Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Motion Recruitment; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Motion Recruitment is hiring a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer to join its Platform Engineering team. The role focuses on scalable self‑service platforms, automating cloud operations, and improving developer experience across a large engineering organization.

You will design cloud‑native solutions, reduce operational friction, and establish secure, reliable infrastructure patterns that can be leveraged across the company, while mentoring engineers and promoting technical excellence.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software engineering, cloud infrastructure, or platform engineering in large-scale environments.
• Experience designing cloud-native, microservices architectures and supporting production services.
• Strong skills in IaC (Terraform) and CI/CD automation.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and development of scalable, self-service platforms.
• Automate cloud operations and improve developer experience.
• Mentor engineers and influence platform strategy.

Skills

Cloud infrastructure

Platform engineering

Distributed systems

Python/Java

Kubernetes

Terraform

CI/CD

DevOps practices

Observability

Mentoring

Technical communication

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

AWS

Azure

GCP

APIs

CI/CD tooling

GitHub

Jenkins

Ansible

Job description

Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer

A leading enterprise organization is looking to add a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer to its Platform Engineering team. This role will focus on building scalable self-service platforms, automating cloud operations, and improving the developer experience across a large engineering organization. You will work closely with product and engineering teams to design cloud-native solutions, reduce operational friction, and establish secure, reliable infrastructure patterns that can be leveraged company-wide.

This is an opportunity to make a significant impact on platform strategy, architecture, and cloud adoption initiatives while mentoring engineers and driving technical excellence across the organization.

Required Skills & Experience

• 5+ years of software engineering, cloud infrastructure, or platform engineering experience in large-scale distributed environments
• Experience designing and supporting cloud-native, microservices-based architectures
• 3+ years of experience developing and operating production services using Python, Java, or similar programming languages
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, containers, APIs, and cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
• Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code tools, including Terraform
• Experience implementing and improving CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices
• Experience building self-service automation and platform capabilities that improve developer productivity
• Strong understanding of observability, monitoring, resiliency, and operational best practices
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence technical decisions and mentor engineers

Desired Skills & Experience

• Experience leading architecture and solution design for greenfield and brownfield initiatives
• Experience with GitHub, Jenkins, Ansible, or similar DevOps tooling
• Experience building internal developer platforms and cloud automation frameworks
• Experience implementing secrets management and secure cloud deployment practices
• Familiarity with React, FastAPI, or similar modern application frameworks
• AWS Solutions Architect Certification or comparable cloud certification
• Passion for mentoring engineers and driving engineering best practices across teams