What do you do as a Cloud Engineer?
As cloud engineers we build cloud-based solutions for and together with clients. Usually, we operate as part of the Platform/SRE/Cloud Center of Excellence to improve the Cloud platform and experience for the developer teams at the client. We build solutions such as Cloud landing zones, IAM tooling, Security tooling, and supporting tooling such as CI/CD and integrations to make those work together.
Our support is aimed towards in-house development teams who use our solutions as part of their development cycle to make releasing and running software easier, quicker, and more standardized in line with company business and security policies. Most of the time our work involves diverse problem solving trying to puzzle out what is possible within the business - and more often technical - boundaries of the customer’s domain.
Do you have a recent example of such a puzzle?
This week we tackled the technical limitations of the standard Azure AD sync operations. We wanted to have Azure AD group membership synced within minutes to our AWS Platform for assigning temporary permissions. However, the sync had a fixed interval of 40 minutes which is too slow for our developers. We ended up building a custom AWS Lambda function to trigger the sync more often to solve the issue.
Although each client has its own systems and solutions, there are a few habits which really affect our choices. We as cloud engineers have an automation mindset. If we can automate, script or codify something we will do it. Maybe because we are lazy but mostly because we want to be able to repeat and iterate over what we build in the future. Another reason to automate is because we always work in teams, and if it just works on my machine that's not enough. Our solutions are stored in git and deployed by a pipeline, because that way my teammates can tell me what could be done better before making actual changes on prod. And did I mention we like Terraform?
Within The Factory you also have a role as a Tech Lead. What do you do as a Tech Lead?
I just got the role as a Tech Lead, together with Yonathan, another colleague of The Factory. We wrote the function together and have two main goals to start with.
First, we want to help juniors shape their own careers. What I see in our work is that juniors don’t have a future goal formalized for themselves to hold on to. They have to find their own way and have to look up everything by themselves. So, when the next new junior joins The Factory, one of the Tech Leads will help them shape their own path and see how we as The Factory can help achieve that path.
The second goal is more of a technical nature. We see that a lot of customers have overlapping solutions, therefore we are starting on setting up reusable solutions such as landing zones for AWS and Azure. In this way, we can provide the customer with a more mature solution within a shorter time frame. As the solutions will keep developing over time, we can provide higher quality and faster delivery of our services.
You’ve been with the company for over two year. What’s your favorite part of The Factory?
Almost three years already😊! Every year I have created a plan of where I want to go and how I can get there. For me it is important that the assignments fit within my projected growth path. Until now all four assignments have fit perfectly in that path. With every assignment I have been at the edge of what I can do and have been able to pick up something new to broaden my scope every time.
What’s on your mind in non-working life?
I like gardening. In my garden I try to get as many different species as possible of edible and ornamental plants. Mostly when I find a recipe with a plant I cannot find in the supermarket, then I’m eager to try and grow them in my own garden. And of course, when the plant is finally ready to be eaten then it’s time to go to the kitchen.
More importantly, I just got a daughter to take care of! And if there’s still any time left, you can find me on the windsurf board, playing boardgames… or working on construction projects in our home.