic understanding of the Linux operating system, its administration, and maintenance.

4. Programming: Cloud engineers should have basic programming skills for example they must be familiar with a few of the programming languages such as SQL, .NET, Python, Golang, etc.

5. DevOps: It’s a popular cloud engineering framework, so having a deep understanding of this framework is more beneficial from an employer’s point of view. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a skill that is in great demand by cloud providers.

6. Networking: Basic understanding of virtual networks and network management functions is also preferable for Cloud Engineers.

7. Containerization: Cloud engineers should know the concept of docker, Kubernetes, and containerization tools.

8. Virtualization: Cloud Engineers should be aware of how to implement and execute application software on virtual machines as it removes the dependency on hardware and minimizes the cost of arranging resources.

9. Web Services and Application Programming Interfaces (API): Cloud engineers should have some understanding of Open Standards like XML, SOAP, WSDL, etc. For tagging, transferring, and describing the data these standards must be known.

10. Security and Recovery: Nowadays, security is the major concern for all organizations, and data leakage is very common, so the organization keeps an eye on their security mechanism and provides the necessary measures to protect their data and application. Hence, a candidate must brush up on these skills also.

11. Cloud Service Provider: Try to find what the cloud providers offer as a prerequisite and get yourself honed in those skills so that survival in this domain becomes easier. Get familiar with cloud services like Google Cloud Platform(GCP), Azure, AWS, etc.

Before having the above skills a candidate must have basic education and certifications as listed below to become a cloud engineer:

• Education: A cloud engineer should have a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. Also, some companies prefer a candidate having a master’s degree in the same discipline.
  
• Certifications: There are few professional certifications that a company prefers apart from having the basic education necessary for cloud engineering, and those certifications are provided by famous cloud providers like Microsoft and AWS.

Cloud Engineer Job Description

In this particular section, we are going to focus on the expectations that a cloud engineer is supposed to meet. Different companies have different requirements and responsibilities, some of the responsibilities are listed below:

• Designing, developing, architecting, and deploying cloud-native applications.
  
• Working together with the development team and other technical professionals to create enterprise solutions as per the technical and business requirements.
  
• Actively contributing to the adoption of strong cloud architecture, development, and engineering best practices, and therefore the adoption of the latest cloud technologies. 
  
• Review the existing system regularly and do modifications as per the requirement.
  
• Identify and fix the issues that occur during application deployment. 
  
• Document the strategies and practices that are necessary for the deployment and maintenance of an application or an infrastructure.
  
• Providing guidance, thought leadership, and mentorship to development teams to build cloud competencies.
  
• Describing complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.

Cloud Engineers are also hired based on their experience:

• Entry-level engineers: 0-2 years of experience which may include internships
  
• Mid-level engineers: 2-5 years of experience 
  
• Senior-level/Advanced-level engineers: 5+ years of experience in cloud services like open source technology, software development, scripting language, system engineering, and some background in designing web services in the cloud.
  

Responsibilities increase as per the level. Now let’s have a look at some of the basic requirements for a cloud engineer:

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or mathematics. 
  
• 2+ years of experience architecting, developing, designing, and implementing cloud solutions on AWS platforms.
  
• Strong knowledge of Docker or other container technologies.
  
• Experience with Github Actions and Jenkins or other CI/CD tools.
  
• Ability to collaborate across multi-discipline teams on architecture, features, and problem-solving.
  

Let’s have a look at a sample job description for a cloud engineer at Thomson Reuters:

We are currently seeking a highly motivated software developer who also has solid cloud database technical experience for the position of Software Engineer within our Infrastructure Hosting and Networks group. In this role, you will collaborate with technology peers and business partners to build and deploy the foundation for the next generation of modern cloud-native services for Thomson Reuters.

You will be part of a fast-paced, entrepreneurial, and high-performing team at the heart of the Thomson Reuters transformation, developing cloud-native tools for database services, focusing on Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. You will be challenged with identifying innovative ideas and developing proof of concepts to deliver against the needs of our customers.

Your Role Will Include Working With The Following Technologies

As a Software Engineer with a focus on cloud database development, it is critical to have a passion for software development in the cloud and a focus on growth and improvement as we continue to modernize our systems.

About The Role

In this opportunity as Cloud Engineer- Database Development, you will:

• Develop cloud database tools and utilities for provisioning database clusters and automating schema changes.
  
• Design and document database architectural standards.
  
• Evaluate cloud database technologies and document best practices.
  
• Analyze capacity and performance requirements.
  
• Work with database schemas, tables, and permissions.
  
• Assist other teams with relational and non-relational databases.
  
• Work in a highly collaborative and dynamic matrix agile team environment with multiple levels of technical staff across various geographical locations to build cloud-native databases, services, and tools.
  
• Articulate complex problems, concepts, and solutions through formal and informal means to global technical and non-technical audiences
  
• Apply principles of trust, transparency, accountability, and ownership.

About You

• 2+ years of experience with cloud databases and infrastructure and experience with agile software development
  
• Experience with Microsoft SQL Server, RDS Aurora, Postgres, MySQL, Oracle, etc.
  
• Experience with Windows and Linux servers
  
• Learn new technologies quickly
  
• Build cloud-native applications and services following cloud-native architecture methodologies running in the public cloud
  
• Communicate and present information effectively
  
• Think critically and troubleshoot problems efficiently and effectively
  
• Have a bachelor’s degree in a related technology area of study

Cloud Engineer Roles/Job Designation

Different roles come under the cloud engineer role and with each role the responsibilities of the cloud engineer may vary. A few of the categories are as follows:

1. Solution Architect: These engineers are required to have advanced technical skills and must have experience in designing applications and software on cloud platforms that are distributed in nature. They are liable for drafting layouts for application designs.

2. Cloud Developer: These individuals are involved in coding, developing, deploying, and debugging cloud applications.

3. Cloud Network Engineer: These individuals are responsible for configuring the network and security to meet the needs of the company. They also predict the future network needs and prepare the design for the same.

4. Cloud System Engineer: These individuals must be familiar with the hardware as they are responsible for maintaining the cloud-based system.

5. System Operation Engineer: They are also known as system administrators who manage and monitor the activities involved in the development process. They must know networking concepts like TCP/IP, firewalls, DNS, etc. Also, they should have experience in monitoring and auditing systems.

Who Hire Cloud Engineer

Some of the top companies which hire cloud engineers actively are:

• Amazon
  
• Google
  
• Cisco Systems
  
• UKG(Ultimate Kronos Group)
  
• Oracle
  
• IBM
  
• ZScaler
  
• AppFolio
  
• SAP
  
• Microsoft
  
• Intel Corporation
  
• Accenture

Apart from the IT industry, several other industries are migrating their business to cloud so some of those industries are:

• Healthcare: Companies like Kaiser Permanente, Cambia Health Solutions, GE Healthcare, UnitedHealth Group, etc also hire cloud engineers.
  
• Financial Analytics & Research: Companies like S&P Global, TransUnion, etc come under this category.
  
• Retail: Companies like Costco Wholesale, JM Family Enterprises, etc come under this category who hire cloud engineers.

Over the past few years, there is a huge demand for cloud technology as companies are more focused on delivering greater results rather than focusing on resources. Since there is great demand for this technology, people are shifting more towards these kinds of roles. Also, companies are ready to invest in skilled people instead of spending on hardware and other resources.

Cloud Engineer Resume

The first and foremost thing which is important for any job profile is its resume. So to get qualified for subsequent rounds in any company interviews, the person must be knowing the art of resume writing as the recruiter takes a glance at the resume and within 4-6 seconds they are clear in their mind whether to continue with a candidate for further rounds or not. 

Tips and Advice for a good resume:

1. Choose the correct format.

2. Try to use keywords that are present in the job description given by the company in your resume. This doesn’t mean that you should flaunt the skills you are not aware of.

3. Use bullet points instead of paragraphs, and avoid putting your photograph.

4. Use the same font throughout the resume.

5. Use an active voice.

6. Use online tools like Grammarly to avoid spell checks and grammatical errors.

7. Put the relevant cloud engineering skills in your resume.

8. List your most impressive accomplishments first.

9. Your resume should mainly focus on your cloud computing skills, one should not get diverted to the things that are not part of the job description until it’s important to show.

10. Use simple and small sentences to deliver your descriptions, interviewers avoid looking into long sentences.

The basic structure that one should follow for a cloud engineer resume is mentioned below:

• Objective: Under this heading add a brief introductory summary that proves that the job for which you are applying, you want it.
  
• Skills: Add role-specific skills instead of making them general.
  
• Work Experience: Include all the work related to cloud technology you have done so far. If you are a beginner try to include some training or internship information and if you are an experienced person in this field then add the work details according to it.
  
• Project: Under this heading includes all your projects which you have worked on, and try to add a one-line description for each of them.

How to Prepare for Cloud Engineer Interviews

In this section, we are going to discuss how the candidate should prepare for the interview for cloud engineer roles. Different cloud engineer roles have different types of interviews. None of us can predict the flow of the interview. It’s all random and mostly it depends on interviewees or interviewers. Below mentioned points should be kept in mind while preparing for the interview:

• One must have hands-on experience in database skills.
  
• You should be aware of the Linux Operating system and must learn the basic Linux commands to start with.
  
• Should have basic knowledge of networking. 
  
• Have to command in one of the programming languages like .NET, JAVA or Python, etc.
  
• If your focus is DevOps then you should be focused on Powershell, APIs, and portal methods of deploying and monitoring resources.
  
• Learn about cloud services and cloud deployment models.
  
• Must be familiar with cloud platforms like Azure, GCP, AWS, etc. For that start trial, get a free subscription, and do as much hands-on you can do.
  
• Familiarise yourself with the common issues that organizations face with cloud technology and try to gain some knowledge on the solutions for such issues.

For a fresher candidates, they should have basic knowledge of all the cloud concepts like types of cloud, cloud services, its advantages, and some networking knowledge like insights about DNS, TCP/IP, etc. You can check out our Cloud Computing Interview Questions Track and learn how to crack interviews.

Now, let’s look into some tips while attending the interviews: 

• Clear your doubts while answering any questions.
  
• Prepare a set of general questions which may include questions about the team, cloud projects, and work culture.
  
• Be specific with your answers.

Conclusion

Cloud Computing is a fast-growing and demanding technology in the current era. It has spread its wings in almost every kind of industry as it makes data backup, security, disaster recovery, and business continuity easier and less expensive. According to the report by Great Learning, India is expecting a hike in cloud computing job roles of more than a million by 2022 as most organizations are migrating their operations to cloud infrastructure. Also according to Linkedin, there are more than 6K+ cloud engineering jobs in Canada and it is only going to increase in the future. So, if one is planning their career in this domain then it’s going to be a great choice and one just needs to be updated with the current trend and skills.

FAQs

Is cloud engineering a good career?

Cloud engineering is absolutely a good career as cloud computing is a booming technology and jobs are flourishing in this domain. These engineers are involved in solving real-life problems that are affecting people all across the globe. Jobs in this domain will make use of various skills like DevOps, Web Security, Disaster Recovery, and many more. So, if you have an interest in this particular field then it’s a great career option.

What skills do cloud engineers need?

Cloud engineers should have technical, management, business skills, financial skills, data analysis skills, and many more. Technical skills include database, networking, web API kind of technical knowledge, then in terms of financial skills, a person should possess knowledge of business concepts such as online marketing strategy, having experience in ERP systems and data mining is something which comes under data analysis skills.

Is cloud engineering hard?

Nothing is easy or hard. It all depends on the person and what he/she wants from their career. If you are working with full dedication and hard work then you can succeed in this career as this domain has ample job opportunities for both coders and non-coders.

How long does it take to become a cloud engineer?

For a successful career as a cloud engineer, it requires 3-5 years of experience in this domain apart from a bachelor’s degree in computer science or related fields. Some of the profiles related to this field even demand a master’s degree and some even need certifications.

Are cloud engineers the same as software engineers?

Both the roles need a bachelor’s degree in computer science as a basic requirement but have their responsibilities. The final product for cloud engineers is not dependent on the user’s computer system but for software engineers, the programs that they make are directly downloaded to the system.  

Do cloud engineers code?

There are different roles for coders and non-coders in this domain. If you are interested in coding then you can go for coding-specific roles and if not then you can go for cloud support roles.

Additional Resources

• Cloud Computing MCQ
• Characteristics of Cloud Computing
• Cloud Computing Projects
• Types of Cloud Computing
• Applications of Cloud Computing