Principal Cloud Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Principal Cloud Engineer based in United States.

This senior technical leadership role blends cloud architecture design with hands-on engineering execution, focusing on building scalable, secure, and enterprise-grade cloud foundations. The position is responsible for defining reference architectures, engineering standards, and reusable patterns that support global operations across a complex multi-cloud environment. It plays a critical role in enabling AI, data, and application teams by providing robust infrastructure foundations for modern workloads, including containerized services and AI/ML systems. The role requires a strong balance of strategic architectural thinking and practical implementation, with a focus on proving solutions through real-world engineering rather than theoretical design alone. It also involves mentoring engineers, shaping platform governance, and driving operational excellence across reliability, security, and cost efficiency. This is a high-impact individual contributor role with broad influence across engineering teams and enterprise cloud strategy.

• Design and implement enterprise cloud reference architectures, standards, and patterns that ensure scalability, security, and consistency across environments
• Build and maintain cloud infrastructure across Azure and AWS, including networking, identity, compute, storage, and platform services
• Develop private networking architectures such as hub-and-spoke models, DNS strategies, and secure connectivity frameworks
• Architect and support container platforms and workloads, including Kubernetes-based environments for application and AI/ML services
• Establish Infrastructure as Code practices using Terraform and develop reusable modules, templates, and CI/CD pipelines
• Build and enforce reliability engineering standards, including SLOs, monitoring, alerting, incident response, and production readiness criteria
• Define governance frameworks for cloud adoption, security controls, cost optimization, and architectural decision-making
• Create and validate proof-of-concept implementations to establish scalable enterprise standards
• Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership across cloud, DevOps, and platform teams

Requirements:

• 10+ years of experience in cloud, platform, or infrastructure engineering, including senior or principal-level responsibility
• Deep expertise in cloud fundamentals such as IAM, networking (VPC/VNet), DNS, load balancing, compute, and storage
• Strong hands-on experience with Azure, including private networking, Entra ID, and related cloud-native services
• Proficiency in Terraform or similar Infrastructure as Code tools (Bicep, CloudFormation)
• Experience with CI/CD systems, Git workflows, and automation pipelines
• Strong containerization experience, particularly Docker and Kubernetes environments
• Ability to design and operate cloud infrastructure supporting AI/ML workloads and data-intensive systems
• Experience defining operational standards such as SLOs, observability, incident management, and production readiness
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to influence without formal authority
• Experience with cloud governance, security frameworks (SOC2, PCI, CIS), and enterprise architecture practices

Benefits:

• Competitive annual salary range of $160,000–$190,000 USD
• Performance-based bonus eligibility (annual or quarterly depending on structure)
• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, vision, and disability insurance
• Generous paid time off, including vacation, sick leave, holidays, and additional personal days
• 401(k) retirement plan with company match up to 6%
• Paid parental leave and fertility/adoption support benefits
• Remote work flexibility across the United States (excluding Alaska)
• Professional development, certification support, and learning opportunities
• Long-term career benefits including sabbatical eligibility after extended tenure
• Additional wellness, employee assistance, and financial protection programs