Azure Cloud Engineer Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of an Azure Cloud Engineer. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as an Azure Cloud Engineer.
Who is an Azure Cloud Engineer?
An Azure Cloud Engineer is an IT specialist who constructs and maintains Microsoft Cloud infrastructure and solutions. An Azure cloud engineer’s duties include cloud architecting, development, and administration.
Azure cloud engineers are in charge of effective operations and development. They must strike a balance between delivery speed and service reliability. They are adept in managing problems, deploying and monitoring services, and creating software delivery pipelines using the Microsoft Azure platform.
Microsoft Azure is a large growing collection of cloud-based computing services accessible to organizations, programmers, governmental organizations, and anyone else who wants to create an application or run a business online without having to set up and maintain hardware or server software.
An Azure cloud engineer needs managerial and leadership skills to excel in their career. An Azure cloud engineer may be required to cooperate with other IT staff members or teams, bargain with vendors, and speak with top management about cloud projects. As a result, strong communication skills are essential.
In a global support model, Azure cloud engineers may assist customers in resolving urgent and complicated technical issues by combining their in-depth product and technical knowledge with their knowledge of the needs of our customers. They accomplish this by working on active cases and managing cases to encourage quicker resolution of urgent problems. Your ability to comprehend your customer’s operational and business demands and technical difficulties will be better by the close relationships you’ve built with them. This will allow you to help them get the most out of Azure.
Typically, Azure cloud engineers are employed full-time by businesses or organizations. They spend most of their time working on technological applications. These experts may put in more time as needed, especially if they have significant tasks with short deadlines. To succeed as a cloud engineer, you must feel at ease spending extended periods sitting down and using computer programs.
Azure Cloud Engineer Job Description
Below are the Azure Cloud Engineer job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write an Azure Cloud Engineer job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
Azure Cloud Engineers are in charge of a variety of cloud-related tasks, such as:
- Design and put in place Azure data protection features.
- Deploy virtual machines in a highly available setting.
- Create virtual networks with high levels of performance and security to handle workloads.
- Find and install the business’s best cloud-based solutions.
- Define and record the best methods and tactics for deploying applications and maintaining infrastructure.
- Evaluate the IT infrastructure of a company to identify cloud migration options.
- Give development teams advice, thought leadership, and mentoring to help them enhance their cloud competencies.
- Ensure application size, performance, and uptime while upholding strict code quality criteria.
- Manage cloud environments in compliance with the organization’s security policies.
- Maintain the new system and supervise the migration process.
- Monitor network performance to adhere to service-level agreements.
- Perform disaster recovery and configuration management tasks
- Set up hybrid connectivity for on-site and Azure environments.
- Utilize Azure’s automation technology possibilities.
Qualifications
- High school certificate or GED
- Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, information technology, or relevant discipline
- Azure certifications in the specialized area
- Experience using IaaS services
- Experience using PaaS services like database services, Kubernetes, etc.
- Understand the terminologies and how to navigate IP subnetting, Network Security Groups, routing, Azure Firewall, load balancing, DNS, and other networking concepts and protocols
Essential Skills
- Adaptability
Being an Azure cloud engineer, you may already know the industry’s rapid development. Your current technology might become outdated tomorrow. You should be able to rapidly correct any situations at work that stress you out or make you feel off-balance. One strategy to improve your adaptability is to be comfortable moving outside your comfort zone. Engineers use various distributed and connected resources to store and access the company’s data.
- Cloud Storage
Cloud computing centers on data so you should understand where to put data and how to store it. This is because the steps necessary to accomplish the goals may differ depending on the kind and amount of data an organization wishes to keep and use. Therefore, it would be a good idea to comprehend and master how cloud storage works, making it a crucial cloud engineer skill.
Microsoft’s cloud storage option for contemporary data storage scenarios is the Azure Storage platform. Azure storage provides highly available, massively scalable, reliable, and secure cloud storage. You can reach data items in Azure Storage via a REST API over HTTP or HTTPS from anywhere in the world.
- Communication
Communication is one of the most crucial skills you need in cloud engineering. You need to be great at this skill because you will work with customers and a team of other IT experts. Additionally, having good communication skills is helpful when you run into issues, make the right decision, or need to bargain with a vendor or stakeholder. You’ll need to develop accurate communication skills.
- Containers
Applications can be isolated from the environment they are running with the help of containers, which provide a logical packaging method. This decoupling enables container-based apps to be deployed easily and consistently despite the target environment being a private data center, public cloud, or even a developer’s laptop.
Therefore, knowing how well-known containers like Kubernetes and Docker function will add weight to your resume across all tech industries, not just the cloud.
- DevOps
If you work as a software developer or operations engineer, you are likely familiar with the problems that these professionals face when operating in various situations. DevOps combines the Development and Operations methodologies into a single framework, reducing the overlap between the two teams’ workloads.
This expertise for Azure cloud engineers might seem out of place on this list. But this approach to development has unquestionably become noticeable.
- Data Protection and Disaster Recovery
Cloud security is applied to protect data, apps, and infrastructures. It is not much different from on-premise architecture security. However, learning this skill is crucial since much data is stored in the cloud.
As a Cloud Engineer, you will benefit from understanding security and disaster recovery-related topics if operations are your focus. These approaches are essential to running software on the cloud, and having them as cloud engineers will pay you financially.
- Decision making
There will eventually be more than one possible solution to an issue, so you should know how to make sound decisions. You must master goal-setting if you want to become a better decision-maker. When you are clear on what you want, you can allocate your time and resources accordingly.
- Leadership
Like most cloud engineers, you could hope to be the team’s manager. You must start improving your leadership skills right away if you want to make it happen. You must develop the ability to push yourself and get out of your comfort zone to succeed as an Azure cloud engineer. Your ability to assume greater responsibility will speed up the development of your leadership abilities. Listening will help you become a competent team leader, while critical thinking will help you anticipate future problems. Learn to inspire yourself and your team members. A great leader encourages suggestions and brainstorming to get creative ideas and solutions.
- Networking
Reducing the number of consumer devices required to administer the network has sparked a trend of moving more network administration tasks to the cloud.
An improved Internet connection and dependable WAN bandwidth may lead to increased networking administration movement to the cloud. Hence, users are looking for simpler ways to establish and access networks utilizing a cloud-based service, which has increased the demand for cloud networking.
The role of the Azure cloud engineer may also include devising methods for building automatic adjustment processes that ensure the network is responsive to user requests. Knowledge of networking basics and virtual networks is crucial for Azure cloud engineers as it helps networking on the cloud.
- Linux
IT specialists use Linux features like open source, simple customization, security, etc. Since cloud service providers are aware of this, Linux usage on various cloud platforms is on the rise.
If you know how to develop, build, administer, and maintain Linux servers in a cloud environment, you may live and work well in the cloud industry with just such skills.
- Problem-Solving
You will face fresh challenges daily as an Azure cloud engineer, so it’s critical to master problem-solving techniques. However, combining your problem-solving and communication skills will give you a competitive edge. It will help you explain the solutions to all stakeholders while solving challenges. Identifying the issue is the first step in problem-solving, which necessitates asking the appropriate questions. Make it a practice to ask the correct questions. You’ll also need to develop the ability to stop fixating on the issue and start thinking about potential solutions. To swiftly come up with ideas, you’ll need to use your imagination and collaborate with your peers. An in-depth study will be necessary for your problem-solving.
- Project Management
Project management is a necessary skill to succeed as an Azure cloud engineer. You can ascend the success ladder more quickly the earlier you start managing projects. Project management, however, is more easily said than done. The main tasks associated with this crucial soft skill are planning, monitoring, and resource management. To ensure you meet deadlines, you essentially need to organize and manage nearly every project’s component. Learning from your team leaders is the best way to strengthen your project management skills. You can gradually develop your project management skills by starting with little tasks and taking complete responsibility for a tiny portion of the project. You may also study how to organize your tasks to grasp the fundamentals of project management.
- Web Services and API
The underlying structure of any architecture is crucial. Because Web services give Azure cloud engineers ways to integrate Web applications over the Internet, cloud architectures mainly rely on APIs and Web Services.
Therefore, having web development skills and related understanding will give you a solid foundation for creating cloud architectures.
- Programming
When discussing cloud engineer skills, it is impossible to overlook developers’ input in the cloud. Applications may be built, deployed, and managed fast by developers. Therefore, it would be beneficial to master the proper programming languages or frameworks like JAVA, SQL, Python, Powershell, and .net.
- Virtualization
By operating numerous virtual machines side by side on the same hardware and simulating various IT system components, virtualization software has allowed many users to decrease their hardware assets or use them more effectively.
Organizations may access scalable, fault-tolerant resources thanks in large part to virtualization. Therefore, working with virtualization or understanding services like virtual machines would be a significant step toward serverless computing. Consequently, it is a top-tier cloud engineer competence.
How to Become an Azure Cloud Engineer
By acquiring the necessary knowledge, experience, and even certification, you can position yourself to be competitive for cloud engineering positions. Below is how you can become one:
Get a Bachelor’s Degree
A bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, technology, or a closely related discipline is often the first step in the career of a cloud engineer. The bachelor’s program you choose should emphasize computing, software and systems infrastructure, and other technical topics. However, some firms may not require a bachelor’s degree to get the job, as long as you have the required skills to deliver.
Acquire Programming Skills
Cloud computing calls for more data-oriented programming languages like Python, Java, and Clojure as opposed to general-purpose ones like C and C++. You can use blogs, videos, online and offline classes, and other free resources to learn these things.
Learn Concepts and Specialize
You will also need some knowledge of essential concepts in Storage and Networking, Virtualization and Operating Systems, Security and Disaster Recovery, Web Services, and DevOps, in addition to learning cloud computing platforms and having expertise with at least one programming language.
Get a Master’s Degree (Optional)
Due to their advanced level of education, Azure cloud engineers with master’s degrees in tech fields may have an edge in career opportunities. Consider pursuing a graduate degree in a specific technical area where you may study more in-depth concepts of information technology, programming, and development to support your knowledge in cloud computing.
For instance, a master’s degree in systems engineering will support your professional advancement by assisting you in developing more of these technical skills and experience.
Gain Practical Experience
You can work with the cloud in a hands-on capacity in several ways. Try asking your manager if there are any possibilities for you to shadow coworkers who work in cloud computing roles or if you can take on projects that will help you learn more about cloud principles if you are in an IT function. Additionally, you can open an account on a cloud platform and start your independent research.
Obtain a Credential
Certification can help develop technical abilities and demonstrate to potential employers that you have a foundational understanding of the cloud. Take the Microsoft foundational certification, which is the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals AZ-900, if you’re new to the cloud. You can use these to study the terminology and technical aspects of the topic.
You may want to think about pursuing further Microsoft technical certifications if you already have cloud computing experience.
Where to Work as an Azure Cloud Engineer
An Azure cloud engineer can work in places where Microsoft cloud services are provided. They can work in startups, schools, religious settings, businesses, government organizations, and technological companies. They can also work remotely or from home.
Azure Cloud Engineer Salary Scale
Azure Cloud Engineers’ salaries currently range between $29,500 and $150,000 annually across the United States. The wide variation in the salary for a Microsoft Azure Cloud engineer indicates there are prospects for pay increases and development based on experience, location, and skill level.
