Roles · Cloud Engineer · Junior
23 core skills, 59 in total. Expectations per skill, and what changes at the next level.
This page lists what a Junior } is expected to know and do, skill by skill. Core skills are the ones a manager and peers assess in a review cycle; the rest count only in self-assessment. Main areas: Cloud & Infrastructure, DevOps & CI/CD, Security.
Grouped by area. The label on the right is the expected depth: Awareness, Working, Advanced or Expert.
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.
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.
Configures basic CDN distributions using cloud provider consoles. Understands caching headers, TTL, and cache invalidation concepts. Deploys simple edge functions following team templates.
Understands basic Container Security Scanning concepts. Uses existing configurations. Performs simple operations under senior guidance.
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.
Understands core GCP services: Compute Engine, Cloud Storage, VPC, and IAM. Uses gcloud CLI for basic resource provisioning. Follows project structure and labeling conventions.
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.
Understands Kubernetes resource types (Deployments, Services, ConfigMaps). Uses kubectl to inspect pod status, view logs, and apply existing manifests in cloud environments.
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.
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.
Understands core Azure services: VMs, Storage Accounts, VNets, and Resource Groups. Navigates Azure Portal and CLI for basic provisioning. Follows tagging and naming conventions.
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.
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.
Understands serverless container services: AWS Fargate, Cloud Run, and Azure Container Instances. Deploys containerized applications without managing infrastructure. Configures basic scaling and networking.
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.
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.
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.
Understands basic Yandex Cloud concepts. Uses existing configurations. Performs simple operations under senior guidance.
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.
Understands the fundamentals of Blue/Green Deployment. Applies basic practices in daily work. Follows recommendations from the team and documentation.
Understands the fundamentals of Canary Deployment. Applies basic practices in daily work. Follows recommendations from the team and documentation.
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.
Knows about OWASP Top 10. Understands main vulnerabilities: SQL injection, XSS, CSRF. Uses parameterized queries. Does not store passwords in plaintext.
Not assessed by the team, but part of the self-assessment and the development plan.
59 skills get a higher expectation or become core when moving from Junior to Mid-level. The biggest jumps first.
} in the open competency matrix: 59 skills across 5 levels. The matrix is free for individuals and stays free.