Published May 2026 · 10 min read · iRemote Support
Cloud engineer roles are among the most competitive positions in the entire IT talent market. Demand continues to outpace supply. Salaries have risen significantly over the past five years. And the definition of "cloud engineer" has expanded and fragmented — what one company calls a cloud engineer, another calls a DevOps engineer, a platform engineer, or a site reliability engineer.
This guide helps IT hiring managers understand exactly what to look for when hiring cloud engineers in 2026 — what skills actually matter, what certifications indicate real competency, and what you should expect to pay to attract strong candidates.
Before evaluating candidates, it helps to be precise about the role. "Cloud engineer" covers a wide range of responsibilities. At a high level:
Know which one you're hiring. A job description that conflates all five will either attract candidates who aren't a fit, or scare away specialists who read the description and conclude the role is a mess.
Any cloud engineer you hire in 2026 should be proficient in at least one IaC tool — preferably Terraform. HashiCorp Terraform remains the de facto standard for multi-cloud infrastructure provisioning. Azure-specific teams often use Bicep. Some organizations use Pulumi. Regardless of the tool, the underlying concept — declarative, version-controlled infrastructure management — should be a core competency, not a nice-to-have.
Ask candidates to describe how they structure Terraform modules. A candidate who says "I write all my code in one main.tf file" has a different experience level than one who describes a module registry, remote state configuration, and workspace-based environment separation.
Container orchestration is increasingly fundamental to cloud engineering roles. Even candidates who aren't focused on application infrastructure should understand Kubernetes concepts. For roles with any DevOps or platform engineering component, CKA or CKAD certification is worth requiring or strongly preferring.
One of the most underrated cloud engineering skills is networking. Many candidates can deploy VMs and storage accounts, but struggle with VNet peering, Transit Gateway architecture, ExpressRoute/Direct Connect design, or DNS resolution across environments. Cloud networking problems are some of the most difficult to troubleshoot in production, and engineers who can diagnose them confidently are significantly more valuable.
Cloud IAM is security-critical and frequently misunderstood. Ask candidates to describe their approach to least-privilege access in a cloud environment. Candidates who can discuss service principal vs. managed identity, Azure RBAC custom role design, or AWS IAM condition keys and service control policies are operating at a senior level.
Cloud engineers should be comfortable with at least one scripting language. Python is the most broadly applicable. Bash is expected for Linux-heavy environments. Go is increasingly relevant for engineers building internal tools or working with Kubernetes operators.
Not all cloud certifications carry equal weight. Here's a practical hierarchy:
Microsoft Azure: AZ-104 (Azure Administrator) indicates hands-on Azure management experience. AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect Expert) requires AZ-104 and indicates architecture-level competency. AZ-400 (DevOps Engineer Expert) is relevant for DevOps-focused Azure roles. The AZ-900 Fundamentals certification should not be listed as a primary credential — it indicates familiarity, not competency.
AWS: Solutions Architect Associate (SAA-C03) is the minimum signal for a general cloud engineering role. Solutions Architect Professional (SAP-C02) indicates senior-level architecture thinking. DevOps Engineer Professional (DOP-C02) signals CI/CD and automation competency. The AWS Cloud Practitioner is the equivalent of AZ-900 — a fundamentals cert, not a competency credential.
HashiCorp: Terraform Associate indicates foundational IaC knowledge. It's worth verifying that candidates can back it up with real project experience — the certification exam tests concepts, not production experience.
Kubernetes: CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator) indicates operational Kubernetes competency. CKAD (Certified Kubernetes Application Developer) is more developer-focused. CKSA (Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist) is valuable for security-conscious organizations.
These ranges represent market conditions for remote-eligible roles in 2026:
Budget below these ranges and you'll either attract candidates who don't meet the requirements or fail to retain candidates who are quickly recruited away by competitors paying market rates.
Listing every cloud technology that exists. A job description that requires "Azure, AWS, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, Docker, Linux, Windows, Python, Go, and Bash" is not a cloud engineer role — it's a wishlist. Be specific about what your environment actually uses.
Requiring experience with specific minor versions. Asking for "5+ years of Kubernetes 1.27+ experience" when Kubernetes 1.27 was released in 2023 creates immediate credibility problems with strong candidates.
Confusing cloud familiarity with cloud engineering. Cloud engineering requires more than the ability to click around the Azure portal or run a few CLI commands. Describe the scope of infrastructure ownership your engineer will carry — how many environments, what services, what SLA expectations.