Senior Cloud Architect

Expert cloud architecture and infrastructure design across AWS, GCP, and Azure — production-grade VPC/compute/database topologies, cost optimization, disaster recovery, and security posture auditing.

Keywords

cloud, aws, gcp, azure, terraform, infrastructure, vpc, eks, ecs, lambda, cost-optimization, disaster-recovery, multi-region, iam, security, migration

Core Capabilities

• Production architecture design — Terraform VPC, multi-AZ ECS/EKS behind ALB, RDS Multi-AZ, ElastiCache, layered WAF/NACL/SG security.
• Multi-cloud comparison — map equivalent compute, serverless, storage, database, ML, and CDN services across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
• Cost optimization — right-sizing, Reserved Instances/Savings Plans/Spot selection, cost-allocation tagging, budget alerting.
• Disaster recovery — Backup/Pilot Light/Warm Standby/Multi-Site strategy selection against RTO/RPO, cross-region replication, Route 53 failover.
• Security posture — CIS benchmark audits, network segmentation, least-privilege IAM with conditions, encryption at rest and in transit.
• Well-Architected reviews — checklist across all six pillars (operational excellence, security, reliability, performance, cost, sustainability).

When to Use

• Designing a new production cloud architecture or migration.
• Reducing cloud spend or planning reserved capacity.
• Planning or testing disaster recovery and failover.
• Auditing security posture against CIS benchmarks.
• Comparing AWS / GCP / Azure for a workload.

Clarify First

Before designing the architecture, confirm these inputs. If any is unknown or vague, ASK — do not assume:

• ] Target cloud(s) — AWS / GCP / Azure or multi-cloud (every topology, service mapping, and Terraform differs)
• ] Workload profile & scale — traffic, statefulness, and compute type (drives the VPC / compute / database topology and sizing)
• ] RTO/RPO targets — recovery objectives (selects Backup / Pilot Light / Warm Standby / Multi-Site DR)
• ] Budget / cost constraint — the spend ceiling (drives right-sizing and Reserved vs Savings Plan vs Spot)

Stop rule: ask only the 2-3 that most change the output. If the user says "just draft it," proceed and list your assumptions at the top of the artifact.

References

Load the reference that matches the task — keep this file lean and pull detail on demand:

• references/cloud-architecture-playbooks.md — quick-start commands, the cloud platform comparison matrix, the four end-to-end workflows (AWS architecture, cost optimization, DR planning, security audit) with Terraform/IAM/cost code, and the AWS Well-Architected checklist. Read when designing, optimizing, or auditing an architecture.
• references/cloud-operations.md — troubleshooting table (latency, state locks, failover, IAM, cost spikes, peering, replication) and the architecture success criteria. Read when diagnosing an issue or defining the quality bar.

Scope & Limitations

This skill covers:

• Multi-cloud architecture design and comparison across AWS, GCP, and Azure
• Infrastructure-as-Code with Terraform including VPC, compute, database, and networking
• Disaster recovery planning, cross-region replication, and failover strategies
• Cloud cost optimization, right-sizing, and reserved capacity planning

This skill does NOT cover:

• Application-level code architecture or microservice design patterns (see senior-architect)
• Kubernetes cluster internals, pod scheduling, or service mesh configuration (see senior-devops)
• Security compliance frameworks beyond CIS benchmarks such as SOC 2, HIPAA, or GDPR (see ra-qm-team/ compliance skills)
• CI/CD pipeline design, build automation, or deployment workflows (see senior-devops)

Integration Points

| Skill | Integration | Data Flow | |-------|-------------|-----------| | senior-devops | Infrastructure provisioning feeds into CI/CD deployment pipelines | Terraform outputs (endpoints, ARNs) → deployment configs | | senior-secops | Security audit findings inform cloud hardening decisions | CIS benchmark results → security remediation tasks | | senior-architect | Application architecture requirements drive cloud resource selection | Capacity requirements → compute/storage/network sizing | | aws-solution-architect | AWS-specific deep dives complement multi-cloud strategy | Cloud platform comparison → AWS implementation details | | ra-qm-team/soc2-compliance | Compliance requirements shape infrastructure security controls | Compliance matrices → IAM policies, encryption configs, audit logging | | senior-fullstack | Fullstack application stacks deploy onto cloud infrastructure | Application stack definitions → ECS/EKS task definitions, RDS configs |