Increasingly dependent on cloud services, companies have seen the need for technical and financial management of their uses. This is how the FinOps engineer appeared. This cloud specialist knows inside out the services and prices of different providers (AWS, Google, OVH, Microsoft, Adobe, etc.). His mission ? Advise the company's management and the various professions on their use of cloud services and above all optimize costs.
A contraction of the words finance and operations, FinOps is an approach which consists of ensuring that a company uses cloud services in the most efficient way possible. This approach relies on one person, the FinOps engineer. Its goal is to optimize expenses by avoiding unnecessary costs and minimizing costs without degrading performance.
The FinOps engineer is therefore more of a function than a profession. Appearing in recent years, the cloud has brought power and flexibility to the IT and business needs of companies. Adopted by more and more company services, the cloud or rather clouds, have, against all expectations, exploded the infrastructure bill of companies, each service having its own needs and payment per use multiplying expenses.
The FinOps engineer has an overview of all cloud uses (public, private and hybrid) of the company. Its area of intervention covers all sectors of activity. He will analyze the costs and study why this or that expense is abnormally high. It will propose solutions: reduce the data retention period, change the technical environment, rewrite the code, share a cloud between several services or renegotiate a contract. Behind his cost-killer image, the FinOps engineer's objective is not so much to reduce expenses as to optimize the quality-price ratio of the cloud.
What are the missions of the finops engineer?
At the crossroads of IT, corporate finance and business, the FinOps engineer's mission is to understand, monitor, control and optimize the costs of the company's private and public cloud architectures. He works hand in hand with IT services (IT management, cloud engineers, developers, project managers, etc.), but also with financial management.
He manages the costs of cloud solutions and proposes necessary adjustments at the financial level. He is the guarantor of continuous cost optimization through support and awareness raising for business and IT teams. It can suggest pooling or targeted optimizations linked to projects.
It also ensures consistency in the use of the cloud by defining the rules of use, best practices and participates in the management of the company's cloud strategy. It manages contracts with cloud providers. It uses dashboards to manage costs and control usage. It also produces reporting on the company's cloud consumption.
It explains the benefits that can be gained from the cloud for business lines (“evangelization” role) and supports operational teams in their use of the cloud.
What studies to follow?
The position requires technical cloud expertise. It is therefore reserved for engineers (bac +5) or holders of a master's degree in computer science (bac +4). Training in management or corporate finance is also recommended in order to be able to monitor and optimize cloud costs.
What skills do you need?
The technical skills required of a FinOps engineer are as important as their interpersonal and managerial skills. Indeed, this cloud engineer must have a perfect mastery of the mechanisms of the cloud infrastructure, know the commercial offers of cloud providers while having the skills to interact with IT, finance and business departments.
TECHNICAL SKILLS (hard skills / Know-how)
- Good general knowledge of cloud offerings with experience of at least 2 years with a cloud service provider (AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Azure, AliCloud, etc.)
- Knowledge of cloud infrastructures (storage, calculation, virtual machines, etc.) and security systems (firewall, cloud HSM, proxy, etc.). Certification from a provider (GCP or AWS) is recommended.
- Mastery of data analysis, reporting and visualization tools (Microsoft Power BI, Google Data Studio, etc.)
- Mastery of budget monitoring methods
- Knowledge of project management and Agile methods
- Mastery of the pack Office
- Fluency in oral and written English
MANAGERIAL AND RELATIONSHIP SKILLS (soft skills / interpersonal skills)
- Excellent communication skills, particularly with technical teams
- Developed listening skills
- Strong analytical skills, spirit of synthesis
- Strategic, architectural and transversal vision
What is the salary of a FinOps engineer?
The FinOps engineer position is still very new. Salaries obviously depend on the sector of activity as well as the size of the company.
Salaries vary from €45,000 gross annually for juniors, up to €80,000 annually for strategic and senior positions.
What are its development prospects?
Bridging the gap between technical and managerial functions, the FinOps engineer is capable of evolving equally well in one or the other. His experience of the cloud and its strategic management could lead him to IT management or management positions.
What are the attractions and constraints of this job?
- Good salary
- Various tasks
- Technical and relational
- Need to monitor offers from cloud providers on a day-to-day basis
- Function still not widespread in France at the moment
- Function limited to relatively large corporate structures or ESNs.
