Cloud Engineer
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 Engineer Responsibility
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.
Cloud Development
These roles are responsible for creating the functions, applications, or databases that run on the cloud. Many of the best practices—fast load times, support for multiple Internet browsers, using as little memory as necessary—are analogous to more traditional software and database development, Mullen says.
“But now, [these individuals] also need to understand the cloud environment, the tools, and how that’s different than working on a single machine or a private data center,” he adds. For example, these developers must understand how an application will respond when accessing databases in different locations or how to run functions or queries efficiently when renting hardware.
