senior-cloud-architect

name: senior-cloud-architectdescription: >  Use when the user asks to "design cloud architecture", "set up Terraform infrastructure",  "optimize cloud costs", "plan disaster recovery", "configure multi-region failover",  "audit IAM policies", "migrate to cloud", "set up VPC networking",  "compare AWS vs GCP vs Azure", or "right-size cloud instances".  Expert cloud architecture covering AWS, GCP, Azure, multi-cloud strategy,  cost optimization, security, and infrastructure automation.license: MIT + Commons Clausemetadata:   version: 1.1.0  author: borghei  category: engineering  domain: cloud-architecture  updated: 2026-06-17  tags: [cloud, aws, gcp, azure, architecture, infrastructure, terraform]

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, settle the inputs below. When one is missing or vague and would change the result, ask about it; when it wouldn't, use a sensible default and say which one you used.

• 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).

Ask about the two or three inputs that matter most for this request, not the whole list. If the user wants a result straight away, produce it and state your assumptions at the top.

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