PRINCIPAL AWS CLOUD & PLATFORM ARCHITECT

Nine Twenty; London Borough of Islington; Hybrid; GBP 86,000 - 117,000; Part time

Job summary

Nine Twenty is seeking a Principal AWS Cloud & Platform Architect in London (hybrid) for an initial 3-month contract. You will shape and govern complex cloud, platform, and application modernization solutions, leading technical discovery and guiding engineering teams from design to delivery.

Expect strong AWS expertise, multi-cloud awareness, and hands-on leadership of architecture, cost-conscious decisions, and governance forums.

Qualifications

• Extensive senior cloud/platform architecture experience in enterprise environments.
• Deep AWS knowledge across networking, security, compute, containers, storage and governance.
• Strong Kubernetes/container platform experience, preferably with Amazon EKS.
• Proven Terraform, Helm, CI/CD pipelines and automated provisioning expertise.
• Observability across metrics, logs, distributed tracing with OpenTelemetry knowledge.

Responsibilities

• Lead AWS architecture from discovery through design and implementation.
• Define target-state, transition, and migration architectures including hybrid/multi-cloud.
• Design landing zones and cloud-native environments using Kubernetes, EKS and Docker.
• Guide application modernization with microservices, APIs, event-driven patterns and serverless.
• Set IaC standards with Terraform and Helm; architect CI/CD and GitOps.
• Promote platform engineering practices like self-service and golden paths.
• Design end-to-end observability with OpenTelemetry, CloudWatch, Grafana and Prometheus.
• Oversee AI gateway capabilities using LiteLLM and governance.
• Act as senior technical authority in client workshops and design reviews.
• Contribute to proposals, statements of work and estimates; mentor architects and engineers.

Skills

AWS expertise

Kubernetes

Terraform

CI/CD pipelines

OpenTelemetry

LiteLLM

Cloud governance

Architecture documentation

Serverless

Multi-cloud

Education

AWS Certifications (professional)

CKA/CKAD/CKS certifications

DevOps Engineer Professional

Tools

Terraform

Helm

Docker

Amazon EKS

Grafana

Prometheus

CloudWatch

OpenTelemetry

Job description

Principal AWS Cloud & Platform Architect

Location: London (hybrid)
Rate: £550 per day (Outside IR35)
Type: Contract, initial 3 months

The opportunity

A well-established cloud consultancy is looking for a Principal AWS Cloud & Platform Architect to join its senior technical leadership on an initial 3-month contract. You will shape and govern complex cloud, platform and application modernisation solutions, turning business outcomes into secure, scalable and cost-conscious architectures. You will lead technical discovery, define reference architectures and guide engineering teams from initial design through to delivery. AWS is the primary platform, and experience of other clouds is valued where it supports multi-cloud decisions, integration or migration planning.

What you will be doing

• Leading the architecture of complex AWS solutions, from discovery through high-level and detailed design
• Defining target-state, transition and migration architectures, including hybrid and multi-cloud integration
• Designing landing zones, shared platform services and cloud-native environments using Kubernetes, Amazon EKS and Docker
• Guiding application modernisation through microservices, APIs, event-driven patterns and serverless
• Setting infrastructure-as-code standards with Terraform and Helm, and architecting CI/CD and GitOps approaches
• Promoting platform engineering practices such as self-service capabilities, golden paths and automated policy enforcement
• Designing end-to-end observability using OpenTelemetry, CloudWatch, Grafana, Prometheus and the Elastic Stack
• Designing and governing AI gateway capabilities using LiteLLM, including model routing, policy controls and usage visibility
• Acting as a senior technical authority in client workshops, design reviews and governance forums
• Contributing to proposals, statements of work and estimates, and mentoring architects and engineers

What you will bring

• Substantial experience in senior cloud, platform, DevOps or infrastructure architecture roles, with accountability for complex enterprise designs
• Deep, practical AWS knowledge across networking, identity, security, compute, containers, storage, databases, integration and governance
• Strong Kubernetes and container platform experience, ideally including Amazon EKS
• Proven experience with Terraform, Helm, CI/CD pipelines and automated cloud provisioning
• Experience architecting observability across metrics, logs and distributed tracing, with working knowledge of OpenTelemetry
• Experience with model gateways or AI platform components; LiteLLM knowledge is highly desirable
• The ability to produce clear architecture documentation, decision records and standards
• Confident client-facing communication and workshop facilitation at senior stakeholder level

Desirable

• Azure, GCP or private cloud experience
• Serverless, event-driven and API-led architecture on AWS
• Internal developer platform or golden-path experience
• FinOps knowledge, including cost optimisation and showback/chargeback models
• Security-by-design, policy-as-code and software supply-chain controls
• Exposure to generative AI platforms, model governance and AI guardrails
• Consulting, pre-sales or bid support experience
• Certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect Professional, AWS Security Specialty or DevOps Engineer Professional, and CKA, CKAD or CKS. Equivalent practical experience is just as valued.

What makes a great fit

You are outcome-focused and pragmatic, balancing architectural quality against cost, timescales and risk. You provide clear direction while building trust across diverse teams, you explain complex topics simply, and you keep pace with developments in AWS, cloud-native and AI platforms.

Interested?

Contact Jack Harding at Nine Twenty on [e-mail] for a confidential conversation.