Lead Cloud Platform Engineer – Self‑Service & Automation

Kelly Services; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 160,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Motion Recruitment Partners is seeking a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer to join the Platform Engineering team in a Chicago-area setting. You will help design cloud-native solutions, automate operations, and raise developer productivity by building self-service platforms.

The role emphasizes architectural leadership, mentoring engineers, and aligning platform strategy with business goals across a large engineering organization.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering, cloud infrastructure, or platform engineering in large-scale environments.
• Experience designing cloud-native, microservices architectures.
• 3+ years of experience developing/operating production services using Python, Java, or similar 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.
• 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.

Responsibilities

• Build scalable self-service platforms and automate cloud operations.
• Improve developer experience across a large engineering organization.
• Mentor engineers and drive technical excellence across the organization.

Skills

Cloud infrastructure

Platform engineering

Kubernetes

Python/Java

Terraform

CI/CD

DevOps

Observability

Mentoring

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

APIs

AWS

Azure

GCP

Job description

Motion Recruitment Partners is seeking a Lead Cloud Infrastructure Software Engineer to join the Platform Engineering team in a Chicago-area setting. You will help design cloud-native solutions, automate operations, and raise developer productivity by building self-service platforms.

The role emphasizes architectural leadership, mentoring engineers, and aligning platform strategy with business goals across a large engineering organization.