Cloud Architect Job Description, KRAs and Skills

A Cloud Architect designs how a company's applications and data run on public cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. They set the account structure, network layout, identity rules, backup and disaster recovery design, and the guardrails that keep the monthly cloud bill predictable. In Indian IT firms and startups the role sits with the infrastructure or platform team and signs off every major workload before it moves to the cloud. A good one delivers migrations that go live without surprises and an estate engineers can extend safely.

Detail	For this role
Department	Information Technology
Level	Senior management
Reports to	Head of IT Infrastructure
Direct reports	Cloud Engineer, Kubernetes Engineer
Experience	8 to 12 years in infrastructure or DevOps, with 3 or more years designing production cloud environments

Cloud Architect job description template

Copy this job description, replace the text in square brackets and post it on your careers page or a job portal.

Job title: Cloud Architect

Department: Information Technology

Reports to: Head of IT Infrastructure

Location: [City], [office, branch or site]

About the role

Key responsibilities

Assess existing on-premise servers, applications and licences, and classify each workload for rehost, replatform, refactor or retire before a migration is planned.
Design the landing zone: account or subscription structure, VPC and subnet layout, VPN or Direct Connect links to offices, and central logging.
Define identity and access rules with single sign-on, role-based access and least privilege, and remove long-lived access keys from build pipelines.
Choose compute, storage and database services for each application, weighing performance, licence cost and data residency in Indian regions such as Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Write infrastructure as code standards in Terraform or CloudFormation so every environment can be rebuilt from version control.
Plan migration waves with application owners, including cutover windows, rollback steps and data sync checks, and lead the go-live calls.
Design backup, high availability and disaster recovery for each tier, and run DR drills that prove the agreed recovery time and recovery point.
Set tagging rules, budgets and cost alerts, review the monthly bill with finance, and recommend reserved capacity, savings plans or right-sizing.
Run well-architected reviews on new workloads and send back designs that break security, reliability or cost standards.
Guide cloud engineers through design decisions and publish reference architectures that teams can reuse.

Requirements

B.E. or B.Tech in Computer Science, IT or Electronics, or MCA
AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Google Professional Cloud Architect
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) is an advantage
8 to 12 years in infrastructure or DevOps, with 3 or more years designing production cloud environments

KRAs and KPIs for a Cloud Architect

Key result areas for the appraisal form, each with a KPI you can measure every month or quarter.

Key result area	How to measure it
Migration delivery	Planned workloads migrated within the agreed wave dates, with no unplanned rollback after cutover
Cloud cost control	Monthly cloud spend within 5 percent of the approved budget, with every resource tagged to an owner
Availability	Workloads built on the architect's designs meet their agreed monthly uptime target, such as 99.9 percent
Disaster recovery	DR drill run for every critical application at least twice a year, meeting the agreed RTO and RPO
Security posture	Zero critical findings left open beyond 30 days in cloud security posture scans
Reusable standards	Reference architectures and Terraform modules published for common workload patterns and reviewed every quarter

Skills and tools

AWS, Azure or GCP architectureCloud networking and VPN designIdentity and access managementTerraform or CloudFormationContainers and KubernetesBackup and disaster recovery designCloud cost optimizationStructured decision makingStakeholder communicationClear design documentation

Tools used day to day: AWS or Azure console, Terraform, CloudFormation or ARM templates, Kubernetes, AWS Cost Explorer or Azure Cost Management, Draw.io or Lucidchart, Jira and Confluence.

Reporting line and career path

Moves up from: Cloud Engineer, Senior DevOps Engineer, Infrastructure Engineer
Next roles: Enterprise Architect, Head of IT Infrastructure, Chief Technology Officer

Interview questions for a Cloud Architect

How would you design the account structure and network for a company running 40 applications across dev, UAT and production?
A client wants its customer data to stay in India. Which design choices would you make in the cloud?
Walk me through a migration you led. What went wrong at cutover and how did you recover?
The monthly cloud bill jumped by a third with no new launches. How do you find the cause?
When would you choose a managed database over running the database yourself on virtual machines?
How do you agree the RTO and RPO for an application, and who signs them off?
Tell me about a time you rejected a team's design. How did you handle the pushback?

Managing a Cloud Architect in ZeniaHR

AttendanceSet a flexible shift with core hours and the hybrid work model, with web punches limited to allowed office networks on office days. Migration cutovers often fall on a Saturday night, so HR can grant a comp-off credit for the worked weekly off and the architect takes the day back before it expires.LeaveMigration waves and DR drill dates are fixed months ahead, so ask the architect to plan long leave around them. The infrastructure head can check the team leave calendar to make sure two cloud specialists are not away during the same cutover week.Performance and KRAsEnter the KRAs above as weighted goals in a quarterly review cycle, with cost control and migration delivery carrying the most weight. Bring the cloud bill and the latest DR drill report to each quarterly meeting, and close the year with an annual cycle.

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Frequently asked questions

What does a cloud architect do?

A cloud architect designs the structure of a company's cloud setup: accounts, networks, access rules, databases, backups and disaster recovery. They decide how each application should move to or run on AWS, Azure or Google Cloud, set cost controls and review designs from other teams. The architect makes the design decisions, and cloud engineers do most of the building.

What is the difference between a cloud architect and a cloud engineer?

A cloud engineer builds and runs cloud resources day to day: provisioning servers, writing Terraform, fixing alerts and applying patches. A cloud architect decides the overall design, standards and trade-offs, such as which database service to use or how disaster recovery should work, and approves the engineer's designs. Architect roles usually ask for 8 or more years of experience.

Which certification is best for a cloud architect in India?

Most Indian employers ask for the certification that matches their main platform: AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional, Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Google Professional Cloud Architect. The certificate helps you get shortlisted, but interviews focus on real migrations, cost control and disaster recovery work you have done yourself.