Cloud Engineer Portfolio: Show, Don’t Tell

Ever tried describing your cloud engineering skills to someone who doesn’t speak YAML? You know the drill: you list a few buzzwords (Kubernetes, Terraform, “99.99% uptime”), but their eyes glaze over. The truth? Most portfolios for cloud engineers are long on claims and short on proof. If you want to stand out—and land interviews, contract gigs, or even that internal promotion—it’s time to show, don’t tell.

Why Most Cloud Portfolios Fall Flat

I’ve seen my share of “portfolios” that are just glorified CVs. Maybe a GitHub link, maybe a bullet point about migrating workloads to AWS. But hiring managers and clients want to see how you work, not just what you claim to know.

“Think of your portfolio as a technical storybook: diagrams, dashboards, costs, even a little drama when things break (and how you fixed it).”

Here’s how I turned my own cloud portfolio from static to living—making it a real asset when pitching for new opportunities.

The Case: From List to Lab

Last year, I was consulting for a mid-sized SaaS team. I wanted to show them I wasn’t just another “cloud guy”—I could build, document, and operate production infrastructure. Instead of sending a deck or a resume, I sent a link to a working mini-lab in the cloud, complete with:

Diagrams showing architecture decisions
Automated runbooks (think: “push a button, recover a broken node”)
Monthly cost dashboards
Reliability stats (uptime, latency, error rates)

Within a day, I got a call: “Can you walk us through this? We’ve never seen a portfolio like it.” That’s the power of showing.

What to Include in a Cloud Engineer Portfolio

1. Architecture Diagrams

Don’t just toss a Visio export in your repo. Build diagrams that tell a story:

Show how traffic flows: from users → edge → services → data
Highlight failovers, backups, and monitoring points
Include cost zones (e.g., “S3: $12/mo”, “EC2: $34/mo”)

Tools I use: diagrams.net (free), Lucidchart, or Cloudskew.

2. Runbooks & Automation

Any cloud project worth its salt should have at least one runbook—preferably automated. Example:

“How to fail over a database replica in RDS”
“Zero-downtime deployment for Node.js app in ECS”

Keep it practical and copy-pastable. If you use Ansible, Terraform, or shell scripts, link the exact code and add short comments.

3. Cost Dashboards

Cloud skills aren’t just about spinning things up—they’re about knowing what it’ll cost. Share a screenshot or link to a dashboard (even if it’s a mockup) showing:

Monthly/weekly spend by service
Breakdown: compute, storage, data transfer
Notes on cost-saving tweaks you made (“Switched from t3.medium to t3.small, saved $18/mo”)

Try Infracost (for Terraform) or the built-in AWS Cost Explorer.

4. Reliability Metrics

Nothing says “I know what I’m doing” like real uptime and latency numbers. Your portfolio can include:

Sample uptime dashboards (Grafana, CloudWatch, Datadog)
Error rates (e.g., “99.97% uptime, < 0.1% 5xx errors last 30 days”)
Incidents: what went wrong, how fast you fixed it, what you learned

If you don’t have a real app to monitor, set up a free-tier monitoring job on a test API or website. Show the graphs.

5. Mini-Lab: Your Cloud Playground

Here’s the secret sauce: set up a small “lab” in the cloud. Doesn’t have to cost more than a lunch. For example:

Spin up a static site on S3 + CloudFront (~$1/month if you keep it lean)
Deploy a small app on Heroku free tier, Vercel, or Fly.io
Automate with Terraform or Pulumi, show the repo
Public dashboard: Grafana Cloud (has a generous free plan)

This is your sandbox—document your decisions, costs, and mistakes. Link to it from your portfolio.

Step-by-Step: Building a Portfolio Lab in 15 Minutes

Let’s get hands-on. Here’s a quickstart you can copy:

Create a GitHub Repo:

Name it something like cloud-portfolio-lab. Add a README with a high-level diagram.
Spin up a Static Site:

Use AWS S3 (free tier for 12 months) or Vercel. Deploy a simple HTML page: “Welcome to my Cloud Lab.”
Automate Deploy with Terraform:

Write a main.tf that provisions the bucket/site. Add variables for region and bucket name.
Set Up Monitoring:

Use Grafana Cloud or UptimeRobot to ping your site every 5 minutes. Collect uptime stats.
Track Costs:

For AWS, enable the Cost Explorer and take a screenshot of your (tiny) bill. Add to your repo.
Write a Runbook:

For example: “How to update the site in under 5 minutes.” Include CLI commands or a shell script.
Document Everything:

Include diagrams, links to dashboards, and lessons learned (e.g., “Oops, forgot to turn off public write!”).

Portfolio Lab Checklist

Item	Done?	Notes/Links
GitHub repo with README	☐
Architecture diagram	☐	diagrams.net
Automated infra (Terraform/Pulumi)	☐	Terraform
Live demo or static site	☐	Vercel
Monitoring dashboard	☐	Grafana Cloud
Cost dashboard/screenshot	☐	AWS Cost Explorer
Runbook (doc/script)	☐
Lessons learned / gotchas	☐

Templates: Start Here

README.md Template

# Cloud Portfolio Lab

## Overview
A demo cloud project featuring:
- Automated infrastructure (Terraform)
- Cost tracking
- Monitoring & reliability stats
- Runbooks

## Architecture
![diagram](link-to-diagram.png)

## Live Demo
[https://my-cloud-lab.example.com](https://my-cloud-lab.example.com)

## Cost Dashboard
[Screenshot](link-to-cost-screenshot.png)

## Monitoring
[Grafana dashboard](link-to-grafana.com/dashboard)

## Runbooks
- [How to deploy](link-to-runbook.md)
- [How to recover from failure](link-to-runbook.md)

## Lessons Learned
- Keep S3 buckets private by default!

Runbook Template

# Runbook: Update Static Site

1. Clone the repo:
   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/cloud-portfolio-lab.git

2. Make changes in /site.

3. Deploy:
   aws s3 sync ./site s3://your-bucket-name

4. Confirm:
   Open https://my-cloud-lab.example.com

Estimated time: 3 minutes

“If it’s not in your portfolio, it didn’t happen. Make your infra visible, and people will trust you can build theirs.”

Bonus: Every time you learn something new (API Gateway quirks, a cost-saving trick, a monitoring fail), add it to your lab. Your portfolio becomes a living document—and your best advocate.

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