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Information Technology and Software · Cloud computing companies
HR for Cloud Computing Companies: Engineers, On-Call Rotas and Certifications
A cloud company sells infrastructure, migration or managed services that must stay up around the clock. Here is how to run the people who keep it running.
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Share your requirementsA cloud computing company may host customers' systems, migrate them to a public cloud, or run their infrastructure as a managed service. The people are cloud and DevOps engineers, solution architects, support engineers and account teams. Customers expect their systems to be available at all hours, so work does not stop at office closing time. Engineers hold vendor certifications that customers look for, and the market for these skills is competitive. Many projects run across time zones, and a small number of senior architects carry the customer relationships and the design judgement. See also HR for IT and software.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in cloud computing companies, you may see
- On-call is unfair and unrecorded
- Certifications drive pay demands
- Senior architects hold the customer
- Support tiers blur
- Project and run teams compete for people
- Offers from global firms
- Shifts across time zones
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in cloud computing companies
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Cloud and DevOps engineers
- Solution architects
- Site reliability and operations engineers
- 24x7 support engineers
- Migration and project managers
- Pre-sales engineers
- Cloud cost and billing analysts
- Account and customer success managers
Where HR strains in cloud computing companies
On-call is unfair and unrecorded
A few willing engineers carry night calls, with no clear rota, allowance or time off afterwards, and they burn out first.
Certifications drive pay demands
A new certificate makes an engineer far more marketable, and without a plan you either lose them or pay ad hoc.
Senior architects hold the customer
Customers trust a named architect, so that person's exit puts the account and the design history at risk.
Support tiers blur
First-line staff escalate everything and senior engineers get pulled into routine tickets, so growth paths and workload both suffer.
Project and run teams compete for people
Migration projects borrow engineers from live support, and neither side plans for the loss.
Offers from global firms
Experienced cloud engineers are approached often by larger employers, and notice periods turn each resignation into a scramble.
Shifts across time zones
Customers in other regions need coverage in their hours, and the rota keeps changing without proper record of who worked when.
HR topics for cloud computing companies
Start with the topics that matter most here: Retention and Attrition Management; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Learning and Development. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for information technology and software, not in general.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a cloud computing companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Publish an on-call policy
Who is on call, for how long, what they are paid or compensated, how handovers work and when rest follows a night call.
What this coversHide
Publish an on-call policy
Who is on call, for how long, what they are paid or compensated, how handovers work and when rest follows a night call.
What this coversHideWho is on call, for how long, what they are paid or compensated, how handovers work and when rest follows a night call. Record it through the attendance, shift and leave process.
Tie certification to a growth ladder
State which certifications the company supports, what time and cost it provides, and how they connect to grades and pay.
What this coversHide
Tie certification to a growth ladder
State which certifications the company supports, what time and cost it provides, and how they connect to grades and pay.
What this coversHideState which certifications the company supports, what time and cost it provides, and how they connect to grades and pay. The competency and talent work sets out the ladder.
Pair every key account with a second architect
A named backup who attends reviews and holds the design documents, so no customer depends on one person.
What this coversHide
Pair every key account with a second architect
A named backup who attends reviews and holds the design documents, so no customer depends on one person.
What this coversHideA named backup who attends reviews and holds the design documents, so no customer depends on one person.
Define support tiers and escalation rules
What each tier handles, what should be escalated and how a good tier-one engineer moves up.
What this coversHide
Define support tiers and escalation rules
What each tier handles, what should be escalated and how a good tier-one engineer moves up.
What this coversHideWhat each tier handles, what should be escalated and how a good tier-one engineer moves up. Organisation design helps draw the lines.
Plan project demand against run capacity
A shared view of upcoming migrations and live-support load, so projects do not quietly drain the people who keep customers online.
What this coversHide
Plan project demand against run capacity
A shared view of upcoming migrations and live-support load, so projects do not quietly drain the people who keep customers online.
What this coversHideA shared view of upcoming migrations and live-support load, so projects do not quietly drain the people who keep customers online.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- List who has taken night calls in the last quarter and how it was compensated.
- Write down which engineers hold which certifications and which accounts depend on them.
- Name a backup architect for each of your five largest customers.
- Count how many tickets reach senior engineers that tier one could have closed.
- Check how many notice-period resignations you had last year and what they cost in delay.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the employment, working-time and data-handling obligations that apply to your cloud computing business.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Competency and talent management
A skills and certification map that links to grades, so growth and pay follow a clear ladder.
- Attendance, shift and leave
An on-call and shift record that is fair, visible and ready for payroll.
- Retention and attrition
A look at who leaves, at what level and for what offers, with a plan for the roles you cannot lose.
- Compensation benchmarking
A pay structure for cloud skills that reflects the market without rewarding each resignation threat.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in information technology and software, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Management
How to recognise and address employee workload problems
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead article
HR Management
Salary bands for SMEs: building grades when you have never had any
Most salary structures grew one negotiation at a time. How to build grades and bands from what you already pay, without repricing everybody at once.
8 min readRead article
HR Process
The training calendar nobody attends: fixing the learning and development process
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Decide it in writing: an allowance for being available, a rate or time off for actual call-outs, and rest after night work. What matters is that it is predictable and the same for everyone in the rota.
Many firms do, because customers value them. Link support to the roles you need, set a clear expectation on staying with the company afterwards, and have the policy approved by a qualified professional before it is used.
Assign a backup to each key account, keep design records in a shared place and include the backup in customer reviews. This also gives the next person a path to the senior role.
Do not wait for the offer. Review pay against the market each year, show a path to the next grade and give interesting work. Counter-offers alone tend to delay the exit rather than prevent it.
Yes. Support work is rota-driven and measured on response and resolution, while project work is milestone-driven. Roles, appraisal measures and workload planning should reflect that.
The first conversation would check who has taken night calls and how it was recognised, which accounts depend on a single architect, and how tickets move between support tiers. A natural first piece of work is a written on-call policy with a named backup for each major customer. Scope is put in writing afterwards for you to approve.
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