Roles we recruit
Seven practices, 27 functions. Start at the practice when you cannot yet name the title; go straight to the function when you can.
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A cloud engineer designs, builds and runs the AWS, Azure or Google Cloud environments your product and revenue systems run on: accounts, networks, compute, storage and the bill. Certifications are easy to list, so we screen for environments they built as code, a cost they cut and a failure they recovered from.
The first quarter decides whether the cloud setup becomes something the company understands and can afford, or stays a pile of accounts only its builder understands. Each stage below has a signal that predicts it, and we test for that signal before you meet anyone.
The ramp, and the test behind each milestone
Weeks 1 and 2
All cloud accounts, subscriptions or projects, who owns them, what runs where, the monthly bill by service and everything that was built by hand.
On track looks like a written map of accounts and environments with the bill by service and the ten costliest items, shared with engineering and finance.
How we test for it before you meet them
A review exercise in our screen: a described cloud setup and a monthly bill. We score what they question first and what they would leave alone.
Weeks 3 to 6
Who can change what, shared keys retired, and idle or oversized resources found and switched off after checking what depends on them.
On track looks like access limited to named people and roles, and the largest avoidable cost removed with finance's agreement.
How we test for it before you meet them
We ask for a cost they cut: what it was, how they found it and what they checked before turning it off. A former engineering lead confirms the saving.
Weeks 7 to 10
The network, compute, storage and databases the product runs on written as code, reviewed like any other change, with staging that matches production closely.
On track looks like a core environment rebuilt from code in a test account, with no hand-made settings.
How we test for it before you meet them
We ask how they would rebuild an environment from nothing and what they could not, so we see where the manual knowledge sits.
Weeks 11 to 13
Backups proven by restoring one, alerts on cost and capacity, a short runbook for the three likeliest failures, and tags so the bill shows by product and team.
On track looks like a restore that was tried and a cost report by product that the team reads.
How we test for it before you meet them
A reference call about an outage or a restore they handled: how it was found, how long recovery took and what changed afterwards.
After day 90
Strong cloud engineers leave patterns other teams reuse for accounts, networks and deployments, review the bill every month and plan capacity before it runs out.
On track looks like teams creating environments from shared templates without asking for help, and a bill that moves with usage.
How we test for it before you meet them
We ask what they would measure first at your company. A specific answer tied to cost and reliability predicts an engineer who improves the foundation, not only the tooling.
Five responsibilities. If the seat mainly owns how code reaches production, it is a DevOps engineer; if it mainly designs how several systems fit together, it is a solutions architect.
How cloud accounts or subscriptions are structured, how networks connect and who can change what.
The managed services the product and the integrations run on, sized and configured for the workload.
Environments described in code and reviewed like any other change, not built by hand.
The monthly bill by service and team, budgets and alerts, and the sizing that keeps it in line with usage.
Backups that have been restored in a test, and a plan for the failures that are most likely.
Three neighboring seats absorb work people assume belongs here. Drawing the line wrong is how a cloud engineer ends up running every release or designing systems nobody asked them to design.
That seat ownsThe path from code to production: pipelines, releases, environments and monitoring.
Hire it instead whenreleases and outages are the pain, more than the cloud foundation.
That seat ownsThe overall design across systems: how the product, the data and the integrations fit together.
Hire it instead whenseveral systems need one design before the cloud setup is built or changed.
That seat ownsProtecting the systems: access, vulnerabilities, secrets and response to threats.
Hire it instead whenthe main risk is a breach or a compliance gap, not cost or reliability.
The title stays the same; the work does not. Pick the one that matches your cloud setup.
Takes over cloud accounts that developers set up by hand, and puts structure, cost control and code around them.
Concentrates on the bill and capacity for a company whose cloud spend has outgrown its usage.
Moves workloads between providers or out of a data center, and runs more than one cloud.
The questions we ask in our own screen. Use them in yours; the warning signs are as useful as the answers.
Every candidate we put forward is scored on these five, and the scores travel with the shortlist, gaps included. Four out of five with a named weakness beats a clean sweep you cannot verify.
| What we score | Weak evidence | Strong evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Environments built as code | Hand-built environments no one can reproduce. | Core environments rebuilt from code, with the manual gaps named. |
| Cost control | Cuts spend without checking dependencies. | A saving with the checks behind it, confirmed by finance or an engineering lead. |
| Access and security basics | Shared keys and one admin account. | Roles and least access, with how it was rolled out. |
| Recovery | Backups that were never restored. | A restore or failover that was tried, with what failed and what changed. |
| Working with developers | Treats requests as interruptions. | Templates and guardrails developers use on their own, confirmed by a developer. |
Public US benchmarks, read October 2026. Salary.com and Built In sit far apart: Salary.com’s cloud engineer base band ends at $117,252, while Built In’s self-reported median base is $160,000 and its average total pay $177,602. The chart shows both. Depth on your provider and on-call duty move the number most.
Each bar runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, the middle half of reported pay.
Base salaryWages including commission (BLS)Average total pay, base plus variable
Cloud Engineer
Salary.com base, Built In total
$96,514 to $117,252 base$177,602 average total
DevOps Engineer
Salary.com base, Built In total, neighboring seat
$122,133 to $142,408 base$150,355 average total
Solutions Architect
Salary.com base benchmark, neighboring seat
$118,623 to $139,366 base
Network and computer systems administrators
BLS, all industries
$78,010 to $126,640
Cloud Engineer, DevOps Engineer and Solutions Architect bars: Salary.com base salary, 25th to 75th percentile, United States, as of October 1, 2026. Cloud Engineer and DevOps Engineer rings: Built In average total compensation (base plus additional cash, self-reported), reviewed October 16, 2026. Network and computer systems administrators: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, annual wage at the 25th and 75th percentiles (SOC 15-1244), all industries. Public aggregates, not ZaphyrRecruit placement data.
A cloud engineer designs, builds and runs the cloud environments a company’s product and systems run on, usually AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. The work covers accounts and networks, compute, storage and managed services, access control, backups and the monthly bill, with environments described in code rather than built by hand. In a go-to-market company that includes the systems revenue depends on.
Salary.com puts a cloud engineer at $96,514 to $117,252 base, with a median of $107,204 (October 2026). Built In’s self-reported figures run well above it: a $160,000 median base and $177,602 average total pay. DevOps engineers sit higher on Salary.com, at $122,133 to $142,408 base. The two sources measure different samples, so price the seat on the provider depth and on-call duty it carries.
A cloud engineer designs and runs the cloud setup itself: accounts, networks, services, access and cost. A DevOps engineer owns how code gets released and how it behaves in production: pipelines, environments and monitoring. In small companies one person does both. If the foundation or the bill is the pain, hire a cloud engineer; if releases and outages are the pain, hire DevOps.
A consultancy or contractor suits a one-off migration or an audit of the bill. In-house pays off when cloud spend is a real line in the budget, several teams create environments, and someone has to own access, backups and cost month after month. A cloud engineer for hire on contract is a fair first step before a permanent seat.
The one you run. Most engineers go deep on one of AWS, Azure or Google Cloud and carry the concepts across, so depth on your provider matters more than a list of certifications. If you run more than one, say so in the brief. We test candidates on a setup like yours, not on the provider’s exam content.
Describe a cloud setup and a monthly bill with real problems in them, and ask what they would question first and what they would leave alone. An hour is enough. It shows judgment about risk and cost, which certifications hide. Avoid long unpaid builds, which strong engineers decline. Then ask for a cost they cut and check it with a former lead.
Ten working days from a signed brief to a shortlist of three to five calibrated engineers, each with our review exercise scored and their past work checked with a former engineering lead. Interview speed decides the rest: good cloud engineers rarely run one process at a time, so a decision within two weeks of the first interview keeps them.
Tell us which cloud you run, how the accounts are set up today and what the bill looks like. We come back within one business day with how we would run the search and what the seat pays.
We build shortlists from people doing this work now, often before a seat is advertised. Set up a job alert for engineering roles, or send your CV and we will come to you when a seat opens.
The cloud engineer is one of eight seats in this function. If the gap sits elsewhere, start there.