Lead Cloud / Platform Engineer - PM

OpenKrill; United States; On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

DVT is seeking an experienced Lead Cloud/Platform Engineer to strengthen our Platform Engineering team. The role focuses on moving our Azure and AWS cloud estate from reactive support to a structured, proactive, and sustainable approach.

You will work with Platform Engineers and the Engineering Manager to establish maintenance routines, set engineering standards, and promote best practices while remaining hands-on.

Qualifications

• 7+ years hands-on cloud/platform engineering experience.
• Experience improving how an existing cloud estate is managed and moving teams from reactive to proactive cloud management.
• Experience establishing or improving maintenance, patching, upgrades and lifecycle-management practices.
• Experience helping establish engineering standards and technical priorities.
• Strong experience with Azure and AWS, with working knowledge of both environments.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, ideally Terraform.
• Experience with Kubernetes/container platforms and CI/CD.
• Good understanding of cloud security, reliability, resilience and observability.

Responsibilities

• Establish a structured, proactive approach to managing Azure and AWS estates.
• Develop and enforce maintenance, patching, upgrades, and lifecycle routines.
• Plan and test cloud/platform changes to minimize risk.
• Prioritize platform work based on risk, lifecycle, and operational needs.
• Promote pragmatic cloud engineering standards and best practices.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardize and automate cloud management.
• Proactively identify risks and improvement opportunities and implement them.
• Provide technical guidance to the Platform Engineering team and stay hands-on with engineering tasks.

Skills

Cloud engineering

Azure

AWS

Infrastructure as Code

Platform engineering

Security & observability

Proactive cloud management

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Azure DevOps

AWS CLI

Job description

DVT is one of the top software development companies on the continent. Our software engineers are consulting on cutting-edge applications at top companies in South Africa, as well as consulting globally. You will have the opportunity to work alongside some of the most established developers in the country and globally with the latest technologies.

DVT is committed to continuously training our staff and we are very proud of our culture of learning, internal speaking and training at a variety of sponsored technical events across the AWS & Azure ecosystem.

We are looking for an experienced Lead Cloud / Platform Engineer to strengthen our Platform Engineering team.

The primary focus of this role is to improve how our Azure and AWS cloud estate is managed, moving from reactive support towards a structured, proactive and sustainable approach.

Working alongside our existing Platform Engineers and Engineering Manager, the role will provide technical stewardship of the cloud estate, helping bring structure to the complexity of operating across two cloud platforms. This includes establishing effective maintenance and lifecycle routines, identifying and prioritising technical risks and improvements, and promoting appropriate engineering standards and best practices.

This is a hands‑on technical leadership role without direct people‑management responsibility. The Engineering Manager retains responsibility for business priorities, stakeholder management and people leadership.

The overall outcome we are looking for is a more manageable, well‑maintained and proactively managed cloud estate across Azure and AWS.

Key responsibilities

• Help establish a structured and proactive approach to managing our Azure and AWS estate.
• Establish and improve routine maintenance, patching, upgrades and lifecycle management.
• Help ensure cloud and platform changes are appropriately planned and tested.
• Help structure and technically prioritise platform work based on risk, lifecycle and operational need.
• Establish and promote pragmatic cloud engineering standards and best practices.
• Identify opportunities to simplify, standardise and automate cloud management.
• Proactively identify technical risks and improvement opportunities.
• Support any improvements across security, reliability, resilience and observability.
• Provide technical guidance and support to the Platform Engineering team.
• Remain hands‑on, contributing to engineering, remediation, automation and continuous improvement.

Experience we're looking for

• 7+ years hands‑on cloud/platform engineering experience.
• Demonstrable experience improving how an existing cloud estate is managed and helping move teams from reactive towards proactive cloud management.
• Experience establishing or improving maintenance, patching, upgrade and lifecycle-management practices.
• Experience helping establish engineering standards and technical priorities.
• Strong experience with Azure and AWS, with experience and working knowledge of both cloud environments.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, ideally Terraform.
• Experience with Kubernetes/container platforms and CI/CD.
• Good understanding of cloud security, reliability, resilience and observability.
• Ability to identify improvement opportunities proactively and work collaboratively with others to implement them.

We're not necessarily looking for someone who ticks every technical box or is an expert across every aspect of both Azure and AWS.What's more important is someone with the right cloud/platform engineering background, experience and attitude to help us bring greater structure to the cloud estate, establish good practices, and move towards a more proactive and manageable way of operating across Azure and AWS.

You should be comfortable working across both cloud environments, able to identify and prioritise what matters, and have a natural inclination towards improving, simplifying, and standardising how things are managed.We're looking for someone who can provide that technical stewardship while remaining hands‑on and working collaboratively with the existing Platform Engineers.