Principal AWS Cloud Engineer

Shaw Daniels Solutions; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Pension scheme

Private Medical Insurance

Dental Insurance

Health cash plan

Life Assurance

Employee discounts

Volunteer opportunities

Career progression

Job summary

Shaw Daniels Solutions is seeking an experienced Principal AWS Cloud Engineer to provide technical leadership across cloud infrastructure and platform engineering initiatives. This senior role shapes cloud strategy, architects scalable and secure AWS solutions, and drives engineering excellence across multiple teams.

You will define and lead AWS cloud strategy, mentor engineers, and influence best practices, operational excellence, and cloud adoption across the organisation.

Qualifications

• AWS Associate Certification (minimum) or higher.
• Experience leading large-scale engineering programmes.
• Senior-level cloud engineering experience in AWS.

Responsibilities

• Design multi-region, highly available AWS environments.
• Lead across engineering teams; mentor staff.
• Develop infrastructure with Terraform, AWS CDK and Pulumi.
• Design internal developer platforms and CI/CD frameworks.
• Drive cost optimisation; resolve performance bottlenecks.
• Ensure cloud security and compliance practices.
• Provide technical escalation; set engineering standards.
• Experience with large-scale distributed systems and microservices.

Skills

AWS Cloud Engineering

Cloud Architecture

Leadership

Terraform

AWS CDK

Pulumi

CI/CD

Cost Optimisation

Networking

Programming (Python/Go/Java/Node.js)

Education

AWS Associate Certification

Tools

Terraform

AWS CDK

Pulumi

Job description

Up to £100,000 (dependent on experience) + comprehensive benefits

Hybrid – UK offices/3 days per week in the office

Our client is seeking an experienced Principal AWS Cloud Engineer to provide technical leadership across cloud infrastructure and platform engineering initiatives. This is a senior-level opportunity to shape cloud strategy, architect scalable and secure AWS solutions, and drive engineering excellence across multiple teams.

The Role

As a Principal AWS Cloud Engineer, you will define and lead the AWS cloud strategy, designing resilient, scalable and secure distributed systems that support long-term business objectives. Acting as the highest level of technical escalation, you will mentor engineers at all levels and influence engineering best practice, operational excellence, and cloud adoption across the organisation.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and architect complex, multi-region, highly available AWS environments aligned to business and product roadmaps.
• Evaluate emerging AWS services and third‑party technologies to improve capability, efficiency and time‑to‑market.
• Provide technical leadership across multiple engineering teams, ensuring effective collaboration and cloud integration.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure using Infrastructure as Code tools such as Terraform, AWS CDK and Pulumi.
• Design and implement internal developer platforms and enterprise‑scale CI/CD frameworks.
• Drive AWS cost optimisation initiatives and resolve performance bottlenecks across microservices, databases and networking layers.
• Act as a senior technical advisor, leading engineering standards, peer reviews and mentoring programmes.
• Extensive experience designing, building and managing cloud infrastructure within AWS environments.
• Expert knowledge of the AWS ecosystem, particularly networking (including Transit Gateway and Direct Connect), compute, storage, and security services.
• Strong expertise in Infrastructure as Code and configuration management.
• Software engineering background with advanced proficiency in at least one of the following: Python, Go, Java or Node.js.
• Proven experience leading large‑scale technical programmes and influencing engineering strategy across multiple teams.
• Demonstrated success designing, deploying and supporting large‑scale distributed systems and microservices architectures.

Qualifications

• AWS Associate Certification (minimum) or higher.

Working Arrangements

• Based from one of the client's main UK sites with a minimum average attendance of three days per week.
• Working hours may vary to support service coverage between 07:30 and 18:30 GMT.
• Participation in an on‑call rota is required to support critical systems and incident response.

Security Clearance

Applicants must be eligible for SC Security Clearance as a minimum requirement.

• Matched pension contribution scheme with life assurance.
• Generous annual leave allowance, with the option to purchase additional days.
• Health Cash Plan, Private Medical Insurance and Dental Insurance options.
• Employee discounts across retail, travel, entertainment and insurance providers.
• Volunteering opportunities supporting charities and local communities.
• Supportive and inclusive working environment with a strong focus on professional development and career progression.

Our client welcomes applications from candidates of all backgrounds and values diversity, inclusion and continuous learning. If you have the required skills and experience and are looking to play a key role in shaping enterprise‑scale AWS platforms, we would love to hear from you.