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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cloud Security Engineer

💰 $ - $

🎯 Role Definition

The Cloud Security Engineer is responsible for designing, implementing, and operating robust cloud-native security controls across public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP), container and orchestration environments (Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelines. This role blends cloud security architecture, DevSecOps automation, threat detection and response, identity and access management (IAM), and compliance engineering to reduce organizational risk, ensure secure application delivery, and enable fast, safe innovation in the cloud.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Cloud Engineer with security focus (AWS/Azure/GCP)
  • Security Engineer or Information Security Analyst with cloud experience
  • DevOps Engineer who has taken on security responsibilities (DevSecOps)

Advancement To:

  • Senior Cloud Security Engineer / Staff Cloud Security Engineer
  • Cloud Security Architect / Principal Security Architect
  • Head of Cloud Security / Director of Cloud Security / VP of Security

Lateral Moves:

  • DevSecOps Engineer
  • Platform Security Engineer
  • Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) with security specialization

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, implement, and maintain cloud security architectures and guardrails across AWS, Azure, and GCP, aligning with enterprise security standards, regulatory requirements (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, GDPR), and industry best practices to protect data, workloads, and infrastructure.
  • Develop and operationalize identity and access management (IAM) strategies, including role design, least-privilege policies, cross-account access, service principal governance, and privilege escalation prevention across multi-cloud environments.
  • Build and maintain automated security-as-code pipelines using Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM templates, or Pulumi to enforce secure infrastructure provisioning and drift detection across all environments.
  • Integrate security controls into CI/CD pipelines by implementing SAST, DAST, secret scanning, dependency checks, and container image scanning to shift security left and reduce vulnerabilities delivered to production.
  • Implement and tune cloud-native security tools (AWS Security Hub, Azure Defender / Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Google Cloud Security Command Center), third-party CSPM/CNAPP solutions, and SIEM integrations to centralize telemetry and alerting.
  • Design and operate continuous monitoring and threat detection capabilities using cloud-native logs, VPC flow logs, CloudTrail/Azure Activity/Cloud Audit logs, EDR, and IDS/IPS to detect anomalous behavior and attacker techniques in real time.
  • Lead incident response for cloud-native incidents, perform root-cause analysis, coordinate remediation, and implement lessons learned to harden systems and prevent recurrence.
  • Define, implement, and maintain network security controls for cloud architectures including segmentation, micro-segmentation, secure VPC/VNet design, firewall rules, and secure connectivity (VPN, Direct Connect, ExpressRoute) to protect east-west and north-south traffic.
  • Manage and secure container and orchestration platforms by hardening Kubernetes clusters, implementing Pod Security Policies / OPA/Gatekeeper policies, admission controllers, network policies, and secure image registries.
  • Design and enforce secrets management solutions and encryption strategies (KMS, HSMs, envelope encryption), ensuring keys and secrets lifecycle are tightly controlled, audited, and rotated.
  • Own cloud configuration governance by developing and maintaining CSPM policies, baseline hardening frameworks (CIS Benchmarks), automated remediation playbooks, and continuous compliance checks across accounts and subscriptions.
  • Collaborate with application, platform, and SRE teams to perform threat modeling, secure design reviews, and architecture risk assessments for new cloud projects and migrations.
  • Lead vulnerability management for cloud workloads including discovery, prioritized triage, remediation ownership, and tracking for virtual machines, containers, serverless functions, and managed services.
  • Create and maintain comprehensive documentation, runbooks, and run-time SOPs for secure operations, incident handling, disaster recovery, and playbooks for common cloud security scenarios.
  • Build and maintain service-level security automation such as automated remediation workflows (Lambda/Functions/Runbooks), event-driven detection-to-remediation playbooks, and self-healing security controls.
  • Conduct periodic security reviews and audits with internal and external stakeholders to validate security posture, support compliance audits (SOC 2, ISO, PCI), and respond to customer security questionnaires and RFPs.
  • Evaluate, select, procure, and operationalize cloud security tooling and third-party services (CSPM, CWPP, CNAPP, CASB, SIEM, SOAR) to ensure coverage for asset discovery, posture management, and threat detection.
  • Mentor and coach engineering teams on secure coding practices, secure cloud patterns, and operational security responsibilities to embed security ownership across the organization.
  • Perform cost/benefit analysis and risk assessments for proposed security controls, balancing security, usability, and cloud operational cost considerations while supporting business objectives.
  • Lead proof-of-concept engagements and pilot projects to evaluate emerging cloud security technologies, present findings to engineering and leadership teams, and provide guidance on adoption and scaling.
  • Drive cross-functional initiatives to implement Zero Trust architectures in the cloud, including identity-centric access, device posture checks, secure service-to-service authentication, and continuous authorization.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc security data requests and exploratory analysis using cloud log data, telemetry, and observability platforms to answer risk and posture questions for engineering and business stakeholders.
  • Contribute to the organization's cloud security strategy and roadmap by identifying technical debt, prioritizing security investments, and specifying measurable objectives and KPIs for cloud security programs.
  • Collaborate with application and platform teams to translate business and compliance requirements into technical security requirements and implementation plans for cloud services.
  • Participate in sprint planning, agile ceremonies, and cross-team working groups to ensure security requirements are integrated into the product lifecycle and delivery cadence.
  • Provide security oversight and technical guidance during cloud migrations and major release cycles to minimize configuration drift and maintain continuous compliance.
  • Deliver regular security awareness training, workshops, and phishing/attack simulation insights for engineering teams to improve detection, response times, and secure development practices.
  • Assist sales and presales teams by responding to technical security questionnaires, producing architecture diagrams, and supporting customer-led security reviews and audits.
  • Maintain relationships with external security communities, vendors, and cloud provider technical account teams to stay current with evolving threats, mitigations, and best practices.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Expertise in cloud platforms and services: hands-on experience securing AWS (IAM, VPC, KMS, CloudTrail, GuardDuty), Azure (AD, VNets, Defender), and Google Cloud (IAM, VPC, KMS, SCC).
  • Cloud security architecture and design: ability to design secure multi-account/multi-subscription architectures, landing zones, and account governance models.
  • Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and automation: strong experience with Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM Templates, or Pulumi and integrating security policies as code.
  • CI/CD security integration: familiarity with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or similar; integrating SAST/DAST, vulnerability scanning, and secrets detection into pipelines.
  • Container and Kubernetes security: securing kubeadm/EKS/GKE/AKS clusters, implementing Pod Security Standards, admission controllers, OPA/Gatekeeper, and runtime protections.
  • Cloud posture and workload protection tools: experience with CSPM/CWPP/CNAPP tooling (e.g., Prisma Cloud, Dome9, Aqua, Twistlock, Lacework) and native provider tools.
  • Threat detection and incident response: experience configuring SIEM/SOAR, writing detection rules, building playbooks, and coordinating incident response for cloud incidents.
  • Identity and access management (IAM): deep understanding of role-based access control, federation (SAML, OIDC), principle of least privilege, and PAM solutions.
  • Networking & encryption: expertise in secure VPC/VNet design, network segmentation, transit architectures, TLS, IPsec, and key management services.
  • Compliance & benchmarks: working knowledge of CIS Benchmarks, NIST CSF, PCI-DSS, SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR requirements as they apply to cloud services.
  • Logging, monitoring & observability: ability to instrument cloud workloads and build dashboards and alerts using CloudWatch, Log Analytics, Stackdriver, Prometheus, and ELK.
  • Programming & scripting: proficiency in Python, Go, Bash, or similar for automation, tooling, and custom integrations.
  • Vulnerability management tools and processes: experience with Qualys, Nessus, Trivy, or similar scanners and vulnerability lifecycle management.
  • Secrets management and encryption: hands-on experience with HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, or Google Secret Manager.
  • Secure software development lifecycle (SDLC): knowledge of security testing, secure coding standards, and remediation workflows.

Soft Skills

  • Strong communicator: able to translate technical risk into business impact and present recommendations clearly to engineering and executive audiences.
  • Collaboration and influence: effective at working with cross-functional teams (DevOps, platform, product, legal, compliance) to implement security solutions.
  • Problem solving and analytical thinking: methodical, data-driven approach to threat analysis, root-cause analysis, and security design trade-offs.
  • Prioritization and time management: able to balance reactive incident work with proactive engineering and strategic projects.
  • Mentorship: experience coaching engineers on secure design patterns, code reviews, and operational best practices.
  • Adaptability: comfortable operating in fast-moving cloud environments and learning new platforms, tools, and threat vectors.
  • Customer-focused mindset: responsive to internal and external security inquiries and able to support presales and customer assurance activities.
  • Detail-oriented with strong documentation skills: produces runbooks, architecture diagrams, and compliance artifacts that can be audited.
  • Leadership under pressure: capable of leading incidents and coordinating cross-team remediation with calm and decisiveness.
  • Continuous learner: committed to staying current with cloud security trends, certifications, and threat intelligence.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Computer Engineering, or equivalent technical field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Systems, or a related discipline; or relevant industry certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, AWS Certified Security – Specialty, Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer, or Azure Security Engineer Associate.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Security / Cybersecurity
  • Computer Engineering
  • Cloud Computing / Systems Engineering
  • Information Systems / IT Management

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–8+ years of professional experience in information security, cloud engineering, or DevSecOps with at least 2–4 years focusing on cloud security for public cloud platforms.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years securing cloud-native environments with demonstrable experience building secure cloud infrastructure at scale, implementing automated security controls and incident response processes, and supporting compliance certifications (SOC 2, ISO, PCI). Experience at a SaaS company or enterprise cloud migration projects is a plus.
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