Remote | AWS Cloud Engineer (Serverless & IaC) — $60–$80/hour

24-Mag Llc; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 83,000 - 110,000; Part time

Job summary

24-Mag Llc is seeking a part-time AWS Cloud Engineer for a remote engagement in the United States. The role focuses on reviewing serverless architectures, IaC implementations, and multi-service AWS environments.

You will provide rubric-based technical feedback, assess failure/retry, security boundaries, observability, and cross-service integration, while ensuring correctness and reproducibility.

Qualifications

• 3+ years hands-on experience building multi-service AWS serverless applications.
• Proficient with AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3 and Step Functions.
• Experience with infrastructure as code (CDK/CloudFormation/SAM).
• Strong understanding of IAM permissions and security boundaries.

Responsibilities

• Review AWS serverless architectures spanning multiple services.
• Assess IaC definitions and deployment reproducibility.
• Evaluate event-driven systems and integration patterns.
• Provide rubric-based technical feedback with precise explanations.
• Ensure proper failure, retry, and recovery behaviours.

Skills

AWS serverless

Lambda

API Gateway

DynamoDB

S3

EventBridge

SNS/SQS

Step Functions

IaC

Event-driven architecture

IAM security

Tools

AWS CDK

CloudFormation

SAM

LocalStack

Job description

We are sharing a specialised part-time consulting opportunity for experienced AWS Cloud Engineers with strong hands-on expertise in serverless architecture, event-driven systems, infrastructure as code, and multi-service AWS environments.

This role focuses on evaluating technical tasks involving AWS serverless applications and infrastructure-as-code implementations for correctness, architectural quality, reproducibility, and cross-service integration. Selected engineers will review cloud designs, permissions, failure handling, deployment definitions, and testing approaches while providing clear, rubric-based technical feedback.

Key Responsibilities

AWS Serverless Architecture

• Review multi-service serverless applications built on AWS
• Assess architecture involving Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, DynamoDB Streams, S3, EventBridge, SNS, SQS, and Step Functions
• Evaluate service selection, integration patterns, and architectural trade-offs
• Identify incorrect assumptions or weaknesses in serverless designs
• Assess whether implementations follow sound cloud architecture principles

Infrastructure as Code

• Review infrastructure definitions built with AWS CDK, CloudFormation, or SAM
• Assess whether infrastructure code accurately represents the intended architecture
• Identify configuration errors, missing resources, or incorrect dependencies
• Evaluate deployment structure and infrastructure reproducibility
• Review IaC implementations for consistency and technical correctness

Event-Driven Systems

• Evaluate event-driven architectures spanning multiple AWS services
• Review event sources, routing, triggers, subscriptions, and downstream processing
• Assess asynchronous workflows for correctness and resilience
• Identify broken integration patterns or unintended event behaviour
• Evaluate whether service interactions reflect realistic AWS behaviour

IAM & Security Boundaries

• Review IAM roles, policies, and permission boundaries
• Assess whether services receive appropriate access without unnecessary privileges
• Identify missing, excessive, or incorrectly scoped permissions
• Evaluate cross-service authentication and authorisation requirements
• Apply practical AWS security principles when reviewing task implementations

Failure, Retry & Recovery Behaviour

• Assess failure-handling and retry semantics across serverless workflows
• Review dead-letter queues, retry policies, timeouts, and asynchronous failure paths
• Identify scenarios that could cause duplicate processing, lost events, or uncontrolled retries
• Evaluate idempotency and recovery considerations
• Assess whether failure behaviour matches actual AWS service semantics

Testing & Local Emulation

• Review testing strategies for AWS serverless applications
• Evaluate local development and emulation approaches using tools such as LocalStack
• Identify behavioural differences between emulated environments and real AWS services
• Assess whether local tests provide sufficient confidence in production behaviour
• Review integration and end-to-end testing approaches

Cross-Service Integration

• Evaluate integrations between compute, storage, messaging, API, and orchestration services
• Review resource dependencies and service configuration
• Identify mismatches between infrastructure definitions and application behaviour
• Assess data flow across multi-service architectures
• Determine whether integrations function correctly under realistic conditions

Observability & Operational Quality

• Review logging, monitoring, tracing, and operational visibility where relevant
• Assess whether serverless workloads can be effectively diagnosed in production
• Identify missing observability or operational safeguards
• Evaluate performance and scalability considerations
• Review opportunities for serverless cost optimisation where applicable

Rubric-Based Technical Evaluation

• Assess assigned cloud engineering tasks against structured technical criteria
• Provide clear written explanations supporting evaluation decisions
• Reference specific architectural, infrastructure, or implementation evidence
• Apply grading standards consistently across assignments
• Distinguish substantive cloud architecture problems from reasonable alternative designs

Ideal Profile

• 3+ years of hands-on experience building multi-service AWS serverless applications
• Strong professional experience with AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, S3, EventBridge, SNS/SQS, and Step Functions
• Strong experience with infrastructure as code using AWS CDK, CloudFormation, or SAM
• Deep understanding of event-driven architecture
• Strong knowledge of IAM permissions and security boundaries
• Experience designing and evaluating failure, retry, and recovery behaviour in distributed systems
• Familiarity with LocalStack or comparable local AWS testing approaches
• Ability to distinguish local emulation behaviour from actual AWS service behaviour
• Strong cloud architecture, debugging, and technical review skills
• AWS certifications such as Solutions Architect or Developer are advantageous
• Experience with serverless observability and cost optimisation is preferred
• Previous code-review or technical task-grading experience is advantageous
• Strong written communication and ability to provide precise technical feedback

Engagement Details

• Part-time independent contractor engagement
• Fully remote within the United States
• Flexible scheduling based on project requirements
• Compensation: $60-$80/hour
• Work focuses on AWS serverless architecture, infrastructure as code, event-driven systems, integration correctness, and technical quality evaluation
• Projects may be extended, shortened, or concluded based on project needs and performance
• Work must be completed without using confidential or proprietary information belonging to any employer, client, institution, or other third party
• H1-B and STEM OPT support is unavailable for this engagement