Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer

Motion Recruitment Partners LLC; Chicago, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Motion Recruitment Partners LLC in Chicago seeks a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer to join its Platform Engineering team. You will help design scalable self-service platforms, automate cloud operations, and improve developer experience across a large engineering organization.

You will mentor engineers, shape platform strategy and cloud adoption, and drive technical excellence while ensuring secure, reliable patterns used company-wide.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering, cloud infrastructure, or platform engineering in large-scale systems.
• Experience designing and supporting cloud-native, microservices architectures.
• 3+ years developing and operating production services using Python, Java, or similar languages.
• Hands-on with Kubernetes, containers, APIs, and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP).
• Strong Infra as Code experience, including Terraform.
• Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.
• Experience building self-service automation and platform capabilities.
• Strong observability, monitoring, resiliency, and operational best practices.
• Excellent communication to influence decisions and mentor engineers.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable cloud infrastructure and platform services for enterprise use.
• Mentor engineers and drive best practices across teams.
• Collaborate with product and engineering to reduce operational friction.
• Lead architecture discussions for cloud-native solutions.

Skills

5+ years experience

Cloud-native architectures

Python/Java production services

Kubernetes & cloud platforms

Terraform

CI/CD pipelines

Self-service automation

Observability & resiliency

Mentoring & communication

Tools

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. If you are interested in this Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer opportunity.

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