Senior Cloud Engineer

xdesign; United States; Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid/remote options

Office hubs in multiple locations

Occasional travel to client sites

Job summary

xdesign is seeking a Senior Cloud Engineer to lead client delivery, bridging architecture and implementation. You will build secure, scalable cloud systems, balancing infra, software, and data practices while mentoring teams and shaping standards.

The role emphasizes self-service platforms, observability, FinOps integration in CI/CD, and collaboration with enterprise architects and project managers on complex migrations and cost controls.

Qualifications

• Balanced engineering background across infrastructure, software, and data engineering with emphasis on infrastructure/platform work.
• Extensive experience writing declarative IaC with Terraform and operating Kubernetes clusters, nodes, and pods.
• Practical experience with cloud platform engineering, automation, CI/CD, GitOps, and production-grade distributed systems.
• Experience building or supporting data pipelines, workflow systems, observability, and reliability practices for cloud applications.
• Familiarity with cloud-native cost management and tools like Infracost or Karpenter; strong client-facing communication and mentoring skills.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical direction, unblock complex delivery problems, support migrations, and write high-quality code.
• Build and maintain self-service developer platforms enabling compliant, temporary environments via GitOps.
• Implement data pipelines and workflow orchestration for enterprise AI and agentic applications (e.g., AWS Bedrock and AWS AgentCore).
• Establish monitoring and observability for distributed cloud apps and AI models with focus on health, performance, reliability, and security.
• Embed FinOps into CI/CD with automated cost estimation, resource optimization, and default auto-shutdown controls.
• Advise client stakeholders and mentor engineers while balancing timelines, budgets, and technical quality.
• Contribute reference architectures and IaC templates and help set engineering standards.

Skills

Cloud platform engineering

CI/CD

GitOps

Distributed systems

Observability

Mentoring

Client communication

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

Infracost

Karpenter

Job description

Role overview

The Senior Cloud Engineer is a senior individual contributor and technical lead within client delivery teams. The role bridges architecture and implementation by turning designs into secure, reliable production systems, while combining infrastructure engineering with software development and data-engineering practices. Work includes cloud platforms, developer self-service, enterprise AI infrastructure, observability, cost control, technical consulting, and mentoring.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical direction, unblock complex delivery problems, support migrations, and write high-quality, specification-driven code.
• Build and maintain self-service developer platforms that create compliant, temporary environments through GitOps workflows.
• Implement data pipelines, workflow orchestration, and specialized compute for enterprise AI and agentic applications, including services such as AWS Bedrock and AWS AgentCore.
• Establish monitoring and observability for distributed cloud applications and AI models, with attention to health, performance, reliability, and security.
• Embed FinOps practices into CI/CD, including automated cost estimation, resource optimization, and default auto-shutdown controls.
• Advise client stakeholders such as technical leads, project managers, and enterprise architects while balancing delivery timelines, budgets, and technical quality.
• Mentor engineers, contribute reference architectures and Infrastructure-as-Code templates, share technical knowledge, and help set engineering standards.

Requirements

• A balanced engineering background across infrastructure, software engineering, and data engineering, with the strongest emphasis on infrastructure and platform work.
• Extensive experience writing declarative Infrastructure as Code with Terraform and operating Kubernetes clusters, nodes, and pods.
• Practical experience with cloud platform engineering, automation, CI/CD, GitOps, and production-grade distributed systems.
• Experience building or supporting data pipelines, workflow systems, specialized compute, observability, and reliability practices for cloud applications.
• Familiarity with cloud-native cost management, resource optimization, and tools such as native cloud-provider utilities, Infracost, or Karpenter.
• Strong client-facing communication, technical advisory, relationship-building, mentoring, and problem-solving skills.

Nice to have

• Experience delivering secure platforms in regulated industries such as financial services, banking, or iGaming, including Zero Trust and compliance controls.
• Associate-level cloud certifications and at least one professional-level certification; progress toward credentials such as CKA, AWS ML Engineer Associate, or FinOps Certified Practitioner is valued.

Benefits and work setup

The role offers flexible working with hybrid and remote options, supported by office hubs in several UK and European locations. Occasional travel to client sites or offices may be required. The work environment emphasizes autonomy, professional growth, collaboration, inclusion, and impact over rigid schedules.