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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cloud Administrator

💰 $70,000 - $120,000

CloudIT OperationsInfrastructure

🎯 Role Definition

A Cloud Administrator is responsible for deploying, managing, and maintaining cloud infrastructure to ensure secure, highly available, cost-effective, and scalable services. This role focuses on platform operational readiness, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring and incident response, identity and access management (IAM), backup & disaster recovery, and cost governance across public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid environments. The ideal candidate combines strong systems administration skills (Linux/Windows), cloud platform knowledge, scripting/automation experience, and an operational mindset to support production workloads, CI/CD pipelines, and platform engineering initiatives.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Systems Administrator (Linux/Windows) transitioning to cloud-first operations.
  • Junior DevOps Engineer or Build/Release Engineer with exposure to cloud platforms.
  • Network Administrator or Infrastructure Engineer adopting cloud technologies.

Advancement To:

  • Senior Cloud Administrator or Cloud Engineer
  • Cloud Architect / Solutions Architect
  • Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) or Platform Engineer
  • Cloud Operations Manager or DevOps Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • DevOps Engineer
  • Security Engineer (Cloud Security)
  • Infrastructure Automation Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, deploy, and operate secure, resilient cloud infrastructure using public cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) and apply best practices for availability, scaling, and fault tolerance across production, staging, and development environments.
  • Implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools like Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or Azure Resource Manager templates to provision, version, and maintain cloud resources reproducibly.
  • Administer identity and access management (IAM) policies, roles, and federation (e.g., AWS IAM, Azure AD, GCP IAM) to enforce least-privilege access, multi-account segmentation, and secure onboarding/offboarding processes.
  • Configure and maintain networking constructs in cloud environments (VPC/VNet design, subnets, route tables, NAT gateways, security groups, NSGs, peering, VPN and Direct Connect/ExpressRoute) to ensure secure and performant connectivity.
  • Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that integrate infrastructure provisioning and application deployment using tools such as Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or Azure DevOps and ensure safe, automated releases.
  • Automate repetitive operational tasks with scripts and tooling using Python, Bash, PowerShell, or other automation frameworks to accelerate incident response and routine maintenance.
  • Monitor cloud infrastructure health and application performance using Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, CloudWatch, or Azure Monitor; establish alerts, dashboards, and SLO/SLA reporting.
  • Manage and optimize cloud costs through tagging strategies, rightsizing, reserved instances/savings plans, automated scaling strategies, and regular cost reviews and forecasting.
  • Maintain backup and disaster recovery plans for cloud workloads, implement automated snapshot and retention policies, test failover and recovery procedures, and document recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO).
  • Harden and secure cloud hosts and services by applying security baselines, OS patching, vulnerability scanning, encryption at rest and in transit, and coordinating with Security and Compliance teams on remediation.
  • Operate container platforms and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, EKS/AKS/GKE) including cluster administration, upgrades, network policies, and monitoring of containerized workloads.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure and platform incidents at the OS, network, storage, or cloud service layer, lead post-incident reviews, and execute corrective actions to prevent recurrence.
  • Implement logging and observability strategies across cloud services and applications, centralize logs (e.g., ELK/Elastic Stack, Cloud-native logging), and enable structured logs for rapid debugging and analytics.
  • Maintain configuration management systems (Ansible, Chef, Puppet) and enforce drift detection and remediation for managed instances and cloud resources.
  • Collaborate with development teams to design cloud-native architectures that leverage managed services (RDS/Cloud SQL, S3/Blob Storage, managed caches, serverless functions) to reduce operational burden.
  • Conduct regular security and compliance checks, support audits (SOC2, ISO, PCI, HIPAA as applicable), ensure cloud resources meet regulatory requirements, and produce evidence and remediation plans.
  • Create and maintain runbooks, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and documentation for deployment, scaling, incident handling, and change management to support operational continuity and knowledge transfer.
  • Participate in on-call rotations for 24/7 operational coverage, respond to escalations, perform triage, and coordinate cross-functional incident response with engineering and support teams.
  • Deploy and manage edge or hybrid solutions when needed (on-premises integration, VPN/Direct Connect, hybrid identity), ensuring consistent policies and tooling across environments.
  • Evaluate, recommend, and implement third-party cloud management, security, and observability tools to improve automation, governance, and operational visibility.
  • Lead capacity planning and performance tuning for cloud services and underlying infrastructure, forecasting resource needs and optimization opportunities.
  • Enforce tagging, labeling, naming conventions, and resource lifecycle policies to maintain governance, chargeback/showback models, and automated clean-up of unused resources.
  • Manage secrets and configuration securely using vaults and secret managers (AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault), rotating credentials and minimizing hard-coded secrets.
  • Mentor junior operations staff, conduct training sessions on cloud best practices, and evangelize IaC, automation, and security-first approaches across engineering teams.

Secondary Functions

  • Collaborate with Security, Compliance, and Development teams to translate security requirements into implementable cloud controls.
  • Support cost allocation, billing analysis, and chargeback models to help engineering teams understand and optimize their cloud spend.
  • Participate in architecture reviews, providing operational perspectives on scalability, availability, and recoverability of proposed solutions.
  • Assist in PoCs and evaluations of new cloud services and tools to drive platform improvements and automation.
  • Contribute to cross-team sprint planning, backlog refinement, and agile ceremonies to align infrastructure work with product priorities.
  • Provide periodic operational reports and maturity assessments to leadership to drive continuous improvement.
  • Maintain a security incident and change log, ensuring transparently managed and documented infrastructure changes.
  • Provide onboarding support and training materials for new developers and platform users on cloud usage, cost awareness, and security practices.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficiency administering public cloud platforms: AWS (EC2, S3, VPC, IAM, RDS, CloudWatch), Microsoft Azure (VMs, Storage, Virtual Networks, Azure AD, Monitor), and/or Google Cloud Platform (Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud Storage, IAM).
  • Strong experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, Azure ARM/Bicep) for declarative provisioning and version-controlled infrastructure.
  • Container and orchestration experience: Docker fundamentals and Kubernetes cluster operations (EKS, AKS, GKE) including Helm, ingress controllers, and network policies.
  • Automation and configuration management expertise with Ansible, Chef, Puppet, or Salt for managing instance configuration and deployment consistency.
  • Scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, or PowerShell for tasks, utilities, and runbook automation.
  • CI/CD pipeline integration and platform experience (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps) to automate build, test, and deployment workflows.
  • Observability and monitoring stack experience (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, CloudWatch, Azure Monitor) including alerting, metrics instrumentation, and log aggregation.
  • Networking and security proficiency: VPC/VNet design, routing, subnets, NAT, firewalls, load balancing, VPN, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, and security groups/NSGs.
  • Identity and access management and SSO experience (AWS IAM, Azure AD, SAML/OAuth) and governance of privileges and roles.
  • Backup, snapshot, and disaster recovery planning and testing across cloud services, including automated retention policies and recovery drills.
  • Cost management and cloud financial governance: resource tagging, reserved instance/savings plan optimization, rightsizing, and cloud billing tools.
  • Familiarity with enterprise security controls: encryption, key management, vulnerability scanning, CIS benchmarks, and security tooling (e.g., AWS Config, Azure Security Center).
  • Operating system administration for Linux (Ubuntu, CentOS, RHEL) and Windows Server (Active Directory, Group Policy, PowerShell remoting).
  • Experience with secret management solutions (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault).
  • Knowledge of database and managed services administration (RDS, Cloud SQL, Azure SQL) including backups, scaling, and metrics monitoring.

Soft Skills

  • Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting ability with a structured approach to root-cause analysis and remediation.
  • Excellent communication skills to collaborate with engineering, security, and product teams and to translate technical risks into business impact.
  • Proactive, customer-focused mindset with the ability to prioritize tasks in a fast-paced environment and manage incidents under pressure.
  • Documentation and process orientation: able to produce clear runbooks, SOPs, onboarding guides, and post-incident reports.
  • Team player and mentor: able to coach junior staff and share best practices for cloud operations and automation.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning attitude to keep pace with evolving cloud services and operational tools.
  • Attention to detail and strong organizational skills to manage governance, tagging, and lifecycle policies.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Systems Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a related technical field and relevant cloud certifications (e.g., AWS Certified SysOps Administrator, Azure Administrator Associate, Google Cloud Certified – Associate Cloud Engineer).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Systems
  • Cloud Computing / Cloud Engineering
  • Electrical / Systems Engineering
  • Cybersecurity

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2–5 years of systems administration or cloud operations experience for mid-level roles; 5+ years for senior positions.

Preferred:

  • 3+ years managing production cloud environments across AWS, Azure, or GCP.
  • Demonstrable experience with IaC tooling (Terraform/CloudFormation), automation frameworks (Ansible), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and observability platforms.
  • Proven track record of incident management, disaster recovery, cost optimization, and cross-team collaboration in cloud-first organizations.
  • Relevant certifications such as AWS Certified SysOps Administrator, AWS Certified Solutions Architect (Associate), Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator, or Google Associate Cloud Engineer are highly desirable.
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