Main Responsibilities and Required Skills for AWS Engineer
An AWS Engineer is responsible for architecting and implementing reliable infrastructure services on AWS. They ensure that all the deployed services adhere to enterprise cloud security and compliance controls.. In this blog post we describe the primary responsibilities and the most in-demand hard and soft skills for AWS Engineers.
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Main Responsibilities of AWS Engineer
The following list describes the typical responsibilities of an AWS Engineer:
Anticipate
Anticipate traffic and ensure that we are ready for growth.
Architect
Architect and implement reliable infrastructure services on AWS.
Architect, build, and operate AWS environments with well established best practices.
Assist with
Assist in the support and operation of the platforms you help build.
Assist with data migration to cloud based environment (AWS RDS and Oracle RDS).
Assist with mock-up's, user interface design.
Assist with the design and implementation of an enterprise Cloud capability.
Author
Author or otherwise contribute to customer-facing publications such as whitepapers.
Automate
Automate the provisioning of environments using Terraform Ansible puppet and other tooling.
Build
Build and maintain an IaC codebase using tools such as Terraform, Puppet and Ansible.
Build CI / CD Pipeline and support it within AWS.
Build, release, and manage the configuration of all production systems.
Build utilities, user defined functions, and frameworks to better enable data flow patterns.
Capture
Capture and share best practice knowledge with the internal technical teams.
Clean
Clean code and understand principles of OO.
Clean up and document server images.
Coach
Coach and Mentor Team Members.
Collaborate with
Collaborate with and consult other development teams.
Collaborate with business and / or UX team to create appropriate application User interfaces.
Collaborate with customers and functional experts to understand technical requirements.
Collaborate with Engineering, Finance and Product teams around AWS costs optimizations.
Collaborate with finance colleagues to provide better control and management of running costs.
Communicate
Communicate issues quickly to peers and leaders and provide recommendations to resolve.
Complete
Complete stories within estimates and with quality to ensure release dates are met.
Conduct
Conduct necessary analysis, design and prepare technical documentation.
Conduct periodic disaster recovery rehearsals.
Configure
Configure and maintain development, testing, staging and production environments.
Contribute to
Contribute to implementation of a software defined datacenter for in-house cloud capabilities.
Contribute towards large scale change with the cross functional team.
Create
Create applications using test-driven development and agile methodologies.
Create AWS EC2 instances using cloud formation stack and align with corporate security policies.
Create bill of materials including required Cloud Services such as EC2 S3 etc and tools.
Create epics / stories and construct automation to prevent problem recurrence.
Define
Define and implement standards around the utilization of AWS services.
Define build and configuration standards to provision infrastructure services.
Define cloud cost performance KPIs and track against agreed KPIs on a regular basis.
Define Migration strategy to move On-Prem Applications to the Cloud.
Deliver
Deliver an exceptional customer experience every day.
Design
Design and implement advanced CI / CD pipelines for team and business agility.
Design Optimization and Documentation of the Operational aspects of the Cloud platform.
Design should support mobile clients as well as integrations with partners.
Design systems that may scale to hundreds or even thousands of virtual machines or cloud instances.
Design the AWS network architecture including VPN connectivity between regions and subnets.
Design the HA DR strategies Set up process services and tools around cloud.
Develop
Develop action plans for account resolutions.
Develop and deploy in ALL Capital One accounts using a CI / CD pipeline called Capital One pipeline.
Develop and improve on existing Powershell, Bash, and Python scripting.
Develop and maintain secure application deployment patterns on the cloud.
Develop architecture blueprints and detailed documentation.
Develop best practices and methodologies for customers to optimize for costs.
Develop detailed planning models to help the business forecast specific investment costs.
Develop, implement, and maintain software automation and scripts to orchestrate.
Develop infrastructure prototypes and proof of concepts for specified use case (s).
Develop & maintain alerts and notification solutions on Kibana / Grafana.
Develop & maintain python & Linux shell scripts for cluster bootstraps.
Develop repeatable tools and processes for automation, configuration, monitoring, and alerting.
Develop software solutions (primarily backend) in Cloud.
Document
Document build standards, configurations, and operating procedures.
Drive
Drive Cloud governance compliance requirements.
Drive cross team collaboration to surface and share best practices related to AWS optimizations.
Drive innovation in the development, release and operations processes.
Drive service deliverables by working closely with planning, quality, engineering, etc..
Ensure
Ensure compliance with Fed policies, procedures and standards.
Ensure knowledge sharing within the team and across teams.
Ensure necessary system security by using best in class cloud security solutions.
Ensure product and technical features are delivered to spec and on-time.
Ensure system can meet or exceed defined SLA's.
Ensure that all cloud solutions adhere to enterprise cloud security and compliance controls.
Establish
Establish DevOps best practices.
Establish DevOps engineering team best practices.
Estimate
Estimate story sizes and task out development for a given story.
Evangelize
Evangelize common practices and development procedures.
Execute
Execute migration plan Leverage appropriate AWS services.
Execute performance benchmarks and optimize system components.
Exhibit
Exhibit technical leadership in given technical subject domain.
Explain
Explain designs and constraints to stakeholders and technical teams.
Fill
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Focus
Focus area will be the fulfillment and logistics domain.
Follow
Follow the development process and suggest improvements.
Grow
Grow when faced with challenges.
Handle
Handle escalated customer facing issues as needed.
Handle Escalated customer facing issues as needed.
Help
Help define our AWS account structure, IAM policies, and AWS account security at scale.
Help set up applications to meet client requirements.
Identify
Identify and troubleshoot basic instrument and / or assay issues.
Identify, analyze and troubleshoot and resolve technical problems.
Identify application bottlenecks and opportunities to optimize performance.
Identify, manage, and resolve.
Implement
Implement and automate security controls, governance processes, and compliance validation.
Implement and configure security services to properly harden infrastructure.
Implement cloud migration strategies from traditional appliance based data warehouse to cloud.
Implement continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI / CD) pipelines when necessary.
Implement cost optimization and governance strategies for continuous Cost reduction.
Implement efficient containers-based solutions with orchestration technologies like ECS.
Implement full DevOps culture of Build, Test automation with continuous integration and deployment.
Implement standards for live monitoring of production environments and analytics solutions.
Improve
Improve quality of change by use of automation and streamlined processes.
Improve reliability, quality, and time-to-market of our software solutions.
Incorporate
Incorporate UX components into application.
Infrastructure
Infrastructure background working with servers, virtualization and cloud compute.
Innovate
Innovate and make extraordinary things happen.
Integrate
Integrate with existing Microsoft Active Directory, Citrix, and VMWare environments.
Interact
Interact with internal project teams and work groups regularly.
Issue
Issue Support tickets and Incident management.
Lead
Lead in the improvement of the availability and scalability of our AWS infrastructure.
Lead Technical Customer Engagements.
Lead the definition and development of cloud reference architecture and management systems.
Lead the design, development and release of scalable, highly resilient cloud native solutions.
Look
Look at the Logs and Mine through the logs, Look at the issues and make changes as needed.
Maintain
Maintain a high code coverage, multifunction testing suite.
Maintain and improve our existing CI / CD Terraform pipelines.
Maintain current knowledge of relevant technology.
Maintain customer investment data books and analysis files.
Manage
Manage a continuous integration and deployment methodology for server-based technologies.
Manage and support Linux systems and Windows systems.
Manage code deployments, fixes, updates and related processes.
Manage the enterprise cloud sandbox environment usage and ensure best practices in its usage.
Manage upgrades, patches or configuration changes or platform components.
Measure
Measure and optimize overall system performance.
Mentor
Mentor and coach the development teams on best practices to adopt in infrastructure automation.
Mentor junior DevOps engineers, so they can achieve the most of their potential.
Mentor more junior members of the team.
Mentor peers and junior developers.
Migrate
Migrate on-premise services to AWS.
Minimize
Minimize down time in production environments.
Minimize the number of production escapes.
Monitor
Monitor and maintain the health of the production environment using tools such as DataDog.
Monitor costs and optimize cloud deployment expenses against business needs.
Monitor requests and key metrics for AWS.
Offer
Offer technical support where needed, developing software for our back-end systems.
Oversee
Oversee build of the environment.
Oversee pre-production acceptance testing to ensure the high quality.
Own
Own and manage backup / restore procedures, disaster recovery plan and technical risks register.
Participate in
Participate in 24 / 7 on-call rotation for production systems.
Participate in an on-call rotation function in a fast-paced, rapidly-changing environment.
Participate in on-call activities as needed for major incident resolution and problem management.
Participate in requirements analysis, design, design reviews and other work.
Participate in the team to refine business requirements and features into technical requirements.
Perform
Perform administration of infrastructure, software services, users, etc..
Perform both architectural design and implementation of custom solutions.
Perform capacity planning activities.
Perform code version control activities via GitHub.
Perform data gathering and monitoring of service goals.
Perform periodical health checks and monitoring the management tools for a 24x7 support environment.
Perform the regular maintenance task and monitor the automated systems and reporting system's health.
Perform troubleshooting on IDQ / MDM components and work with Informatica GCS where needed.
Perform unit testing of IDQ / MDM components and document test results when needed.
Plan
Plan and prioritize varying demands and manage individual time effectively.
Practice
Practice Root Cause Analysis to determine the scope and scale of issue impact.
Present
Present your findings to Technology and Finance leadership.
Process
Process Improvement and Strategy.
Produce
Produce forecasting to help teams understand performance and improve decisions.
Provide
Provide daily operational support of our applications on AWS.
Provide DevOps support to all services built by your team by creating CI / CD pipelines.
Provide feedback to UX team.
Provide guidance in creating deployment scripts (e.g., Puppet, Chef, Ansible).
Provide input on design and AWS-related considerations / options.
Provide Level 3 field support globally, including training, remote support, and onsite support.
Provide phone email coverage and documentation.
Provide required On-Call support and deliver the assigned task on time.
Provide strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills to resolve issues on all tiers.
Provide subject matter expert technical support to customers using.
Provide technical leadership on complex projects.
Recommend
Recommend process and architecture improvements.
Research
Research tells us that some candidates are put off from applying because they cannot tick every box.
Resolve
Resolve production issues and communicate resolution to appropriate stakeholders.
Review
Review and evaluate requirements from leadership and translate to technical design.
Schedule
Schedule and keep track of external pen testing and similar technical audits.
Secure
Secure coding, key & secret handling.
Set up
Set up Kubernetes Containerization.
Set Up Multiple Cloud Infrastructures.
Stay current with
Stay current with industry trends and source new ways for our business to improve.
Support
Support ad hoc requests and projects as they arise.
Support change delivered through external / cross-functional teams (such as release).
Support commercial initiatives with robust financial analysis (P& L Analysis).
Support development and deliver IDQ / MDM.
Support, maintain and enhance cloud infrastructure through Python and Ansible.
Support or conduct system testing, performance, volume, and stress testing.
Support the delivery of change across the commercial application estate.
Support the delivery of short and long term strategic change.
Support user acceptance testing.
Take
Take part in Operational & Strategic Projects.
Test
Test, and maintain tools for continuous integration / continuous delivery (CI / CD).
Train
Train / mentor new trainers.
Transform
Transform business or technical requirements into infrastructure specifications.
Troubleshoot
Troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure development, deployments and operations issues.
Troubleshoot the system and solve problems across all platform and application domains.
Understand
Understand and document technical requirements from clients.
Understand project lifecycle.
Update
Update our processes and design new processes as needed.
Utilize
Utilize cloud automation tools such as AWS Lambdas, AMI templates, CloudFormation and Terraform.
Utilize tools such as Jenkins, Docker, Kubernetes, as well as others such as GitHub and Jira.
Validate
Validate the environment to meets all security and compliance controls.
View
View and analyze summary data on AWS.
Work with
Work closely with customers to develop robust and reusable configuration management.
Work closely with development teams to ensure the platform is designed with operability in mind.
Work in a globally distributed team to deliver innovative and robust cloud solutions.
Work on transition and migration to AWS Cloud from existing on premise and Azure solutions.
Work to strengthen common development practices, Service oriented environments, and Agile practices.
Work under deadlines and subject to heavy project load.
Work with customers regarding cloud migration methodologies and best practices.
Work with customers to ensure systems meet their documented needs.
Work with field and planners on part stocking recommendation.
Work within agreed SLAs and OLAs to ensure efficient overall platform management.
Work with infrastructure services to make configuration changes and deploy applications.
Work with leadership to define delivery schedules of key features through an agile framework.
Work with product management to support product / service scoping activities.
Work with third party vendors as needed to resolve customer problems.
Work with VP and customers.
Most In-demand Hard Skills
The following list describes the most required technical skills of an AWS Engineer:
Government Digital Services
Hybrid Cloud Connectivity And Concepts
Home Office Platform
O365
Agile
Docker
AWS Lambda
Analytics
Cloudformation
Stakeholder Management
Amazon Eks
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
Atlassian Toolset
AWS Control Tower
AWS Design
AWS Kendra Ai Service
AWS Paas
AWS Well-Architected Framework
BCP
Best Practice Patterns
Bridge Between Enterprise Architecture
Build Experience Highly Secure
Capturing
Cloud Dev-Ops Disciplines
Containerisation
Data De-Identification
Designs
DR
Follow And Mature Governance And Best Practice
Highly Automated
Highly Sensitive Data
Huddles
Infrastructure As Code
Maintaining Relevant Architectural Artefacts
Modern Approaches
Modern Data Platforms
Multi-Supplier Rainbow Teams
Non-Functional Requirements Awareness
Public Sector Delivery
Re-Identification
Scalable Solutions
Serverless Concepts
Solution / Technical Architects
Most In-demand Soft Skills
The following list describes the most required soft skills of an AWS Engineer:
Written and oral communication skills
Analytical ability
Influence others
Influencing results
Start-up mentality
Confident
Influence and manage conflict
Manage multiple cross solution dependencies
Progress with governance
