Director of Engineering

Change Recruitment; Sydney; On-site; AUD 280,000 - 460,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working arrangements

Professional development

Career progression opportunities

Job summary

Change Recruitment seeks an experienced AWS Engineering Director to lead and grow its cloud and AI engineering capability for enterprise clients in Australia. You will drive technical direction, architect complex platforms and mentor teams across multiple engagements.

The role combines executive engagement, delivery accountability and commercial growth, requiring strong leadership, stakeholder management and a track record of delivering measurable business value.

Qualifications

• 15+ years in cloud engineering, solution architecture or consulting.
• Experience leading enterprise cloud transformation and modernisation.
• Strong executive communication and stakeholder management.
• Proven track record in building high performing engineering teams.
• Experience in consulting or client-facing technology leadership.

Responsibilities

• Set engineering direction and standards across multiple client engagements.
• Own end-to-end solution designs for complex enterprise environments.
• Lead executive engagement and translate tech concepts into business value.
• Grow and mentor engineering teams; drive delivery quality and outcomes.
• Oversee business development, proposals, and account growth.
• Govern AI and cloud platform governance, security and cost optimisation.

Skills

AWS architecture

Cloud strategy

Executive engagement

Leadership

DevSecOps

Platform engineering

Agile delivery

Business development

Education

AWS certifications (Solutions Architect / DevOps)

Tools

Terraform

AWS CloudFormation

GitHub

GitLab

Jenkins

Job description

Our client is seeking an experienced AWS Engineering Director to lead and grow its cloud and AI engineering capability.

Working within an established technology consulting practice, you will help enterprise organisations solve complex business challenges through cloud platforms, modern software engineering and AI solutions. The practice brings together specialists across cloud and platform engineering, cloud-native development, integration and AI engineering.

This role combines technical leadership, executive engagement, delivery accountability and commercial growth. It suits an experienced AWS leader who can set engineering direction, build high-performing teams and translate technology strategy into measurable business outcomes.

Key responsibilities:

Technical leadership and architecture

• Set the technical direction for engineering teams across multiple client engagements.
• Establish engineering standards covering architecture, code quality, security, performance and production readiness.
• Own and govern end-to-end solution designs for complex enterprise environments.
• Provide hands-on guidance in architecting and validating cloud-native platforms and applications.
• Ensure solutions prioritise maintainability, operational resilience and long-term business value.
• Act as the senior escalation point for complex architecture and engineering challenges.

Client and executive engagement

• Build trusted relationships with client executives, technology leaders and business stakeholders.
• Translate complex technical concepts into clear recommendations and business outcomes.
• Shape cloud, platform and AI strategies, roadmaps and delivery programmes.
• Guide clients through architectural decisions, balancing cost, risk, delivery speed and operational requirements.
• Maintain strong relationships with AWS, technology partners and industry stakeholders.

Practice and commercial leadership

• Build and scale engineering teams, developing technical capability and future leaders.
• Take accountability for delivery quality and outcomes across multiple engagements.
• Contribute to business development, proposals, account growth and new opportunities.
• Oversee project and account financial performance, including commercial and P&L responsibilities.
• Recruit, mentor and retain engineering talent.
• Develop reusable patterns, accelerators and delivery approaches.
• Represent the practice at industry events and contribute to its technical direction.

AI-enabled engineering and governance

• Define standards for the responsible use of AI across engineering and delivery.
• Establish processes for reviewing, validating and auditing AI-generated outputs.
• Determine where AI can improve delivery and where conventional engineering approaches offer greater reliability or control.
• Embed human oversight at critical decision points in AI-assisted workflows.
• Ensure AI adoption supports security, correctness, performance and measurable business value.
• 15+ years' experience across cloud engineering, solution architecture, technical leadership or consulting, including substantial AWS expertise.
• Extensive experience leading enterprise cloud transformation and modernisation programmes.
• Demonstrated success building and scaling engineering teams, practices or technical capabilities.
• A track record of business development, account growth and financial management.
• Significant experience in consulting or client-facing technology leadership.
• Experience leading large projects and multidisciplinary teams using Agile delivery approaches.
• Strong executive communication, stakeholder management and influencing skills.
• Ability to operate confidently in complex, ambiguous and fast-moving environments.

Technical expertise:

AWS architecture and governance

• Deep experience designing secure, scalable enterprise platforms aligned with the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
• AWS Organizations, multi-account strategies, Control Tower and Landing Zone Accelerator.
• Enterprise cloud operating models, governance and compliance frameworks.
• Federated identity integration, including Microsoft Entra ID.
• Enterprise networking, including Transit Gateway, Direct Connect and hybrid connectivity.
• Security architecture, zero-trust principles and multi-region disaster recovery.
• FinOps, cloud economics and cost optimisation.

Platform engineering and DevSecOps

• Platform engineering strategy and internal developer platforms.
• Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and/or AWS CloudFormation.
• Automation using Python and the AWS CLI.
• CI/CD design and optimisation using tools such as GitHub, GitLab and Jenkins.
• Integration of security controls and quality standards throughout the software delivery lifecycle.

Migration and modernisation

• Enterprise migration strategy, planning and delivery across the 7 Rs.
• Modernisation of traditional infrastructure and applications into AWS cloud-native environments.
• AWS Transform strategy, programme governance and large-scale migration leadership.
• Architecture reviews, remediation programmes and operational readiness.

AI and generative AI

• Enterprise AI strategy, roadmap development and operating model design.
• Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker architecture and deployment.
• Agentic AI architecture patterns and enterprise agent platform governance, including Amazon Bedrock AgentCore.
• AI platform engineering and AI-enabled engineering transformation.
• Generative AI use case identification, assessment and prioritisation.
• Responsible AI frameworks, security architecture and risk management.
• AI vendor and partner ecosystem management.

Leadership and working style

You will bring a collaborative leadership approach, with a strong commitment to mentoring engineers and developing future leaders. You should be comfortable challenging technical decisions, explaining trade-offs and maintaining high engineering standards while supporting practical delivery.

The ability to build credibility with both engineering teams and senior executives will be central to your success.

Relevant AWS certifications are desirable, particularly across:

• Solutions architecture and DevOps at Professional level.
• Security and advanced networking.
• AI, machine learning and generative AI.

Additional relevant AI qualifications or training would also be valued.

What the opportunity offers

• A senior leadership role shaping a growing cloud and AI engineering capability.
• Exposure to complex enterprise challenges across a broad client base.
• The opportunity to influence technical standards, delivery approaches and practice growth.
• A collaborative engineering environment with access to experienced technology specialists.
• Ongoing professional development, training and certification opportunities.
• Flexible working arrangements and support for career progression.

Applicants must hold Australian working rights.