OCI Cloud Platform Engineer

About the Role

This position is for a Cloud Platform Engineer specializing in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with 3 to 6 years of experience. The engineer will manage daily building, configuration, operation, and support of cloud infrastructure services, focusing primarily on OCI. Key tasks involve following architectural guidelines, automation, and operational standards to create secure, available, and cost-efficient cloud environments. The engineer will operate independently on routine to moderately complex tasks, assist senior engineers in larger projects, and support migration, modernization, and continuous improvement efforts. Working familiarity with at least one additional public cloud environment (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud) and related technologies such as Terraform, Kubernetes, and CI/CD pipelines is required.

Key Responsibilities

• Provision and set up OCI resources including compute instances, storage options, virtual cloud networks, load balancers, and autonomous databases as per approved configurations and landing zones.
• Configure network components such as virtual cloud networks, subnets, security lists, gateways, VPNs, DNS, and enforce standardized tagging and cost allocation conventions.
• Support application deployments and releases using CI/CD tools like OCI DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Azure DevOps.
• Create and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code modules utilizing Terraform and OCI Resource Manager along with automation scripts in Ansible, Bash, or Python for routine maintenance like patching, certificate renewal, snapshot management, and environment refresh.
• Monitor cloud platform health, promptly respond to alerts and incidents following SLAs using OCI Monitoring, Logging, Application Performance Management, and enterprise observability tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, Datadog, and Dynatrace.
• Perform routine cloud operations including patching, backups, capacity monitoring, certificate renewals, and drift remediation while participating in on-call rotations and change management windows.
• Implement security measures like IAM policies, multifactor authentication, encryption, segmentation, and validate controls using Cloud Guard, Security Zones, Vulnerability Scanning, and Data Safe.
• Manage access controls including user lifecycle, role assignments, service accounts, periodic reviews, and assist with audit and compliance documentation.
• Assist in migrating workloads to OCI, setup environments, provide hypercare support, and aid application teams deploying Oracle databases, WebLogic, Kubernetes Engine (OKE), Functions, and API Gateway.
• Contribute to cloud cost optimization by right-sizing, scheduling, and removing unused resources, and maintain detailed runbooks, configuration records, and documentation.

Technical Expertise in OCI

• Compute services including virtual and bare metal instances, autoscaling, and instance pools.
• Storage solutions such as block, object, archive, and file storage services.
• Networking elements like VCN, subnets, security lists, network security groups, routing tables, gateways, DRG, peering, FastConnect, IPSec VPN, DNS, traffic management, load balancers, and web application firewall.
• Identity and security management covering IAM compartments, policies, dynamic groups, identity domains, federation, Cloud Guard, Security Zones, encryption, vaults, vulnerability scanning, bastion host, Data Safe, and audit mechanisms.
• Database technologies including Oracle Database Cloud Service, Autonomous Database, MySQL HeatWave, caching with Redis, NoSQL awareness, and migration tools.
• Application and developer services such as Oracle Kubernetes Engine, Container Registry, Serverless Functions, API Gateway, messaging, streaming, and DevOps pipelines.
• Operations and observability tools for monitoring, logging, analytics, service connectors, application performance management, patching, and disaster recovery processes.
• Tooling including OCI Console, CLI, SDKs (Python/Java), Cloud Shell, Terraform provider, and REST APIs.

Additional Cloud and Platform Skills

• Working expertise in one secondary cloud platform: AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud with core services knowledge.
• Infrastructure as Code and configuration management tools including Terraform, Ansible, Packer, Helm, and Git/GitOps workflows.
• Containerization and orchestration experience with Docker and Kubernetes, including deployments, services, secrets management, role-based access controls, persistent volumes, and OKE usage.
• CI/CD pipeline creation and management using OCI DevOps, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, and Azure DevOps along with artifact repositories.
• Programming and scripting proficiency in Python, Bash, or PowerShell, with API integration skills.
• Observability tooling knowledge including Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/OpenSearch, Datadog, Dynatrace, and Splunk.
• Understanding of security practices including least privilege access, encryption, key and secrets management, and compliance standards such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST, PCI-DSS, and GDPR.
• Networking fundamentals covering TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TLS, routing, firewall, hybrid connectivity (VPN, FastConnect), and Linux/Windows server administration.
• Cloud financial management with cost drivers, budgeting, tagging for chargeback, and OCI Universal Credits.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or relevant field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 3 to 6 years of hands-on cloud or platform engineering experience with at least 2 years focused on OCI or demonstrable OCI exposure.
• Mandatory certification: At least one OCI Associate-level certification, such as OCI Foundations Associate plus Architect Associate or Operations Associate.
• Preferred certifications include OCI Architect Professional, a secondary cloud certification (AWS, Azure, GCP), HashiCorp Terraform Associate, Certified Kubernetes Administrator, and Linux certification (RHCSA, Oracle Linux).

Competencies and Performance Expectations

• Strong ownership and accountability, ensuring work completion.
• Analytical and problem-solving skills spanning infrastructure, networking, and applications.
• Effective communication skills for clear interaction with peers and stakeholders.
• Collaborative approach with architects, security, application, and vendor teams.
• Commitment to meeting service level agreements with service-oriented mindset.
• Continuous learning to keep up with cloud, automation, and security trends.
• Discipline in maintaining standards, documentation, and change control processes.

Performance is measured on platform availability, quality and timeliness of operational tasks, incident response efficiency, adherence to security and compliance standards, contribution to cost optimization and automation, growth in OCI and related skills, and quality of internal and external working relationships.

Additional Information

The role is intended for an Indian national currently working in Saudi Arabia (KSA).