Cloud Engineer Roadmap
Master modern cloud architecture: IAM security, VPC networks, compute instances, container engines, serverless lambdas, and multi-region resilience.
A roadmap is only worth following for its sequence. Any list can tell you that Kubernetes exists; the useful part is knowing what has to come before it and why.
Curriculum & Milestones (8 Stages)
Stage 1: Cloud Fundamentals
Understand the mental model of the cloud before touching any console.
Understand the mental model of the cloud before touching any console.
Understand the spectrum from raw infrastructure (IaaS) to managed platforms (PaaS) to full software (SaaS), and when to use each.
Learn how providers organise data centres into regions and AZs, and how this drives latency, redundancy and compliance decisions.
Know the line between what the cloud provider secures (of the cloud) and what you secure (in the cloud).
Understand on-demand vs reserved vs spot pricing and how to read a cloud bill to avoid surprises.
Stage 2: Choose a Cloud Provider
Go deep on one provider first. Concepts transfer once you master one.
Stage 3: Compute
The services that actually run your code.
Stage 4: Cloud Networking
How resources connect, isolate and expose themselves to the world.
Stage 5: Storage & Databases
Choosing the right data store is one of the highest-leverage cloud skills.
Stage 6: Identity & Security
Access control is the number-one source of cloud breaches. Get it right.
Stage 7: Infrastructure as Code
Never click through consoles for production. Codify everything.
Stage 8: Monitoring, Cost & Architecture
Running the cloud well means watching health, spend and design quality.