Cloud Engineer

Job Description

• required for ISO 27001 and internal audit.

Cost Management & Optimisation

• Track and report spend across all cloud providers and hosting by workload and department.
• Monitor consumption against budget and alert on variance before it becomes material.
• Implement optimisation, including rightsizing, reserved instances and committed-use discounts, storage tiering and decommissioning of unused resources.
• Compare the cost of running workloads in public cloud, with independent providers and in co-location, and recommend the most cost-effective placement.

Alignment, Reporting & Escalation

• Align work to, and execute, the direction and strategy set by the IT Executive.
• Communicate progress and escalate issues and risks to the IT Executive, through the Head of IT where appropriate, promptly and transparently.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or national diploma in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering or a related field.
• Microsoft Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) or Google Associate Cloud Engineer required; Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) or Google Professional Cloud Architect advantageous.

Experience

Essential

• Minimum 5–7 years’ infrastructure experience, including at least 3 years engineering and operating public cloud environments.
• Hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure and working experience of Google Cloud Platform.
• Experience managing virtualised servers in data centres or co-location facilities alongside cloud environments.
• Experience implementing infrastructure as code (Terraform preferred for multi-cloud, or Bicep).
• Experience designing and testing backup and disaster recovery for business-critical systems.
• Scripting ability (PowerShell, Bash, Azure CLI or gcloud).

Preferred

• Experience operating a multi-cloud environment, including migrating workloads between providers.
• Experience with independent or regional cloud service providers and co-location facilities in South Africa.
• Experience with cloud cost management or FinOps practice.
• Experience in a regulated environment, or exposure to ISO 27001, CIS or NIST controls.

Technical Competencies

• Microsoft Azure — Compute, Storage, Networking & Entra ID
• Google Cloud Platform — Compute, Storage, Networking & IAM
• Independent Cloud Service Providers & Co-located Hosting
• Server Virtualisation (VMware, Hyper-V)
• Multi-Cloud Networking, Firewalls & Private Interconnects
• Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Bicep)
• Workload Placement & Migration
• Backup, Disaster Recovery & Cross-Provider Recovery
• Monitoring & Logging across Providers
• Cloud Security Posture (Azure Policy, Defender for Cloud, Security Command Center)
• Multi-Provider Cost Management & FinOps
• Scripting (PowerShell, Bash, Azure CLI, gcloud)

Core Competencies

• Reliability Focus — designs for failure and proves recoverability rather than assuming it.
• Commercial Judgement — places workloads where cost, performance and risk are best balanced.
• Security Awareness — builds secure by default rather than remediating later.
• Problem Solving — diagnoses infrastructure issues methodically across providers and under pressure.
• Ownership & Accountability — owns the availability of the platforms the organisation depends upon.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Availability of services hosted across all cloud providers and co-located data centres against agreed service levels.
• Backup success rate and successful restore test results.
• Disaster recovery test outcomes against defined recovery time and recovery point objectives.
• Spend across all providers against budget, and savings delivered through workload optimisation.
• Secure configuration and policy compliance across providers, and remediation of findings.
• Delivery of workload migrations against plan.
• Proportion of infrastructure provisioned through code rather than manual configuration.

Regulatory, Risk & Information Security Responsibilities

• Comply with POPIA in the handling of personal and special personal information, including member health information, and with the Cybercrimes Act, reporting any suspected unlawful access or compromise without delay.
• Adhere to Kaelo information security policies and the frameworks the organisation aligns to, including FSCA Joint Standard 2 of 2024, ISO/IEC 27001, the CIS Controls and the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.
• Maintain the evidence required to support the ISMS and internal, external and certification audits within the area of responsibility.
• Escalate security incidents, control weaknesses and operational risks promptly, and complete all mandatory compliance and awareness training.