AWS (Expert Level)

• Core services: EC2, VPC, S3, RDS, IAM, and Well-Architected Framework application across engagements. Experience or knowledge of AWS Outpost.
• Landing zone: AWS Control Tower and Organizations for multi-account governance.
• Networking: Transit Gateway, Direct Connect, and VPC peering/segmentation design.
• Migration tooling: Application Migration Service (MGN), Database Migration Service (DMS), and Application Discovery Service.
• Containers: EKS and ECS architecture for modernised workloads.

Azure (Expert Level)

• Core services: Virtual Machines, Virtual Network, Storage, Entra ID (Azure AD), and Well-Architected Framework application.
• Landing zone: Azure Landing Zones and Management Group hierarchy design.
• Networking: ExpressRoute and Virtual WAN for hybrid and multi-region connectivity.
• Migration tooling: Azure Migrate for assessment, replatforming, and cutover.
• Containers: AKS architecture for modernised workloads.

GCP (Strong Working / Expert Level)

• Core services: Compute Engine, VPC, Cloud Storage, and Cloud IAM.
• Landing zone: Resource Manager hierarchy and Organization Policy design.
• Networking: Cloud Interconnect and hybrid connectivity design.
• Migration tooling: Migrate to Virtual Machines for workload migration.
• Containers: GKE architecture for modernised workloads.

Migration & Modernization

• Deep working knowledge of migration assessment methodology (the 6 R's) and the tooling used to apply it.
• Experience building application dependency maps and translating them into realistic, risk-managed migration wave plans.
• Data migration strategy for both online (minimal downtime, replication-based) and offline (bulk transfer) approaches.
• Hands-on experience leading cutover events for production workloads, including rollback planning.

Hybrid Cloud Architecture

• Design of dedicated hybrid connectivity: Direct Connect, ExpressRoute, and Cloud Interconnect, including integration with existing SD-WAN and WAN environments.
• Hybrid identity architecture: AD Connect/Entra Connect, federation, and single sign-on across on-premises and cloud directories.
• Hybrid DNS and name resolution design across on-premises and multi-cloud environments.
• Experience with VMware-on-cloud bridge technologies (VMware Cloud on AWS, Azure VMware Solution, Google Cloud VMware Engine) as a migration and coexistence strategy.
• Workload placement strategy for organisations operating a genuinely long-term hybrid estate, not just a transitional one.

Landing Zone, Governance & Automation

• Multi-account/subscription/project strategy design and the guardrails (SCPs, Azure Policy, GCP Organization Policy) that enforce it.
• Infrastructure-as-code proficiency: Terraform as a primary, cross-cloud standard, plus native tooling (CloudFormation, Bicep/ARM) where required.
• Tagging, cost allocation, and resource organisation standards that support governance and FinOps at scale.
• CI/CD and GitOps practices for infrastructure delivery across multi-cloud environments.

Security & Compliance

• Identity federation and zero trust principles applied consistently across AWS, Azure, and GCP.
• Network security design: security groups/NSGs, cloud-native firewalls, and web application firewalls.
• Encryption at rest and in transit, and key management across multi-cloud environments.
• Working knowledge of relevant compliance frameworks (e.g. SOC 2, ISO 27001, and sector-specific regimes) as applied to cloud architecture.

Communication & Delivery

• Excellent executive communication and presentation skills; able to flex between deep technical detail and C-suite framing on cloud strategy and migration risk.
• Proven ability to author low-level design (LLD) and high-level design (HLD) documentation, and migration runbooks, to a professional services standard.
• Experience running technical design workshops with senior client stakeholders and multi-vendor delivery teams.

Certifications

• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional — required, or clearly demonstrated equivalent expert-level skill.
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert — required, or clearly demonstrated equivalent expert-level skill.
• Google Professional Cloud Architect — strongly preferred.
• TOGAF 9/10 or equivalent enterprise architecture certification — beneficial.
• FinOps Certified Practitioner — beneficial.

Adjacent Technical Skills (Beneficial, Not Required)

Depth in the specialist area above is mandatory. Experience in the following adjacent domains is a strong plus and will be valued in candidate evaluation, since it enables broader solution ownership across engagements.

• Networking (routing/switching, SD-WAN) given the centrality of hybrid connectivity to this role.
• Virtualization platforms (VMware, Red Hat OpenShift/OpenStack) as common migration source environments.
• Security architecture, particularly zero trust and cloud security posture management.
• Containers and Kubernetes depth beyond managed-service operation.
• Data platform and analytics services across the hyperscalers (data lakes, warehousing, streaming).
• AI/ML cloud services, given the growing overlap between cloud migration and AI platform enablement.

Leadership & Delivery Expectations

• Leads technical delivery independently and acts as the final technical authority on cloud and migration decisions for an engagement.
• Mentors other cloud architects and engineers across multiple hyperscaler platforms.
• Navigates multi-vendor, multi-cloud complexity confidently, translating it into a clear, risk-managed migration roadmap for clients.
• Communicates cloud strategy and migration risk clearly to both hands-on engineering teams and infrastructure leadership.
• Comfortable owning migration cutover windows and the associated risk management.