- Who is a Cloud Architect?
- Key Job Responsibilities of a Cloud Architect
- Required Qualification/Education
- What makes you qualified for this job?
- Top Companies/Organizations Hiring Cloud Architect
- Cloud Architect Salary Statistics
Who is a Cloud Architect?
Cloud architects are individuals who oversee a company’s cloud computing strategy very carefully. He is an IT professional who has to take care of the cloud adoption plans, and cloud application design, and manage and monitor the cloud. Cloud architects usually have extensive knowledge of both cloud computing and how it is applied in multiple industries. It is very common for cloud architects to work closely with stakeholders because they are the ones who navigate both the back-end technical side and the business side of cloud infrastructure.
In this article, we shall talk about the key responsibilities, skills required, and other details about a cloud architect.
Key Job Responsibilities of a Cloud Architect
Cloud architects have a variety of things to take care of and the most common one is to plan, design, implement, and maintain the entire cloud environment in the organization. With that, there is an extensive list of key responsibilities of which we have listed a few of them.
- Responsible for not only managing the cloud environment but also creating and executing cloud computing strategies. This is done by designing, developing, and managing cloud infrastructure and assets to help the business achieve its desired goals.
- Knowledge of the organization’s cloud infrastructure, can monitor cloud activity, and address different bugs.
- A cloud architect enables an organization to maintain the ownership of its infrastructure instead of only relying on Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS).
- Work closely with DevOps team members for multiple purposes. This includes strategic planning and technical work of building, deploying, and migrating applications within an organization’s computing cloud.
- Collaborate with different developers and ensure that all the preliminary requirements of a build are met before continuing to design and integrate the project.
- Respond to all kinds of technical difficulties in real-time and a competent manner.
- Identify the best cloud architecture options and help the firm achieve all its strategic goals.
- Bring new apps into the cloud environment to completion.
- Conduct migrations to transfer tools and other aspects into the cloud whenever required.
- Use virtualization technologies to achieve effective server administration for the business.
Gain valuable knowledge by reading insights from an authoritative voice in infrastructure.
Required Qualification/Education
- To become a cloud architect, you would require at least an undergraduate degree in either cloud computing, computer science, or any relevant field.
- With that, you would need a strong background in computer operating systems and programming languages.
- You would also need good know-how in networking and security.
Relevant In-demand Certifications:
You can find following vendor-specific cloud architecture certifications:
AWS:
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
Google Cloud:
Professional Cloud Architect
Microsoft Azure:
Azure Solution Architect
Recommended Courses:
Preparing for Google Cloud Certification- Google Cloud via Coursera
- 37,907+ already enrolled!
- ★★★★★ (9,849 Ratings)
Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Architect- Google Cloud via Pluralsight
- 26 hours of effort required!
- 08 Self-paced Courses
GCP Professional Cloud Architect: Google Cloud Certification- in28Minutes Official via Udemy
- 33,482+ already enrolled!
- ★★★★★ (4,646 Ratings)
What makes you qualified for this job?
A cloud architect can never only rely on a degree, instead some hard and soft skills are also required to work efficiently and meet all the requirements.
Hard Skills:
- Ability to design and implement the entire cloud infrastructure.
- Deep knowledge of various IT ecosystems.
- Must know one or more cloud environments like Azure Cloud, AWS EC2, and Google Cloud.
- Ability to translate project-specific requirements into a cloud structure.
- Know-how in designing the cloud environment from a comprehensive perspective and making sure that it satisfies the company’s requirements.
- Sufficient knowledge of MySQL is required.
- Excellent programming skills in Java would be a plus point.
- Possess network administration, data storage and security skills.
- Knowledge of open-source tools like Kubernetes and Docker.
Soft Skills:
- Good written and verbal communication skills.
- Project Management and team leading skills.
- Interpersonal skills.
Top Companies/Organizations Hiring Cloud Architect
It has been found that there are around 227,000 jobs for Cloud Computing professionals alone in the United States. And you would be surprised to know the demand for cloud architects is one of the highest in the world.
Top companies like Amazon, Oracle, UKG, IBM, Intel Corporation, SAP, Alibaba, Deloitte, Domo, HubSpot, and many others tend to hire cloud architects or relevant job roles.
Industries like technology, finance, government, education, business, health, etc actively hire cloud architects thereby offering them high job security and perks.
Cloud Architect Salary Statistics
This section contains salary details of a project manager working in different major countries.
| Country | Average Salary (Yearly) |
| United States | $174,330 |
| Canada | CA$101,996 |
| United Kingdom | £63,989 |
| India | ₹7,55,000 |
| Australia | A$120,500 |
USA:
The average annual salary of a cloud architect working in the US is around $174,330.
Canada:
Working as a cloud architect in Canada can help you make around $101,996.
UK:
If you are working as a cloud architect in England then you can expect to make an average annual salary of £63,989.
India:
A cloud architect working in India can easily make an average annual salary of ₹7,55,000.
Australia:
In Australia, the average annual salary of a cloud architect is A$120,500 a year,
References/Sources:
- https://www.glassdoor.com/
- Please note that mentioned salary stats are as of November, 2023.
