Senior Cloud Engineer

Securecloudplus; Stoke-on-Trent; On-site; GBP 75,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Securecloudplus is seeking a Senior Cloud Engineer to lead design, optimization, and operation of secure cloud infrastructure across environments.

You will drive IaC, automation, cost optimisation, and secure DevSecOps practices while mentoring teams and ensuring governance alignment. The role emphasizes safe, scalable cloud services aligned with business goals and customer needs.

Qualifications

• Experience engineering cloud infrastructure in secure/regulated environments.
• Strong knowledge of cloud security best practices and compliance standards.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, and operate secure cloud infrastructure across public, private, and hybrid environments (IaC).
• Develop and maintain IaC templates and deployment patterns to standardise builds.
• Lead automation of common cloud operations tasks to improve efficiency and reduce manual work.
• Lead internal training to uplift cloud engineering and operations capability.
• Support learning pathways, coaching, and certification readiness for Cloud and Service Operations Engineers.
• Contribute to risk assessments, governance alignment, and incident response analysis.

Skills

Azure cloud platform

Security governance

Documentation

Mentoring

Tools

Terraform

CloudFormation

ARM

GitLab

Jenkins

Ansible

Job description

Role Purpose

The Senior Cloud Engineer plays a key leadership role in designing, optimising, and supporting scalable, secure, and cost-effective cloud infrastructure and services across SC+. This role is critical in enabling the organisation to deliver high-quality, customer-focused cloud solutions while driving operational excellence and workforce capability.

Acting as a senior technical authority, the Senior Cloud Engineer leads initiatives to upskill engineering and support teams, ensuring technical readiness through structured training, certification, and knowledge-sharing programs. The role is also accountable for identifying and implementing cost optimisation strategies, automating key cloud operations, and developing reusable deployment patterns to accelerate and standardise service delivery.

With a strong focus on service improvement and customer satisfaction, the Senior Cloud Engineer actively contributes to cloud service design, delivery, and continuous improvement—ensuring that services are robust, efficient, and aligned with business goals. In parallel, they play a proactive role in risk identification and mitigation, helping to build a resilient and well-governed cloud operating environment.

Through technical leadership, collaboration, and a focus on value delivery, the Senior Cloud Engineer supports SC+’s mission to deliver dependable, innovative, and scalable cloud services that meet the needs of both internal stakeholders and external customers.

Role Responibilities

Cloud Infrastructure design and operate

• Design, deploy, and manage secure cloud infrastructure across public, private, and hybrid cloud environments.

• Develop and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) templates and deployment patterns to standardise and accelerate environment builds.

• Lead the automation of common cloud operations tasks, improving operational efficiency and reducing manual intervention.

Capability Development & Mentoring

• Lead internal training initiatives to uplift cloud engineering and operations capability across the team.

• Support the development and delivery of learning pathways, coaching, and certification readiness for both Cloud and Service Operations Engineers.

Risk Management & Security

• Contribute to operational and technical risk assessments, documentation, and mitigation planning within the engineering function.

• Ensure that technical decisions align with internal governance frameworks and external security standards.

Cloud Cost Optimisation

• Drive cloud cost management through architecture improvements, automation, and service optimisation.

• Monitor cloud resource usage and identify opportunities for savings and operational efficiencies.

Automation & DevSecOps

• Implement and maintain automation pipelines to support provisioning, monitoring, patching, and configuration management.

• Collaborate with developers and security teams to integrate infrastructure into CI/CD workflows using secure DevOps practices.

Service Improvement

• Engage with internal stakeholders and service consumers to identify improvements in cloud service delivery.

• Contribute to service reviews, operational health assessments, and incident response analysis to improve system performance and customer experience.

Education and Experience

Required

• Extensive experience in cloud infrastructure engineering within secure, regulated, or classified environments (defence, government, or critical infrastructure).

• Strong expertise with Azure and Oracle and associated services (e.g., compute, storage, networking, IAM).

• Proficiency in Infrastructure-as-Code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation, ARM) and scripting (e.g., PowerShell, Python, Bash).

• Familiarity with cloud security best practices and compliance frameworks (e.g., NIST 800-53, JSP 440, ISO 27001).

• Strong communication, documentation, and mentoring skills.

Desired

• Active SC / DV status

• Professional cloud certifications (e.g., AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Solutions Architect, GCP Professional Cloud Architect).

• Experience with secure cloud environments, MOD Cloud, or air-gapped deployments.

• Knowledge of DevSecOps pipelines and automation tooling (e.g., GitLab, Jenkins, Ansible).