Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cloud Compliance Officer

🎯 Role Definition

The Cloud Compliance Officer owns and operationalizes cloud-specific compliance, governance and audit programs across public cloud platforms. This role translates regulatory and contractual requirements into technical controls, partners with engineering and DevOps to embed compliance into CI/CD and IaC pipelines, manages evidence and audit artifacts, coordinates external and internal assessments, and leads remediation activities until closure. The ideal candidate combines deep knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), security frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI, HIPAA, FedRAMP), GRC tooling and automation to reduce manual effort and scale compliance for cloud-native services.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Cloud Security Engineer
IT Compliance Analyst / Information Security Analyst
DevSecOps Engineer

Advancement To:

Director of Cloud Security & Compliance
Head of Information Security / VP, Information Security
Chief Compliance Officer (in cloud-first organizations)

Lateral Moves:

Cloud Security Architect
Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Program Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Develop, maintain and operate the cloud compliance program, including policies, control matrices and runbooks that map business, regulatory and contractual requirements (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR/CCPA) to cloud-specific technical controls across AWS, Azure and GCP.
Lead and coordinate SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, HIPAA and FedRAMP readiness and certification efforts including scoping, control implementation, evidence collection, gap remediation, and audit facilitation with external auditors.
Perform ongoing cloud control assessments and risk analyses (including threat modeling and control gap assessments) to identify compliance and security weaknesses in IaaS, PaaS and SaaS deployments and recommend prioritized remediation plans.
Design and implement cloud-native controls for identity and access management, encryption, network segmentation, logging and monitoring, secure configuration and resource lifecycle management to enforce least privilege and defense-in-depth.
Integrate compliance controls into CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation) to ensure new services are evaluated and provisioned in compliance with policy before production deployment.
Own evidence management and audit artifact lifecycle: automate collection where possible, standardize artifacts, maintain an auditable evidence repository and respond to auditor inquiries in a timely manner.
Operate and tune continuous monitoring and cloud security posture management (CSPM) tools (e.g., Prisma Cloud, AWS Config, Security Hub, Azure Policy, GCP Forseti) to detect drift, misconfiguration and non-compliant resources.
Coordinate and manage external third-party and SaaS vendor security and privacy assessments (security questionnaires, SIG, CAIQ, AICPA) ensuring contractual and operational controls meet organizational requirements.
Define, measure and report compliance metrics, KPIs and dashboards to senior leadership and board-level stakeholders; provide executive summaries of compliance posture, remediation status and risk exposure.
Partner with Product, Engineering and DevOps teams to conduct design reviews, control design workshops and threat modeling to ensure compliance is built into new product features early in the development lifecycle.
Lead remediation sprints and cross-functional remediation projects to drive closure of audit findings and compliance gaps, tracking owners, timelines and verification evidence.
Maintain and evolve the GRC toolchain (e.g., ServiceNow GRC, Archer, OneTrust) to track control ownership, risk registers, audit findings and automated evidence collection.
Create and maintain clear, role-based cloud security and compliance policies, standards and operating procedures; ensure policies are actionable and aligned to technical controls and automation.
Provide subject matter expertise and point-of-contact for compliance questions from legal, sales, customers and account teams during contract negotiations and security reviews.
Develop and deliver compliance and security awareness training for engineering, IT operations, and business stakeholders focused on cloud-specific risks, secure configuration and evidence requirements.
Manage sensitive data protection and privacy controls in cloud (data residency, classification, encryption, tokenization) and ensure alignment with GDPR, CCPA and other privacy regulations.
Participate in incident response and post-incident compliance reporting; ensure compliance evidence, notifications and regulatory reporting obligations are met during security incidents affecting cloud services.
Implement automation for repetitive compliance tasks (e.g., evidence collection, policy checks, remediation) using scripting (Python, PowerShell) and cloud-native automation services to reduce manual audit burden.
Maintain current awareness of regulatory changes, cloud service provider feature changes and industry best practices; update compliance program and control set accordingly.
Evaluate and recommend new security and compliance technologies (CSPM, CWPP, SIEM, DLP, IAM governance) that improve visibility, automation and enforcement across cloud estates.
Conduct regular tabletop exercises, internal audits and control testing to validate operating effectiveness of cloud controls and prepare teams for external assessments.
Manage budget and vendor relationships related to compliance tools, audits and certifications; ensure cost-effective delivery of compliance objectives.
Drive continuous improvement by documenting lessons learned, revising control processes, and establishing repeatable, scalable compliance patterns for multi-cloud environments.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc audit and customer compliance requests including SOC 2 Bridge Letters, ISO attestations, and custom security questionnaires.
Contribute to the organization's cloud compliance strategy and roadmap by identifying automation opportunities and prioritizing large-scale remediation initiatives.
Collaborate with business units to translate compliance and privacy requirements into engineering acceptance criteria and technical tickets.
Participate in sprint planning, agile ceremonies and security backlog grooming to ensure compliance tasks are visible and resourced within engineering delivery plans.
Mentor junior compliance and security team members, share best practices and help build a culture of compliance-first engineering.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Expertise with cloud platforms and services: AWS (CloudTrail, Config, IAM, KMS), Azure (Azure Policy, Blueprints, AD, Key Vault) and GCP (Cloud Audit Logs, IAM, KMS).
In-depth knowledge of compliance frameworks and standards: SOC 2, ISO 27001/27002, NIST SP 800-53/800-171, FedRAMP, HIPAA, PCI DSS and privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA).
Experience operating GRC platforms (e.g., ServiceNow GRC, RSA Archer, OneTrust) to manage controls, risks and audit artifacts.
Hands-on familiarity with CSPM, CWPP and cloud-native security tools (Prisma Cloud, AWS Security Hub, Azure Security Center, Dome9, Tenable, Qualys).
Strong experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and embedding policy-as-code (OPA, Sentinel, Terraform Cloud) into IaC pipelines.
Practical scripting and automation skills (Python, Bash, PowerShell) to automate evidence collection, reporting and remediation workflows.
Solid understanding of Identity & Access Management (IAM), role-based access control, SSO, SCIM and privileged access management in cloud contexts.
Knowledge of logging, monitoring and SIEM integration for cloud environments (Splunk, Sumo Logic, Datadog, ELK, Google Chronicle).
Experience with encryption, key management, data classification, DLP and data residency controls for cloud-hosted data.
Familiarity with vulnerability management, patching strategies and secure configuration baselines (CIS Benchmarks).
Ability to design and evaluate control automation using CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) and policy enforcement in pipelines.
Audit management experience including evidence orchestration, control testing, auditor coordination and remediation validation.

Soft Skills

Strong written and verbal communication for documenting policies, producing audit-ready artifacts and briefing technical and business stakeholders.
Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills: able to coordinate across engineering, legal, product and operations to drive compliance outcomes.
Analytical and risk-based thinking to prioritize control implementation and remediation activities aligned to business impact.
Project and program management capabilities to manage multiple audits, remediation tracks and cross-functional deliverables.
Detail-oriented with a strong focus on evidence completeness, repeatability and operational rigor.
Customer-facing mindset to support sales/security reviews and build trust with customers and partners.
Adaptability and continuous learning orientation to keep pace with rapid cloud service changes and regulatory updates.
Coaching and mentoring skills to uplift the compliance maturity of engineering teams.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Information Systems, Cybersecurity, Engineering, or related field OR equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

Master’s degree in Information Security, Cybersecurity, Business Administration or related discipline.
Formal training or coursework in risk management and regulatory compliance.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science / Software Engineering
Information Security / Cybersecurity
Information Systems / IT Management
Law, Regulatory Affairs / Privacy (preferred for privacy-heavy roles)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 4–10+ years in IT/security/compliance roles with at least 2–4 years focused on cloud compliance or cloud security.

Preferred:

5–8+ years of progressive experience implementing and managing compliance programs in cloud-first environments.
Proven track record leading SOC 2 / ISO 27001 / PCI / HIPAA readiness and audits, or achieving FedRAMP authorization.
Experience working directly with cloud engineering teams to implement controls in CI/CD and IaC environments.

Certifications (highly desirable): CISSP, CISM, CCSP, CISA, CRISC, ISO 27001 Lead Implementer/Auditor, AWS Certified Security — Specialty.