AWS Cloud Architect & Platform Lead

QinetiQ; Orpington; On-site; GBP 43,000 - 83,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension & life cover

Extra holidays

Health plan

Private medical/dental

Employee discounts

Volunteer opportunities

Armed Forces support

Job summary

QinetiQ is seeking an experienced cloud/DevOps engineer to lead the direction of our cloud infrastructure on AWS. You will architect resilient, scalable, and secure distributed systems, mentor engineers, and drive cross-team collaboration across multiple squads.

The role requires senior-level experience with Terraform, Pulumi, and AWS CDK, and compliance with on-site attendance in the UK. The candidate should have extensive AWS knowledge, strong software background, and the ability to influence

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in cloud infrastructure, AWS focus.
• Expert knowledge of AWS networking, compute, storage, and security.
• Strong IaC and config mgmt skills.
• Deep software background with Python/Go/Java/Node.js.
• Proven track record leading large technical projects and cross-team consensus.
• Experience designing and maintaining large distributed systems and microservices.
• AWS Associate certification or higher.
• Eligibility for SC clearance.
• Willingness to work 37 hours/week and on-call rotas.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical direction of cloud infrastructure and platform engineering.
• Define cloud strategy and architect scalable, secure AWS systems.
• Serve as technical escalation and advisor to engineering leadership.
• Provide mentorship to engineers at all levels.
• Foster continuous learning, peer review, and operational excellence.
• Architect multi-region, highly available AWS environments aligned with business goals.
• Evaluate new AWS services and third‑party tools to improve tech stack.
• Guide technical decisions across multiple squads and cross-functional teams.
• Maintain modular codebases using Terraform, AWS CDK, and Pulumi.
• Design internal developer platforms and enterprise CI/CD frameworks.
• Implement AWS cost optimisation strategies.
• Drive performance optimisations across microservices, databases, and networks.

Skills

AWS expertise

IaC

Programming languages

Leadership

Cross-team collaboration

Education

AWS Associate cert

Tools

Terraform

AWS CDK

Pulumi

CI/CD

Node.js

Job description

QinetiQ is seeking an experienced cloud/DevOps engineer to lead the direction of our cloud infrastructure on AWS. You will architect resilient, scalable, and secure distributed systems, mentor engineers, and drive cross-team collaboration across multiple squads.

The role requires senior-level experience with Terraform, Pulumi, and AWS CDK, and compliance with on-site attendance in the UK. The candidate should have extensive AWS knowledge, strong software background, and the ability to influence