Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cloud Developer

🎯 Role Definition

The Cloud Developer is a key contributor to an organisation’s cloud‑first strategy, designing, building, deploying and maintaining scalable cloud‑native applications and infrastructure. This role blends software development, cloud architecture, automation and operational excellence to deliver high‑performance, secure, resilient solutions. The Cloud Developer collaborates closely with engineers, DevOps and business stakeholders to translate functional requirements into robust cloud services and to continuously optimise for cost, performance and security.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Software Developer / Backend Developer
DevOps Engineer or Site Reliability Engineer
Solutions Engineer working with cloud services

Advancement To:

Senior Cloud Developer / Lead Cloud Developer
Cloud Solutions Architect
Cloud Engineering Manager or Director of Cloud Engineering

Lateral Moves:

Full‑Stack Developer with cloud specialisation
Platform Engineer / Infrastructure Engineer focusing on cloud
DevOps/Platform Automation Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Design, develop and deploy cloud‑native applications and microservices that leverage public cloud platforms (such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud) and serverless, container or VM‑based architectures.
Design and implement cloud infrastructure and platform components including IaaS, PaaS and SaaS models to meet scalability, availability and performance goals.
Build infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM or similar, and automate deployment pipelines for continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD).
Migrate on‑premises applications, systems and data to the cloud, ensuring minimal downtime and disruption, and align with business continuity and disaster‑recovery plans.
Integrate cloud services (compute, storage, database, messaging, identity) and APIs into applications to deliver efficient, reusable and maintainable solutions.
Monitor, measure and optimise the performance, cost and resource usage of cloud applications and infrastructure, using cloud monitoring, logging and analytics tools.
Ensure application and infrastructure security and compliance by implementing encryption, IAM, network controls, audit logging and regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).
Collaborate with cross‑functional teams (DevOps, network, security, business analysts, product owners) to align cloud architecture and solutions with overall business strategy.
Participate in architectural reviews, provide input on system design alternatives and drive innovation and best practices around cloud architecture patterns.
Maintain, enhance and refactor existing cloud applications and services to improve reliability, scalability and maintainability over time.
Develop and maintain technical documentation, interface specifications, deployment guides and user training materials for cloud components.
Work in agile / scrum teams, participate in sprint planning, code reviews, retrospectives and deliver high‑quality, production‐ready code in fast‑paced environments.
Troubleshoot and resolve production issues, perform root‑cause analysis and implement preventive measures to maintain high uptime and service availability.
Define and enforce cloud governance, policies, standards and processes for service delivery, cost control, resource provisioning and risk management.
Create proof‑of‑concepts and pilot projects to evaluate emerging cloud technologies, tools or services and make recommendations for adoption.
Automate routine operational tasks (e.g., provisioning, scaling, backups) using scripting, APIs and cloud automation frameworks.
Design and implement scalable data storage and retrieval solutions (SQL/NoSQL, data lakes) that are cloud‑ready and performant.
Manage containerised workloads using orchestration tools such as Kubernetes, Docker and manage service mesh and application lifecycle within the cloud environment.
Ensure fault tolerance and disaster recovery through design of auto‑scaling, high‑availability clusters, load balancing and failover strategies.
Stay up‑to‑date with state‑of‑the‑art cloud platforms, industry trends and emerging practices, and share knowledge and mentor junior engineers to elevate the team’s cloud capability.

Secondary Functions

Support ad‑hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization’s data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Deep expertise in one or more cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform) and cloud architectural patterns.
Strong programming/scripting skills in languages such as Python, Java, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, or C#.
Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), tools like Terraform, CloudFormation, Azure ARM, or equivalent.
Experience with containerisation and orchestration technologies (Docker, Kubernetes) and managing container workloads in the cloud.
Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, automated deployment, build automation, code integration and versioning.
Experience with cloud services such as compute (VMs, functions), storage, databases (SQL/NoSQL), messaging and identity management.
Solid understanding of network fundamentals, virtual networks, routing, load balancing, security groups and cloud infrastructure.
Familiarity with performance monitoring, logging, cost optimisation and operation of cloud workloads.
Strong knowledge of security, compliance, encryption, IAM, and regulatory frameworks relevant to cloud environments.
Experience migrating legacy systems and on‑premises workloads to cloud environments and modernising architecture.

Soft Skills

Excellent problem‑solving and analytical thinking, comfortable working in complex distributed systems.
Strong verbal and written communication skills, able to articulate technical solutions to business stakeholders.
Collaborative team player, able to work effectively with cross-functional teams (development, ops, security, business).
Adaptability and continuous learning mindset – stays current with evolving cloud technologies and patterns.
Attention to detail and quality focus, including code reviews, documentation and operational excellence.
Time management and prioritisation skills to juggle multiple cloud‑project deliverables and agile cadences.
Mentoring and coaching capability to support junior engineers and contribute to team growth.
Business acumen and ability to translate technical decisions into business value (cost savings, scalability, agility).
Risk awareness and escalation capability when dealing with architecture, security or production issues.
Ownership mindset, taking end‑to‑end responsibility for cloud solutions from conception through to operation.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology or related field.

Preferred Education:
Master’s degree in computer science or cloud computing, or relevant advanced certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Google Cloud Professional Cloud Developer, Azure Solutions Architect).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Software Engineering
Information Systems
Cloud Computing / Distributed Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:
3 – 5 years of experience in cloud application development, cloud infrastructure or a similar role.

Preferred:
5+ years experience with designing and delivering cloud‑native applications, migration of legacy systems, working in large scale distributed environments or multi‑cloud architectures.