Cloud-based job roles

TL;DR

An AWS-perspective on cloud roles.

Cloud architect

FKA an IT solutions architect, A cloud architect designs and delivers the cloud strategy and is in charge of the cloud environment/s. The key considerations that a cloud architect must consider includes:

• high availability
• cost-efficiency
• scalability

The role is supervisory, ensuring that the blueprint for the cloud architecture is deployed and maintained. The cloud architect must understand how services are connected and integrated. They must be able to understand metrics from tools such as Amazon CloudWatch and logging tools. They must also have an excellent understanding of IAM (Identity and Access Management).

A note on IAM

IAM is a modern way of talking about authentication and authorization. The first question a system must answer about a user is “who are you?”. The answer to this question should then provide access based on the vital information: “what is this person allowed to do?”

System administrator

The sys. admin. looks after performance of the cloud system. Responsibilities include:

• managing configurations
• assisting database admins to set up database servers
• requirements gathering
• implementation based on those requirements

Security administrator

Sec. admins. are responsible for data security. This means enacting preventative measures and reacting to any potential incidents as they arise. Responsibilities include:

• Defining security requirements
• Establishing and communicating security rules to engineers
• Understanding risk and communicating that across the company
• Resourceful and able to tap SMEs as it is not possible to memorize the ocean of regulatory requirements

DevOps Administrator

DevOps supports engineering teams to implement and rollback changes to pipelines. DevOps should be proficient in:

• programming scripting languages
• operations
• QA and testing