Cloud Engineer – What is It and How to Become One?

Cloud computing is one of the fastest-growing sectors in tech today and a key pillar for the next-generation infrastructure. A growing number of organisations worldwide are moving their infrastructure to the cloud as a way to power up operations, improve scale, and lower costs. Thus, the requirement for cloud engineers increases day by day and becomes one of top demanded jobs in the IT field.

Cloud engineers are professionals who help organisations use these amazing benefits of the Cloud. They need to handle things like cloud architecture and deployment as well as upkeep, and security control optimization. In this article, we will learn about cloud engineering, cloud engineer’s roles and responsibilities, the skills needed, and last but not least the complete roadmap on how you can become a Cloud Engineer.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is when computing resources are available – such as storage and infrastructure – when needed, such as internet services. Users free themselves from the tasks associated with managing physical resources by humans or businesses, paying only for actual consumption. Cloud computing plays a pivotal role in our day-to-day lives, like accessing Facebook, streaming movies on Netflix, or using Google Drive for storage.

It enables users to access and save data and run applications and other computing operations over the internet, on systems or servers at far-off locations. Instead of on local computers or servers. It delivers computing services including servers, storage, databases, networking, software analytics, and over the Internet to offer faster innovation, flexible resources, and economies of scale.

Cloud computing has become a common choice for every organisation to store their data, as it makes their data secure, easily accessible, and provides on-demand features. A vast range of use cases, including data backup, disaster recovery, email, virtual desktops, software development and testing, big data analytics, and customer-facing web apps, are being used by organisations of all sizes and industries.

Key Features:

• On-Demand Self-Service: Let users automatically provision computing capabilities such as server time and network storage without a human interacting with each service provider.
• Broad Network Access: The services are provided over the network, and service access is available for various standard consumer devices such as laptops, smartphones, and tablets.
• Resource Pooling: Many providers combine their computing resources to affect a much larger whole for many customers, with dynamic allocation in response to consumer demand.

There are service models in cloud computing, each providing different control and management to their level. The three types of cloud computing include:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): IaaS offers virtualized computing resources over the Internet. Customers can rent virtual machines with storage and networking capabilities. Examples include Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2, Microsoft Azure VMs, and Google Compute Engine.
• Platform as a Service (PaaS): A level that provides the developers the environment to build, deploy, and manage applications without dealing with infrastructure. For example Google App Engine, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, or Microsoft Azure App Service
• Software as a Service (SaaS): An application is served over the internet, where it is not accepted from being installed on-prem devices that are connected to the provider network or consumer web, and the cloud is not installed on local devices. A few examples would be Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Salesforce.

A cloud engineer is an IT professional working in an organisation to build, deploy, and maintain the cloud infrastructure such as virtual machines, storage, and other computing resources. Utilising their knowledge of cloud platforms, they create and manage cloud solutions that enhance cloud apps, usually for commercial use.

Their technical expertise and practical experience are put to use in cloud computing platforms to promote efficiency and creativity. To construct, oversee, and enhance virtual networks and data storage systems, they might also work in collaboration with cloud architects, DevOps engineers, and additional software developers.

Cloud engineers also collaborate with cloud platforms to construct and maintain scalable, secure code in the cloud. Cloud engineers are vital to ensuring the success of organisations as they make their move into the cloud, optimise existing cloud environments, and leverage new cloud technologies to drive business goals. With a deep understanding of cloud computing principles, you would need to have experience with one or more public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud ) as working in the field makes more sense than learning it.

How to become a cloud engineer?

The path to becoming a cloud engineer starts with getting a formal education, developing technical skills in programming, IT infrastructure, and networking, then getting hands-on with cloud technologies and getting a certification, developing hands-on experience on building projects, and soft skills. Here’s a detailed step-by-step guide to help you become a great cloud engineer:

Get a Formal Education

Having a formal degree in computer science, IT, or any other related field will give you an edge over others to get selected for a job. Gaining a strong foundation in software development, networking, databases, and operating systems is essential for anyone pursuing cloud engineering. Pay particular attention to classes that address database management, programming, cybersecurity, networking, and system administration. These topics are essential to comprehending the workings of cloud environments.

Having an advanced or master’s degree in computer science, information technology, cloud computing, or a similar field can broaden your expertise and increase your marketability. However, it is not required.

Develop Technical Skills

Once you have got the degree in the relevant field, start developing your technical skills by building various projects, contributing to other’s projects, finding and contributing to open source codebases, etc. There are areas of technical skills that you need to upgrade to become a great cloud engineer, and these are:

1. Learning programming languages: Develop your programming skills, and get started with the easier ones like Python which is a wonderful place to start that provides the easiest English-like syntax. Programming skills are essential for task automation, which is critical for effective cloud management. Study programming languages such as Perl, PowerShell, and Bash. Automating cloud tasks, performing deployments, and maintaining configurations all require scripting.
2. Undertaking cloud platforms: Learn about the main cloud computing platforms, such as Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure. Make an account on these sites and begin experimenting with features like networking components, storage options, and virtual machines. To obtain a fundamental grasp, you can find a wealth of materials on the internet, including technical articles or blogs, YouTube, and certification courses.Practice establishing networks, deploying apps, and building up cloud infrastructure. A lot of platforms offer free tier services so that users can experiment with their system. It is essential to comprehend the creation and administration of cloud environments.
3. Learning networking and operating systems: A solid understanding of networking is essential for cloud developers. Learn the basics of networking, such as load balancing, firewalls, VPNs, TCP/IP, DNS, and subnets, and for operating systems pay particular attention to concepts such as cloud-based routing, security groups, virtual private clouds (VPCs), etc.

Hands-on Experience

To get familiar with cloud platforms, how to set up a cloud environment, run queries, and set up virtual machines, you need to get some hands-on experience. Through hackathons, internships, entry-level jobs, or personal projects, you can obtain experience with cloud environments and technology.

• To collaborate on and share your cloud projects, use sites like GitHub, and GitLab. Find and apply for internships or entry-level positions in networking, system administration, etc., to get experience.
• Build personal projects that involve cloud environment design, deployment, and management.
• You may develop a portfolio that highlights your abilities, learn from the community, and obtain experience by contributing to open-source cloud projects.

Get Cloud Certifications

Once you have made your hands dirty on building cool projects, working on open-source projects, etc. in cloud computing and have a clear grasp of concepts such as networking, operating systems, and cloud platforms, it’s time to obtain the cloud certifications. This will allow you to demonstrate your tech skills and build your reputation in the industry.

Obtain certifications from top cloud providers to prove your proficiency. Several popular certifications are:

1. AWS Certified Solutions Architect
2. Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect
3. Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
4. Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
5. Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)

Specialise in Cloud Systems

Specialise in cloud systems by enhancing or upgrading your skills in one specialisation, as it sets you apart and increases your employability. You may choose your cloud specialisation from one of the following:

• Cloud Security Engineer: Involved in ensuring the security of cloud environments and implementing IAM plus encryption and monitoring tools. This is to happen as many organisations are prioritising security in the cloud.
• Cloud DevOps Engineer: Concentrated on the automation of cloud infrastructure, managing CI/CD pipelines, and ensuring that development and operations are perfectly integrated.
• Cloud Solutions Architect: Designs and defines cloud solutions meeting business requirements with a focus on scalability plus cost efficiency alongside performance
• Cloud Network Engineer: Concentrate on the design, implementation, and management of cloud networking solutions for reliable and secure connectivity to the cloud.
• Cloud Data Engineer: Specialise in the management and processing of big data in the cloud using data tools and platforms native to the cloud.

You may also join online cloud communities, forums, and meetups, collaborate with other professionals on all things clouds, share knowledge, and keep up-to-date with industry trends.

Soft Skills

Aside from the technical expertise you have acquired via training and certification, interviewers will also be assessing your soft skills.

• Provide examples of your previous teamwork, project management, and collaboration with coworkers. Build a great portfolio of projects, showcase your online presence, and increase your online presence on social media platforms like LinkedIn, and X (formerly Twitter).
• Be sure to highlight your excellent communication abilities in writing and during the interview (in person or virtually).
• Building critical thinking to identify and resolve complicated issues is a prerequisite for cloud engineers. Develop your critical thinking, problem-solving, and logical analysis skills.
• Strong troubleshooting abilities are necessary to promptly locate and fix problems in cloud systems.
• The state of cloud computing is always changing. Continue to learn about new tools, technologies, and best practices to be flexible. This will assist you in remaining current in a field that moves quickly.

Apply for Jobs or Internships

Once you are set with all of the above-discussed steps, it’s time to apply for jobs and internships according to your experience. Build your resume/CV that showcases your qualifications, practical experience, and cloud-related skills.

• To look for jobs or internships in cloud engineering, use employment portals such as Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn.
• A fantastic approach to getting experience in the cloud sector is through internships. They provide you with a hands-on taste of what the real work would entail and are also an excellent way to get your foot in the door.
• If you’re just starting in your career, apply for internships or entry-level positions in cloud engineering. These jobs frequently provide excellent practical experience along with opportunities for advancement.

What are the roles and responsibilities of a cloud engineer?

A Cloud engineer works on creating, building, managing, and deploying various cloud services in their day-to-day tasks. Cloud engineers oversee and improve cloud infrastructure overall. However, they play a multifaceted role in guaranteeing the effectiveness, security, and scalability of cloud-based systems. The following are the main roles and responsibilities of a cloud engineer:

Designing Cloud Solutions

The cloud engineer is responsible for designing cloud architectures that suit the organisation. This involves choosing appropriate cloud services, defining the architecture, and making sure that the solution is scalable, secure, and cost-effective. But how does the cloud engineer design the cloud solutions?

• The cloud engineers work together with stakeholders to identify and compile the precise business needs that cloud solutions must meet.
• They choose the best platform among platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud that best suits the demands of the project.
• They are also responsible for planning for scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery is part of this.
• They also confirm that the cloud solutions can be easily integrated with existing cloud services or on-premises infrastructure.

Cloud Infrastructure

The cloud architecture is designed and implemented by the cloud engineers. They do this by setting up cloud resources as well as system configurations, and networks, deploying virtual machines, and managing storage solutions management. Additionally, Infrastructure as Code tools may be used in their work. For example, Terraform or AWS CloudFormation could be applied to automate the deployment process.

Maintenance of Cloud environments

The cloud engineer will carry out management and monitoring of cloud environments to ensure performance and availability at their peak. This involves the configuration of monitoring tools, performance metrics analysis, and problem resolution. The backups, disaster recovery, and security measures on cloud resources are also performed by the cloud engineers.

Securing Cloud Infrastructure

Protecting cloud data resources and putting security measures in place are frequent responsibilities of cloud engineers. They employ their security skills and knowledge to secure the whole cloud environment of an organisation.

To lower the danger of unwanted access, they should be aware of best practices such as deploying Secure Shell Protocol (SSH-key authentication secures remote server access) and two-factor authentication (2FA adds an extra layer of protection for user access).

Cloud Workload Automation

Automating repetitive processes is a well-planned process by cloud engineers. This optimises the performance and cost-effectiveness of cloud resources while boosting efficiency and lowering manual labour. This methodology guarantees uniformity, minimises mistakes, and facilitates the scalability and replication of infrastructure configurations in disparate environments.

Automating the cloud workload can handle hundreds of thousands of workloads every day. It assists you in more effectively coordinating IT with company goals to enhance efficiency and cut expenses. And these all steps to automate the workload are performed by a cloud engineer.

Challenges of being a cloud engineer

Being a cloud engineer various challenges are faced especially in today’s time where the technology is being changed every minute. There can be many challenges based on various factors such as organisational changes, cloud service provider updates, environment, etc. Here are some of the common challenges of a cloud engineer:

Faster Technological Advancements

Major cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud often provide new tools, services, and technologies, causing the cloud computing business to change quickly. Cloud engineers need to get updated with the new technological changes, trends, updates, features, etc., so that they can have as much as lower challenges implementing any task.

A better solution to overcome the given challenge is that cloud engineers should make a commitment to lifelong learning by routinely participating in webinars, conferences, and training sessions. They should also work toward obtaining the necessary certifications to meet this challenge. Keeping up with industry changes can also be facilitated by participating in online forums and maintaining connections with the cloud community.

Complexity Cloud Architecture

Designing a cloud architecture at scale, in management, and with hybrid or multi-cloud configurations can be incredibly difficult. All components must work together in the functionality of a cloud service, performance, etc., is also the responsibility of the cloud engineers.

Cloud engineers need to have strong architectural capabilities and be fluent in cloud architecture frameworks, like the Azure Architecture Framework or AWS Well-Architected Framework. Automation tools, infrastructure as code (IaC), and monitoring programs can help manage this complexity.

Security and Compliance

As we see more and more cyberattacks & data breaches, the question of cloud environment security is bigger than it has ever been. Cloud engineers need to ensure strong security features are implemented on such compliance for data, safeguarding sensitive information, and minimising the risks of illegal access or multi-tenancy.

These are the best practices for security such as network security, Identity and Access Management( IAM ), and encryption which we can use using AWS service so understanding them should be the main priority of cloud engineers. They need to obtain security and compliance certifications to get better at making the cloud secure. They must also strike a balance between granting access and safeguarding cloud resources. This keeps sensitive information safe and prevents unauthorised access.

Performance Optimizations

Maintaining user satisfaction and operational effectiveness requires making sure cloud apps and services operate at their best. When there’s a lot to accomplish, cloud engineers need to design systems that are flexible enough to take on more tasks while making efficient use of available resources. For cloud engineers to manage fluctuating workloads and avoid bottlenecks, performance must be continuously monitored and optimised by various monitoring tools.

The solution to optimise the performance of the cloud is that the cloud engineers can learn about resource usage and application performance by using performance management and monitoring technologies. Engineers can use strategies like load balancing, autoscaling, and caching to guarantee scalability and maximise performance.

Budget Issues

Another challenge of being a cloud engineer is to manage the budget or cloud costs within an organisation. It is a major challenge, particularly when resources are provisioned dynamically in an organisation. Budget overruns may result from cloud costs that go out of control without adequate monitoring and optimization.

To control costs, cloud engineers could use reserved instances, rightsize instances, and use cost analysis tools from cloud platforms (such as AWS Cost Explorer, Google Cloud Cost Estimation, and Azure Cost Management). To keep costs under control, regular audits and cost optimization techniques are essential.

Salary of a cloud engineer

Salary in the USA

According to reports from Glassdoor, Indeed, and other organisations, an average Cloud Engineer salary in the United States is $127,280 to $131,409 and it also says that this job typically pays within a range of $110K — 120k. Based on location, skills, and experience salaries can vary widely.

Experience: Cloud engineers with more than 7 years of experience earn an average pay range of $148,378 and for those who have less than one year of experience their average pay is $120K.

Location: Average salaries also depend on location so if CTC is high then you would like to consider a factor of COA. For example, in top-tier cities in the US, reports say that the average salary of a cloud engineer in NYC is $133,602 per year while in Austin, Texas it is $112,067 per year.

Salary in India

According to reports from Glassdoor, Indeed, and other organisations, an average Cloud Engineer salary in India is ₹13,70,000 per year and it also says that this job typically pays within a range of ₹9,00,000 to ₹12,00,000 per year. Based on location, skills, and experience salaries can vary widely.

Experience: Cloud engineers with more than 5 years of experience or a senior cloud engineer can earn an average pay range of ₹13,70,000 per year and for those who have less than one year of experience their average pay is ₹5 LPA to 6.7 LPA.

Location: Average salaries also depend on location. For example, in top-tier cities in India, reports say that the average salary of a cloud engineer in Bengaluru is ₹10,39,910 per year while in Gurgaon it is ₹8,10,790 per year.

Future of a cloud engineer

The future of cloud engineers is bright and will continue to grow at a fast pace as various organisations adopt cloud computing for their work. Here are some of the points that show the future of a cloud engineer:

1. Increased Demand for Cloud Expertise

More and more businesses moving their operations to the cloud, the more the demand for cloud engineers will keep rising. This applies strongly to such industries as healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and retail which are choosing cloud technologies more actively than ever to improve their operations. Vendor lock-in is what organisations seek with multi-cloud and hybrid cloud strategies to increase resilience as well as optimise costs. On the other hand, this creates an increased demand for cloud engineers with expertise in managing complex environments across multiple.

2. Emergence of New Cloud Technologies

Serverless architecture has gained popularity for being cost-effective and scalable. Cloud engineers will need to build expertise in serverless frameworks that are currently being provided by various top cloud providers such as AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, etc. The role of cloud engineers will be very important in deploying and managing edge computing solutions that process data closer to the source for enhanced performance on IoT devices, autonomous vehicles, and other latency-sensitive applications.

3. Automation and DevOps Integration

Automation will keep its important place in cloud management. Cloud engineers will have to be very strong in tools such as Terraform, Kubernetes, etc, and automation of infrastructure deployment, scaling, and management. They will also have to support CI/CD pipelines to achieve practice crossovers with continuous integration and continuous deployment for effective adoption of cloud application delivery.

4. Remote and Distributed Workforces

With the exponential growth of data, cloud engineers are going to be more involved in managing and processing big data on the cloud. This means that they will have to work with cloud-native big data tools and platforms and help organisations make sense of the data available to them i.e. derive insights from their data.

5. Data Management and Big Data

COVID-19 shoved the whole circumstances to remote work after 2020, and this move towards remote and distributed workforces is going to continue, with cloud technologies that enable collaboration and productivity sharing centre stage. Cloud engineers will need to ensure remote teams have secure and reliable access to cloud resources, applications, and data alongside facilitating proper functioning from anywhere in the world.

Conclusion

This article covers how to become a cloud engineer, with an in-depth tutorial covering what is cloud computing, how to become one, roles and responsibilities of a cloud engineer. When it comes to managing cloud systems efficiently and streamlining business processes, cloud engineers are crucial.  Aspiring cloud engineers can position themselves for success in this fascinating area by building both technical and soft skills, earning necessary certifications, mastering cloud platforms, and gaining a solid foundation through a formal degree in computer science. Issues or challenges like faster technological advancements, scalability, security, and the requirement for ongoing learning still exist.

Despite these challenges, the increasing need for qualified cloud engineers highlights their importance in the ever-changing IT sector and makes them vital to the prosperity of contemporary companies. The prospects are plenty and the road is obvious, regardless of whether you’re trying to transfer into cloud engineering or are just starting in your career.