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Skills Self-Assessment

Role: Cloud Engineer

Assessed: 0 Total: 0

Application Security 1

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Cloud Providers 4

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Works with core AWS services: EC2, S3, RDS, IAM, VPC. Creates and configures resources through Console and CLI. Understands Shared Responsibility model, IAM policy basics, and account structure. Deploys simple applications on EC2/ECS.

Designs AWS infrastructure: multi-AZ architecture, Auto Scaling Groups, ALB/NLB, Route 53 for DNS. Configures VPC peering, Transit Gateway, Security Groups and NACLs. Works with managed services — RDS, ElastiCache, SQS, SNS for building resilient systems.

Defines organizational AWS strategy: account vending machine, service control policies, centralized networking (Transit Gateway Hub). Manages enterprise support, cost allocation, budgets and alerts. Introduces FinOps practices and optimizes costs at the company level.

Shapes enterprise-level cloud strategy: multi-region disaster recovery, hybrid cloud (Outposts, Direct Connect), compliance frameworks (SOC2, HIPAA, PCI DSS). Designs reference architectures and makes strategic decisions on cloud-native vs lift-and-shift.

Container Security 1

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Understands basic Container Security Scanning concepts. Uses existing configurations. Performs simple operations under senior guidance.

Independently configures container security scanning in CI/CD pipelines with Trivy, Snyk Container, or Aqua. Implements admission controllers for vulnerability gates. Manages base image registries with automated vulnerability patching workflows.

Defines infrastructure strategy with Container Security Scanning. Establishes IaC standards. Conducts architecture review. Optimizes FinOps.

Defines platform-level container security strategy: Trivy/Snyk integration in CI/CD, admission controllers in Kubernetes for blocking vulnerable images, runtime protection through Falco/Aqua. Establishes CVE remediation SLA and automates compliance reporting.

Deployment Strategies 2

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DNS & Networking 3

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Configures basic CDN distributions using cloud provider consoles. Understands caching headers, TTL, and cache invalidation concepts. Deploys simple edge functions following team templates.

Implements CDN configurations with custom cache policies and origin failover using IaC. Deploys edge computing workloads for request transformation and A/B testing. Optimizes cache hit ratios and reduces origin load.

Defines CDN and edge computing strategy across multi-cloud environments. Establishes caching standards, edge security policies, and FinOps optimization for content delivery. Conducts architecture reviews for global content distribution.

Defines CDN and edge computing strategy: CloudFront/Cloud CDN for static and API acceleration, Lambda@Edge/CloudFlare Workers for edge logic. Designs caching architecture — cache invalidation, origin shield, multi-CDN failover for global applications.

Understands basic load balancing concepts in cloud: ALB/NLB in AWS, Azure Load Balancer, and health check configurations. Follows team guidelines for setting up target groups and SSL termination in managed load balancer services.

Independently configures cloud load balancing: multi-AZ ALB with path-based routing, weighted target groups for canary deployments, and WAF integration. Implements auto-scaling policies triggered by load balancer request metrics.

Defines load balancing strategy for cloud platform: multi-region traffic management, failover automation, and cost-optimized balancer selection. Establishes IaC standards for load balancer provisioning and conducts architecture reviews.

Defines platform-level load balancing strategy: L4 (NLB) vs L7 (ALB) vs Global (GCLB), multi-region load balancing with GeoDNS, service mesh for internal traffic. Designs zero-downtime deployment patterns and traffic management architecture for canary/blue-green releases.

Understands basic VPN and network isolation concepts: site-to-site tunnels, IPSec/WireGuard protocols, and VPC peering fundamentals. Uses existing configurations to provision VPN connections in cloud environments. Follows team guidelines for network segmentation and firewall rule management.

Independently configures VPN solutions and network isolation in multi-cloud environments: AWS VPN Gateway, Azure VPN, GCP Cloud VPN with BGP routing. Implements network segmentation using VPC service controls, private endpoints, and transit gateway architectures. Understands zero-trust network access patterns.

Defines VPN and network isolation strategy for cloud infrastructure: establishes connectivity standards, transit architecture patterns, and zero-trust network policies. Conducts architecture reviews for multi-cloud network designs. Optimizes network costs through traffic engineering and interconnect planning.

Shapes organizational VPN strategy: Site-to-Site VPN vs Direct Connect/ExpressRoute, client VPN for remote access, mesh VPN between clouds. Designs high-availability VPN with BGP, failover and monitoring. Defines migration path to Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).

GitOps 1

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Understands basic ArgoCD concepts including Application CRDs, sync policies, and GitOps workflow fundamentals. Follows team guidelines for viewing application sync status and checking deployment health in the ArgoCD UI. Uses existing ArgoCD Application manifests to deploy cloud infrastructure services.

Independently configures ArgoCD Applications and ApplicationSets for multi-environment cloud infrastructure deployments. Writes sync policies with automated self-healing, pruning strategies, and sync waves for ordered resource provisioning. Implements RBAC and project-level access controls for cloud team namespaces.

Defines ArgoCD strategy and GitOps standards for the organization's cloud infrastructure fleet. Establishes multi-tenant ArgoCD governance with project structures, RBAC policies, and approval workflows. Conducts architecture reviews of ArgoCD configurations and drives adoption of declarative infrastructure delivery patterns across cloud engineering teams.

Shapes the organization's GitOps strategy around ArgoCD for enterprise-scale cloud platform delivery. Drives architectural decisions on multi-cluster ArgoCD federation, disaster recovery patterns, and integration with cloud-native control planes. Influences industry practices through contributions to ArgoCD ecosystem and GitOps community standards.

Infrastructure as Code 3

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Understands basic Ansible concepts including playbooks, inventory files, and module usage for cloud infrastructure provisioning. Follows team-provided playbooks for deploying and configuring cloud resources across AWS, GCP, or Azure environments. Uses ansible-playbook command to run existing automation tasks and reviews output for errors during cloud resource management.

Independently writes Ansible playbooks and roles for cloud infrastructure automation including VM provisioning, network configuration, and security group management. Implements dynamic inventory scripts for cloud providers and uses Ansible collections (amazon.aws, google.cloud, azure.azcollection) for idempotent resource management. Structures playbooks with roles, handlers, and templates for reusable cloud configuration patterns across environments.

Defines Ansible automation standards and best practices for cloud infrastructure teams across the organization. Establishes role and collection development guidelines, testing frameworks with Molecule, and Ansible Tower/AWX governance for self-service cloud provisioning. Conducts architecture reviews of automation codebases and drives adoption of standardized cloud provisioning patterns through reusable Ansible collections.

Shapes the organization's infrastructure automation strategy with Ansible as a core tool for multi-cloud configuration management. Drives innovation in Ansible-based cloud automation including event-driven automation with ansible-rulebook, GitOps integration patterns, and self-healing infrastructure playbooks. Influences Ansible community practices through contributions to cloud provider collections and conference presentations on enterprise-scale cloud automation.

Understands basic Pulumi concepts: stacks, resources, and state management for cloud infrastructure. Deploys simple cloud resources using existing Pulumi programs in TypeScript or Python. Follows team conventions for stack organization, secret handling, and configuration management.

Independently writes Pulumi programs for multi-cloud deployments using component resources and stack references. Configures networking, IAM, and storage with proper secret encryption and environment management. Understands Pulumi policy-as-code with CrossGuard for compliance enforcement.

Defines cloud infrastructure strategy with Pulumi: establishes IaC standards, module registry governance, and multi-environment promotion workflows. Conducts architecture reviews for cross-team Pulumi adoption. Optimizes FinOps through automated cost policies and resource lifecycle management.

Evaluates Pulumi as strategic alternative to Terraform: advantages of real programming languages for complex logic, Automation API for self-service platforms, Policy as Code through CrossGuard. Defines use cases for Pulumi vs Terraform in multi-cloud architecture.

Understands Terraform fundamentals: HCL syntax, provider configuration, resource blocks, and data sources. Works with terraform init/plan/apply workflow. Manages state files and understands locking. Creates basic cloud resources (VMs, networks, storage) from documentation examples.

Writes modular Terraform configurations for multi-tier cloud architectures. Creates reusable modules with input variables, outputs, and documentation. Manages multi-environment setups using workspaces or directory structures. Implements remote state with locking (S3+DynamoDB, GCS). Configures IAM policies and security groups through Terraform.

Defines organizational IaC standards: repository structure, naming conventions, tagging strategy, module registry. Introduces policy-as-code through Sentinel/OPA, drift detection, cost estimation (Infracost). Trains teams on Terraform best practices.

Shapes company-level Infrastructure as Code strategy: multi-cloud provisioning, Terraform Enterprise/Cloud vs self-hosted, modular platform for self-service. Designs state management architecture for hundreds of stacks and dozens of teams.

Infrastructure Security 1

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Understands the fundamentals of Cloud Security. Applies basic practices in daily work. Follows recommendations from the team and documentation.

Implements security best practices: IAM roles instead of access keys, SCPs for guardrails, VPC Flow Logs for monitoring. Configures AWS Config Rules, SecurityHub, GuardDuty for automated threat detection. Implements encryption at rest and in transit for all services.

Defines cloud platform security strategy: security baseline for new accounts, incident response runbooks, vulnerability management program. Introduces CSPM (Cloud Security Posture Management), trains teams on secure-by-default approach. Manages security exceptions and risk acceptance.

Shapes enterprise-level cloud security strategy: Zero Trust Architecture, cloud-native SIEM (CloudTrail Lake, Chronicle), supply chain security. Defines compliance frameworks (SOC2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS), designs security reference architecture for multi-cloud.

Kubernetes & Orchestration 2

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Installs and upgrades applications using existing Helm charts. Understands Helm chart structure: templates, values, and Chart.yaml. Customizes deployments by overriding values files under senior guidance.

Authors reusable Helm charts with parameterized templates and dependency management. Implements Helm hooks for migration and initialization workflows. Integrates Helm deployments into CI/CD pipelines with automated testing.

Defines Helm chart standards and library charts for organization-wide Kubernetes deployments. Establishes chart review processes, security scanning, and versioning governance. Drives adoption of GitOps workflows with Helm and ArgoCD or Flux.

Designs organizational Helm ecosystem architecture: umbrella charts for complex applications, library charts for reuse, Helmfile for release management. Defines versioning standards, template functions and values hierarchies for multi-cluster environments.

Understands Kubernetes resource types (Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps). Uses kubectl to inspect pod status, view logs, and apply existing manifests in cloud environments.

Configures Kubernetes RBAC, network policies, and Ingress controllers for multi-tenant cloud environments. Writes Helm charts and manages cluster upgrades with zero-downtime strategies.

Defines multi-cluster Kubernetes strategy across cloud providers. Establishes GitOps workflows with ArgoCD/Flux, implements service mesh policies, and optimizes cluster costs with FinOps practices.

Shapes Kubernetes platform evolution strategy: multi-cluster federation, service mesh (Istio/Linkerd), GitOps through ArgoCD/Flux. Designs custom operators, admission webhooks, scheduler extensions. Defines multi-tenancy architecture and resource governance.

Networking 1

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Understands basic networking concepts for cloud infrastructure — VPC configuration, subnet addressing, security groups, and route tables. Follows team guidelines for provisioning network resources and troubleshooting connectivity between cloud services.

Designs network architecture: multi-tier VPC with public/private/isolated subnets, VPC Peering, Transit Gateway for VPC connectivity. Configures DNS (Route 53/Cloud DNS) with health checks and failover. Works with Site-to-Site VPN and Direct Connect for hybrid environments.

Defines organizational networking strategy: centralized networking account, IP address management (IPAM), segmentation standards. Introduces service mesh for microservices, zero-trust networking. Manages network changes through IaC with automated compliance.

Shapes platform-level network architecture: global backbone, multi-region connectivity, cloud interconnect strategy. Designs solutions for edge computing, CDN integration, hybrid DNS. Defines network security standards and Zero Trust Architecture.

Serverless 2

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Understands serverless container services: AWS Fargate, Cloud Run, and Azure Container Instances. Deploys containerized applications without managing infrastructure. Configures basic scaling and networking.

Independently configures and manages Serverless Containers. Writes IaC for common tasks. Understands networking and security basics.

Defines infrastructure strategy with Serverless Containers. Establishes IaC standards. Conducts architecture review. Optimizes FinOps.

Defines serverless containers strategy for the organization: AWS Fargate vs Google Cloud Run vs Azure Container Apps. Designs architecture for burst workloads, event-driven scaling, cold start optimization. Establishes cost model and guidelines for choosing between serverless and dedicated compute.

Understands basic serverless concepts: AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions. Deploys simple functions using CLI or console. Follows existing event trigger configurations and IAM policies.

Independently designs and deploys serverless architectures with API Gateway, SQS, and event-driven triggers. Configures cold start mitigation, concurrency limits, and VPC connectivity. Writes Terraform/CloudFormation for serverless stacks.

Defines serverless-first infrastructure strategy across the organization. Establishes IaC standards for function deployment, monitoring, and cost governance. Conducts architecture reviews of serverless solutions and optimizes FinOps for compute spend.

Shapes serverless architecture strategy: Lambda/Cloud Functions for event processing, API Gateway integration, Step Functions for orchestration. Designs patterns — fan-out/fan-in, saga, circuit breaker. Defines serverless applicability boundaries and migration paths.

System Design 1

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Understands basic capacity planning concepts for cloud infrastructure: instance sizing, auto-scaling groups, and resource quotas. Follows team guidelines for monitoring cloud resource utilization and cost allocation dashboards.

Applies capacity planning for cloud workloads: right-sizing instances, configuring HPA/VPA in Kubernetes, and implementing auto-scaling policies. Analyzes resource utilization trends and forecasts capacity needs for cloud services.

Defines product architectural strategy with Capacity Planning. Establishes architecture guidelines. Conducts architecture review.

Defines capacity planning strategy for cloud platform: predictive scaling based on ML models, reserved capacity management, burst-to-cloud scenarios. Designs FinOps processes — unit economics, capacity forecasting, rightsizing recommendations. Balances cost and availability at enterprise level.

Technical Documentation 1

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Follows existing runbooks when working with cloud infrastructure: restarting services, scaling resources, basic diagnostics. Documents simple procedures — how to deploy an environment, check deployment status, connect to VPN. Updates runbooks when inaccuracies are found.

Writes runbooks for common operational tasks: deployment rollback, database failover, EBS disk expansion, certificate replacement. Includes preconditions, step-by-step commands, result verification and rollback plan. Uses templates with automated steps through AWS CLI/kubectl.

Defines runbook strategy for the organization: coverage requirements (each service — minimum 5 runbooks), review process, freshness policy. Introduces self-healing runbooks — automated execution on specific alerts. Links runbooks with SLOs and incident severity levels.

Shapes enterprise-level operational knowledge management: AI-assisted runbook generation, automated validation through chaos engineering, runbook-as-code in Git. Designs operational knowledge management platform with versioning, testing and continuous improvement.

Additional skills (optional) 36

These skills do not affect the main grade but show the breadth of your profile.

AI Coding Assistants

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Uses GitHub Copilot for generating basic IaC code: Terraform resources, Dockerfiles, Kubernetes YAML configurations. Validates suggestions for parameter correctness and security best practices. Applies Copilot for writing bash scripts automating cloud tasks.

Effectively uses Copilot for complex IaC templates: Terraform modules with variables and outputs, Helm values, CloudFormation nested stacks. Critically evaluates suggestions — checks security implications, cost impact, compliance with organizational standards.

Defines AI tool usage policy for infrastructure development: approved tools, security review of AI-generated IaC, CI/CD integration for automated review. Evaluates ROI and introduces best practices combining AI generation with human review.

Alerting & On-Call

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Understands SLI, SLO, SLA concepts and their application in cloud services. Knows SLA of major cloud providers (AWS 99.99% for S3, 99.95% for EC2). Monitors basic SLIs — availability, latency, error rate through CloudWatch dashboards.

Defines SLI/SLO for cloud services: availability (successful requests / total), latency (p50, p95, p99), throughput. Configures error budget tracking, burn rate alerts in Prometheus/CloudWatch. Understands multi-window multi-burn-rate alerts and their configuration.

Defines organizational SLO culture: SLO review process, error budget governance, SLA negotiations with clients. Introduces tooling (Sloth, Google SLO Generator) and standards for all cloud services. Balances reliability requirements and delivery speed based on error budgets.

Algorithms & Data Structures

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Understands the fundamentals of Algorithms & Complexity at a basic level. Applies simple concepts in work tasks using Python/HCL. Follows recommendations from senior developers when solving problems.

Independently applies algorithmic thinking in cloud engineering: evaluates resource scheduling strategies, understands auto-scaling algorithm behavior, selects load balancing algorithms for traffic distribution. Analyzes cost/performance trade-offs of infrastructure provisioning approaches.

Evaluates algorithmic complexity of cloud solutions: cost of resource traversal through API, pagination when working with thousands of instances, Lambda cold start optimization. Defines performance budgets for IaC pipelines and automates degradation detection during infrastructure scaling.

Understands the fundamentals of Data Structures at a basic level. Applies simple concepts in work tasks using Python/HCL. Follows recommendations from senior developers when solving problems.

Independently selects appropriate data structures for IaC: Terraform module input/output structures, resource tagging schemas, variable type constraints for configuration validation. Understands trade-offs between nested vs flat infrastructure data models for maintainability.

Defines standards for cloud infrastructure configuration storage and structuring: hierarchical Terraform state files, resource dependency DAGs, graph models for network topologies. Reviews data structure choices for CloudFormation stacks and Helm charts.

API Management

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Application Security

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Caching

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CI/CD

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Creates simple GitHub Actions workflows for cloud projects: lint Terraform/CloudFormation, validate configurations, run tests. Understands workflow file structure, triggers (push, pull_request), uses existing actions for AWS CLI, Docker build and push.

Designs CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure: terraform plan in PR with result comment, automated apply after merge, matrix builds for multi-environments. Configures OIDC federation with AWS/GCP for secure authentication without long-lived credentials.

Defines CI/CD strategy for all infrastructure repositories: standard workflow templates, self-hosted runners in private networks, secrets management through OIDC. Introduces governance — required reviews, environment protection rules, audit trail for infrastructure changes.

Shapes infrastructure change automation platform: GitOps with GitHub Actions as orchestrator, integration with Terraform Cloud/Spacelift, multi-cloud deployment pipelines. Designs self-service developer platform with guardrails for safe resource provisioning.

Clean Code & Refactoring

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Understands the fundamentals of Code Quality & Refactoring at a basic level. Applies simple concepts in work tasks using Python/HCL. Follows recommendations from senior developers when solving problems.

Independently applies code quality practices in cloud infrastructure development. Writes clean Terraform/CloudFormation code with proper module boundaries and variable naming. Understands trade-offs between infrastructure abstraction levels. Reviews IaC for security misconfigurations, cost implications, and idempotency.

Establishes Infrastructure as Code quality standards: Terraform linting (tflint, checkov), Helm chart validation, policy-as-code through OPA/Sentinel. Configures quality gates in CI/CD for infrastructure changes and balances deployment speed with security.

Code Review

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Participates in infrastructure code reviews: checks Terraform plan output, pays attention to security groups, IAM policies. Leaves constructive comments and asks questions about unfamiliar resources. Learns from senior colleagues' review feedback.

Conducts quality review of IaC code: checks naming conventions, tagging compliance, resource sizing, security best practices. Analyzes Terraform plan for destructive changes, drift and unexpected dependencies. Provides recommendations on cost optimization and architecture.

Defines review process for infrastructure changes: review checklist, mandatory approvals by severity (production = 2+ approvals), automated policy checks. Builds a culture of quality review — knowledge sharing, not gate-keeping. Balances speed and safety.

Collaboration Tools

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Understands docs-as-code principles: Markdown/AsciiDoc, version-controlled documentation alongside infrastructure code. Can write runbooks and operational procedures in Git-managed repositories. Follows team conventions for README files and architecture decision records (ADRs).

Documents cloud infrastructure as code: terraform-docs for automated module README generation, Architecture Decision Records (ADR) for key decisions. Maintains diagrams-as-code through Mermaid/PlantUML for network topologies and architecture diagrams.

Defines infrastructure documentation standards: ADR template, runbook structure, service catalog format. Introduces docs-as-code workflow — PR-based updates, automated freshness checks, documentation coverage metrics. Trains teams on documentation culture.

Concurrency & Parallelism

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Containerization

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Builds Docker images for simple services, writes basic Dockerfiles. Understands image layers, build caching, difference between CMD and ENTRYPOINT. Uses docker-compose for local development and can view container logs.

Optimizes Docker images: multi-stage builds, layer minimization, selecting alpine/distroless base images. Configures health checks, resource limits, graceful shutdown. Works with private registries (ECR, GCR, ACR) and configures vulnerability scanning.

Defines containerization standards for the organization: golden base images, security hardening guidelines, image scanning policies. Introduces automation for base image updates and patch management for container runtime.

Shapes container platform strategy: choosing between ECS/EKS/Fargate/Cloud Run, standards for multi-tenant environments, governance for container registries. Designs supply chain security architecture for container artifacts.

Distributed Tracing

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Understands basics of OpenTelemetry for cloud infrastructure observability. Follows team guidelines for deploying OTel Collectors in Kubernetes environments and configuring telemetry pipelines. Reads infrastructure traces and metrics to troubleshoot cloud service connectivity issues.

Implements OpenTelemetry for cloud service tracing: auto-instrumentation for Lambda/ECS, OTEL Collector for aggregation, AWS X-Ray/Jaeger as backend. Configures context propagation between services and creates service maps for dependency visualization.

Defines observability strategy based on OpenTelemetry: unified collection pipeline, vendor-agnostic instrumentation, standards for all teams. Manages telemetry data costs through sampling strategies and tiered storage. Introduces SLO-based alerting based on traces.

File & Object Storage

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Uses S3 / Object Storage at a basic level in Terraform/CDK. Performs simple tasks using established templates. Understands basic concepts and follows team practices.

Independently implements S3 / Object Storage tasks in Terraform/CDK. Understands internals and optimizes performance. Writes tests using Terratest.

Defines architectural decisions for S3 / Object Storage at the product level. Establishes standards. Conducts design review and defines technical roadmap.

Defines S3 / Object Storage strategy at company level. Evaluates new technologies and approaches. Establishes enterprise standards and reference architectures.

Git & Workflows

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Works with Git for IaC code management: clones repositories, creates branches, makes commits and pull requests. Understands gitflow for infrastructure changes, writes meaningful commit messages describing infrastructure modifications.

Uses Git for team infrastructure work: feature branches for Terraform changes, interactive rebase for clean history, cherry-pick for hotfixes. Configures git hooks for pre-commit validation (terraform fmt, tflint) and pre-push security scanning.

Defines IaC repository management strategy: repo topology, access control, branch protection rules, mandatory reviews for production changes. Introduces GitOps workflow — infrastructure changes only through PR with automated plan and manual approve for apply.

GraphQL

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Incident Management

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Understands on-call basics for cloud infrastructure: alert triage procedures, runbook following for common incidents, and escalation paths. Participates in on-call rotations as secondary responder. Follows team practices for incident documentation and handoff procedures.

Participates in on-call rotation for cloud infrastructure. Configures PagerDuty/OpsGenie with escalation, responds to CloudWatch and Prometheus alerts. Classifies incidents by severity, performs initial diagnostics — checking metrics, logs, cloud provider status pages.

Defines on-call strategy for the cloud organization: follow-the-sun rotation, tier-1/tier-2 escalation, incident commander role. Introduces incident management process (ITIL/SRE), blameless postmortems, reliability metrics (MTTA, MTTR). Manages on-call load balancing and burnout prevention.

Infrastructure Security

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Understands basic Secrets Management concepts. Follows security guidelines. Recognizes common vulnerabilities in code.

Integrates HashiCorp Vault with cloud infrastructure: dynamic secrets for AWS/GCP, PKI engine for TLS certificates, transit engine for encryption. Configures auth methods (AWS IAM, Kubernetes) and policies for secure service access to secrets.

Defines secrets management strategy for the organization: Vault vs AWS Secrets Manager vs GCP Secret Manager, namespace hierarchy for multi-tenancy, emergency break-glass procedures. Introduces compliance controls and automated audit of secrets access.

Integration Testing

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Kubernetes & Orchestration

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Understands core Kubernetes concepts: Pod, Deployment, Service, ConfigMap, Secret. Can deploy applications via kubectl, view pod logs, perform port-forward for debugging. Knows basic cluster architecture — control plane and worker nodes.

Configures production-ready deployments: resource requests/limits, liveness/readiness probes, HPA, PDB. Works with Ingress controllers, NetworkPolicy, RBAC. Understands scheduling, taints/tolerations and affinity rules for load distribution.

Defines Kubernetes standards for the organization: cluster provisioning through IaC, security baseline (CIS benchmarks), cluster health monitoring. Introduces platform engineering approach — internal developer platform based on Kubernetes.

Shapes company-level container orchestration strategy: multi-cluster topology, cross-region failover, hybrid cloud deployment. Evaluates alternatives (Nomad, ECS) and makes strategic decisions on Kubernetes platform evolution.

Logging

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Works with CloudWatch Logs and OpenSearch for viewing cloud service logs. Performs basic search queries in Kibana/OpenSearch Dashboards, filters by service, level, time range. Understands Lambda, ECS, EKS log structure.

Configures centralized logging: Fluent Bit/Fluentd for collecting logs from EKS, CloudWatch Logs subscriptions, Kinesis Data Firehose for delivery to OpenSearch. Creates index patterns, visualizations and dashboards for cloud infrastructure monitoring.

Defines organizational logging strategy: centralized logging account, compliance requirements (audit trails, retention), cost optimization. Introduces logging standards for all cloud workloads, configures alerting for anomalies and security events.

Uses JSON format for cloud service logs. Includes request_id, service_name, environment, cloud region in logs. Understands the importance of structured logging for CloudWatch Insights and OpenSearch filtering. Avoids logging sensitive data (secrets, PII).

Implements unified log format for cloud workloads: standard fields (trace_id, span_id, account_id, resource_arn), log levels convention. Configures CloudWatch Insights queries for analysis, creates metric filters for automated log-based monitoring.

Defines organizational logging standards: mandatory fields, log levels policy, sensitive data handling. Introduces automated log validation in CI/CD, standards compliance monitoring. Trains teams on best practices and reviews logging configurations.

Metrics & Monitoring

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Views infrastructure metrics in Grafana: EC2 instance CPU/memory, pod utilization in Kubernetes, CloudWatch metrics. Creates simple dashboards, configures basic alerting rules. Understands pull vs push metric collection models and Prometheus role in cloud-native monitoring.

Configures Prometheus for cloud infrastructure monitoring: kube-state-metrics, node-exporter, custom exporters for cloud APIs. Designs Grafana dashboards — resource utilization, cost tracking, SLI/SLO. Integrates with AlertManager and configures notification channels.

Defines metrics strategy for cloud platform: Prometheus vs CloudWatch vs Datadog, golden signals framework, standard dashboards for each workload type. Introduces SLO-based monitoring, budget alerts and automated capacity recommendations based on metrics.

OOP & Design Patterns

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Prompt Engineering

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Relational Databases

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REST API

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System Design

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Understands basic disaster recovery concepts for cloud: backup strategies, recovery point/time objectives (RPO/RTO), and availability zones. Follows team procedures for executing DR runbooks and verifying backup integrity.

Applies DR design for cloud workloads: multi-AZ deployments, cross-region replication, automated failover with Route 53/Traffic Manager. Implements backup automation with lifecycle policies and conducts regular DR drill exercises.

Defines product architectural strategy with Disaster Recovery Design. Establishes architecture guidelines. Conducts architecture review.

Shapes organizational DR strategy: multi-region active-active vs pilot light vs warm standby, RPO/RTO matrix by criticality. Designs automated failover through Route 53 health checks and cross-region replication. Organizes regular DR drills and gameday exercises.

Understands basic architectural concepts of High Load Architecture. Follows team architectural decisions. Understands main patterns.

Designs cloud architectures for medium loads: Auto Scaling Groups with custom metrics, caching through ElastiCache/Memorystore, async processing through SQS/Pub-Sub. Understands trade-offs between vertical and horizontal scaling of managed services.

Defines architectural standards for high-load cloud-native systems: reference architectures, performance budgets, scalability review checklist. Conducts architecture review, identifies bottlenecks through load testing and designs capacity planning processes.

Shapes cloud platform scalability strategy: cell-based architecture, multi-region active-active with conflict resolution, edge computing for latency-sensitive workloads. Designs platform abstractions for automatic scaling and cost-effective peak load handling.

Understands basic cloud architecture concepts: VPC networking design, compute/storage/database service selection, and availability zone placement strategies. Follows team architectural decisions for cloud resource organization and landing zone patterns.

Designs cloud-native systems: 12-factor apps, microservices on managed services (Lambda, ECS, Cloud Run), event-driven architecture with SQS/EventBridge. Chooses between managed and self-hosted solutions considering cost, operational overhead and vendor lock-in.

Defines organizational architectural standards: technology radar, reference architectures for common scenarios (REST API, event processing, data pipeline). Establishes architecture review process and trains teams on cloud-native design patterns.

Unit Testing

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