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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cloud Systems Administrator

💰 $ - $

ITCloudDevOpsSystems Administration

🎯 Role Definition

A Cloud Systems Administrator is responsible for designing, deploying, operating, and optimizing cloud-based infrastructure and platform services to ensure availability, security, performance, and cost-efficiency. This role combines systems administration, cloud engineering, automation, and operational excellence to manage public cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), hybrid cloud integrations, container platforms (Kubernetes), infrastructure-as-code (Terraform/CloudFormation), CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, backup and disaster recovery, and cloud governance. The Cloud Systems Administrator collaborates closely with developers, security, networking, and product teams to enable scalable and resilient services.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Systems Administrator (Windows/Linux)
  • Network Administrator or Network Engineer
  • Junior DevOps / Cloud Engineer

Advancement To:

  • Senior Cloud Systems Administrator / Cloud Engineer
  • Cloud Platform Engineer / Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
  • DevOps Lead or Cloud Architect

Lateral Moves:

  • Security Operations / Cloud Security Engineer
  • Platform Reliability or Kubernetes Administrator

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, provision, and maintain secure, highly available cloud infrastructure across one or more public cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), including networking, compute, storage, load balancing, and DNS to meet business SLAs and performance requirements.
  • Implement and manage infrastructure as code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or ARM templates to automate environment provisioning, enforce consistency, and enable repeatable deployments.
  • Build, maintain, and optimize CI/CD pipelines and automation workflows (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps) to streamline application deployments, rollbacks, and infrastructure changes with minimal operational risk.
  • Administer and troubleshoot Linux and Windows servers hosted in cloud environments and ensure timely OS patching, configuration management (Ansible, Chef, Puppet), and lifecycle maintenance.
  • Manage container platforms and orchestration systems (Kubernetes, EKS, AKS, GKE, Docker) including cluster provisioning, upgrades, capacity planning, and day-2 operations.
  • Lead cloud cost management and optimization initiatives by analyzing billing data, rightsizing resources, applying reserved/spot instances, and implementing resource tagging and governance practices.
  • Implement and maintain identity, access, and key management controls (IAM, RBAC, KMS, Azure AD) to secure accounts, service identities, and secrets while enforcing least-privilege principles.
  • Design and operate monitoring, observability, and logging solutions (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Elastic Stack, CloudWatch, Stackdriver) to deliver actionable alerts, dashboards, and SLO/SLI-based reporting.
  • Develop and execute backup, snapshot, retention, and disaster recovery strategies across cloud platforms, test recovery procedures regularly, and document RTO/RPO for critical services.
  • Harden infrastructure and apply cloud-native and OS-level security controls, perform vulnerability scanning, remediate findings, and support compliance (PCI, HIPAA, SOC2) initiatives with audit artifacts.
  • Troubleshoot complex incidents across networking, compute, storage, and platform services, lead incident response, conduct root cause analysis (RCA), and implement corrective/preventive actions.
  • Integrate cloud networking components (VPC/VNet, subnets, route tables, security groups, NSGs, Transit Gateway/VPN/Direct Connect /ExpressRoute) to support multi-tier applications and hybrid connectivity.
  • Automate routine operational tasks, runbooks, and provisioning workflows with scripting languages (Python, Bash, PowerShell) to reduce mean time to recovery (MTTR) and manual toil.
  • Enforce tagging, metadata, and configuration standards across environments to improve discoverability, cost allocation, automation triggers, and compliance reporting.
  • Manage platform upgrades, patch cycles, and compatibility testing for middleware, database services, and third-party integrations hosted in cloud environments.
  • Collaborate with development teams to implement blue/green, canary, or rolling deployment patterns and to ensure application readiness for autoscaling and fault tolerance.
  • Operate and tune database platform services (managed RDS/Aurora, Cloud SQL, CosmosDB) in cloud environments, partnering with DBAs to maintain availability, backups, and performance.
  • Create, maintain, and improve runbooks, architecture diagrams, operational runbooks, and knowledge base articles to ensure team continuity and fast onboarding.
  • Support governance, policies and guardrails using cloud-native tools (AWS Organizations, Azure Policy, GCP Organizations) and enforce secure baseline configurations using policy-as-code.
  • Conduct capacity planning, forecasting and performance tuning for compute, storage, and network resources to meet future growth requirements and reduce bottlenecks.
  • Facilitate cross-team technical reviews, change control processes, and plan scheduled maintenance windows with clear communication to stakeholders and customers.
  • Participate in on-call rotations to provide 24/7 operational coverage for production systems, handle escalations, and coordinate with vendors and cloud provider support.
  • Evaluate, recommend, and lead adoption of new cloud services and third-party tools that improve reliability, security, and developer productivity.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc infrastructure requests, proof-of-concepts, and sandbox environments for engineers and product teams.
  • Contribute to the organization's cloud strategy and roadmap by researching new cloud services, cost models, and architecture patterns.
  • Collaborate with security, compliance, and legal teams to provide evidence for audits and to implement necessary controls.
  • Participate in sprint planning, architecture reviews, and agile ceremonies to align operational work with product delivery timelines.
  • Mentor junior administrators and cross-train team members on cloud best practices, automation, and incident response.
  • Assist in onboarding third-party SaaS integrations and ensure secure, monitored connectivity between external services and cloud infrastructure.
  • Run periodic health checks, posture assessments, and security drills to validate resilience and readiness of critical systems.
  • Help define and implement backup retention policies, archival strategies, and data lifecycle management in cloud storage services.
  • Maintain up-to-date documentation for cloud accounts, billing centers, service owners, and escalation contacts.
  • Support migration projects from on-premises or legacy hosting to cloud-based platforms, including planning, cutover, and validation.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep experience with at least one major public cloud provider: AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), including compute, storage, networking, IAM, and managed services.
  • Strong Infrastructure as Code (IaC) skills using Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, ARM templates, or similar tooling to provision and manage cloud resources declaratively.
  • Proficiency with containerization and orchestration technologies: Docker and Kubernetes (EKS/AKS/GKE), including cluster lifecycle, networking (CNI), and ingress controllers.
  • Solid Linux system administration (CentOS/RedHat/Ubuntu) and Windows Server management skills: user management, services, package management, and kernel tuning.
  • Experience with configuration management tools such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef for consistent system configuration and patching.
  • Automation and scripting skills in Python, Bash, or PowerShell to create operational tooling, scheduled jobs, and automation pipelines.
  • Practical knowledge of CI/CD platforms (Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps) to integrate infrastructure and application delivery workflows.
  • Network fundamentals and cloud networking: VPCs/VNets, subnets, routing, NAT, VPN, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, security groups, and load balancing.
  • Observability and logging expertise: Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Elastic Stack, CloudWatch, or Stackdriver for metrics, traces, logs, and alerting.
  • Security and compliance know-how: IAM/RBAC design, secrets management (HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager), encryption, vulnerability scanning, and remediation workflows.
  • Backup & disaster recovery planning and tools: snapshots, replication, cross-region failover, and restoration testing.
  • Cost management: analyzing cloud billing, tagging strategies, rightsizing, and use of cost optimization tools.
  • Familiarity with database services (RDS, Cloud SQL, managed NoSQL) and operational tasks including backups, failover, and performance tuning.
  • Experience with monitoring SLAs, SLOs and defining meaningful alerts to minimize noise and ensure reliability.
  • Knowledge of Git-based workflows and collaboration on infrastructure-as-code repositories, including branching strategies and pull request reviews.

Soft Skills

  • Strong problem-solving and analytical skills, able to diagnose complex distributed-system issues under pressure and drive RCA.
  • Excellent communication skills for clear technical documentation, incident updates, and cross-functional collaboration with engineers and stakeholders.
  • Customer-focused mindset with an emphasis on service quality, uptime, and responsiveness to internal and external stakeholders.
  • Proven ability to prioritize and manage multiple competing tasks, incidents, and projects in a fast-paced environment.
  • Team player who mentors junior staff, shares knowledge, and fosters an environment of continuous improvement.
  • Adaptability and curiosity to evaluate new services, tools, and methodologies and to evolve cloud practices with business needs.
  • Attention to detail and organizational skills for maintaining runbooks, change logs, and compliance artifacts.
  • Strong ownership mentality — accountable for end-to-end service reliability and continuous operational improvement.
  • Ability to negotiate and coordinate scheduled maintenance windows and communicate risk and impact to non-technical audiences.
  • Time-management skills for handling on-call duties, regular maintenance, and project work without sacrificing operational excellence.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Associate degree or vocational certification in Information Technology, Computer Science, or related field; or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, or a related discipline.
  • Relevant cloud certifications (AWS Certified SysOps Administrator, AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Azure Administrator/Azure Solutions Architect, Google Cloud Certified – Professional Cloud Architect/Professional Cloud Network Engineer).

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Technology
  • Computer Engineering
  • Network Engineering
  • Cybersecurity

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of systems administration, cloud operations, or DevOps experience with at least 2 years managing cloud platforms in production.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of progressive hands-on experience operating cloud infrastructure in AWS, Azure or GCP, including IaC, automation, container orchestration, and incident response.
  • Demonstrated experience supporting production-critical services, participating in on-call rotations, and leading post-incident reviews and remediation efforts.
  • Prior experience working in agile, DevOps-oriented cross-functional teams and contributing to platform roadmaps and operational runbooks.
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