The Cloud Engineer is a key element within the Rackspace support infrastructure and is expected to provide a high level of technical support to our customers via the phone, ticketing system, and automation. This role owns complex customer issues which may take several days or weeks to resolve and keeps our customers updated through every step of the process. Responsible for the support of internal and external customers on multiple platforms. Work with customers and other teams to troubleshoot customer environments to increase user satisfaction. Resolves customer issues, providing guidance and recommendations to increase efficiency and reduce customer incidents. Develops tooling and processes to drive and improve customer experience, creates playbooks, and providing mentoring on customer related issues to support teams. The Support Engineer is expected to take initiative and advise on potential pitfalls that a customer may encounter and suggest alternatives which may better serve the stability and security of the customer's solution. Keeps informed of emerging technologies. Responsible for adhering to company security policies and procedures and any other relevant policies and standards as directed.
Key Responsibilities
- 1. Incident Management (L3 Escalation)
- Act as the primary escalation point for complex incidents requiring deep technical analysis.
- Troubleshoot and resolve priority P1/P2 issues related to compute, storage, networking, databases, IAM, Kubernetes (GKE), logging/monitoring, and cloud security.
- Perform detailed root cause analysis (RCA) and implement permanent fixes to avoid repeat incidents.
- Liaise with Google Cloud Support to escalate vendor-level issues where necessary.
- Ensure SLAs, SLOs, and incident response times are consistently met.
- 2. Change Management
- Plan, validate, and implement controlled changes in production and non-production environments following ITIL processes.
- Perform impact analysis, risk assessment, and rollback planning for all assigned changes.
- Maintain change documentation and ensure compliance with organizational and audit standards.
- 3. GCP Administration & Operations
- Manage, configure, and optimize core GCP servicesCompute Engine, Cloud Storage, VPC, Cloud SQL, Cloud Run, GKE, Load Balancers, Cloud Functions, and IAM.
- Monitor platform performance and troubleshoot reliability, performance, and capacity issues.
- Implement cost optimization strategies and assist with budget and quota management.
- Maintain logging, monitoring, and alerting via Cloud Monitoring, Cloud Logging, and third-party tools.
- 4. Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)
- Build, maintain, and enhance infrastructure-as-code (IaC) templates using Terraform.
- Standardize deployments and enforce modular, reusable Terraform code structures.
- Integrate Terraform with CI/CD pipelines for automated provisioning.
- Conduct security and compliance reviews for Terraform builds and cloud resources.
- 5. Automation & Process Improvement
- Develop scripts and automations using Python, Bash, or Cloud-native tools to reduce manual operational overhead.
- Identify opportunities for service improvements and drive optimization initiatives.
- Create runbooks, SOPs, and automation frameworks to streamline repeated tasks.
- 6. Security & Compliance
- Implement and maintain GCP security best practices, including IAM least privilege, VPC security, firewall rules, CMEK, and security posture management.
- Assist in internal/external audits and ensure cloud environment compliance with organizational policies.
- Monitor and respond to security alerts, vulnerabilities, and threats.
- 7. Documentation & Knowledge Sharing
- Maintain comprehensive documentation for infrastructure, procedures, incident reports, and change logs.
- Mentor junior engineers (L1/L2) and conduct knowledge transfer sessions.
- Contribute to technical architecture reviews and best-practice recommendations.
Required Qualifications
- Minimum 5+ years of hands-on experience in Google Cloud Platform support and administration.
- Strong understanding of GCP architecture, networking, security, IAM, compute, storage, and container services.
- Proven experience handling 247 support, on-call rotations, and production-critical workloads.
- Advanced proficiency with Terraform for IaC, including modules, workspaces, and GCP providers.
- Hands-on experience with CI/CD tools such as Cloud Build, Jenkins, GitLab, or GitHub Actions.
- Strong troubleshooting skills across Linux, networks, APIs, and cloud-native services.
- At least one active GCP Associate/Professional certification is mandatory.
- Deep understanding of ITIL processes (Incident, Problem, Change Management).
- Strong communication, analytical thinking, and technical documentation skills.
Preferred Skills (Good To Have)
- Experience with Kubernetes/GKE cluster operations and troubleshooting.
- Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools (Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK, etc.).
- Python/Go scripting experience.
Soft Skills
- Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
- Ability to work independently under pressure.
- High sense of ownership and accountability.
- Excellent verbal and written communication for customer-facing scenarios.
About Rackspace Technology
We are the multicloud solutions experts. We combine our expertise with the world's leading technologies across applications, data and security to deliver end-to-end solutions. We have a proven record of advising customers based on their business challenges, designing solutions that scale, building and managing those solutions, and optimizing returns into the future. Named a best place to work, year after year according to Fortune, Forbes and Glassdoor, we attract and develop world-class talent. Join us on our mission to embrace technology, empower customers and deliver the future.
More on Rackspace Technology
Though we're all different, Rackers thrive through our connection to a central goal: to be a valued member of a winning team on an inspiring mission. We bring our whole selves to work every day. And we embrace the notion that unique perspectives fuel innovation and enable us to best serve our customers and communities around the globe. We welcome you to apply today and want you to know that we are committed to offering equal employment opportunity without regard to age, color, disability, gender reassignment or identity or expression, genetic information, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, military or veteran status, nationality, ethnic or national origin, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, or any legally protected characteristic. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.
