Staff Cloud & Automation Systems Architect

International Business Machines Corporation; Tucson (AZ); On-site; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Confluent, an IBM Company, seeks a Staff Systems Engineer to lead Cloud, Network & Automation within Corporate IT. You will shape architecture across AWS, GCP, Azure, and automation platforms, driving secure, scalable patterns for the entire organization.

You will mentor engineers, set standards for infrastructure as code, and partner with Identity and Security pillars to ensure least-privilege access. This role emphasizes cross-functional leadership and durable, enterprise-grade solutions.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in systems or platform engineering with durable outcomes.
• Cloud architecture across AWS, Azure, and GCP including large-scale cleanup.
• IaC & GitOps pipelines at scale with policy checks.
• Zero-trust networking, secure remote access, and SASE technologies.
• Automation design in Python/Go/shell and orchestration tooling.
• Secrets management and workload identity federation knowledge.
• Kubernetes/GKE and managed databases in production.
• Incident response, reliability practices, and observability basics.
• Experience with FedRAMP, SOC 2, ISO 27001 or similar.
• Strategic leadership and cross-team influence across time zones.

Responsibilities

• Cloud Platform Architecture: set direction for AWS, GCP, and Azure footprint.
• IaC & GitOps: own reference patterns and delivery pipelines for changes.
• Network & Zero Trust: architect secure remote access and connectivity.
• Automation & Orchestration Platforms: define standards for automation tech.
• Secrets & Workload Identity: pattern definition for Vault and federation.
• Core Services & Cloud-Native Ops: DNS, load balancers, Kubernetes, logging.
• Developer & VDI: set admin/security standards for GitHub Enterprise and VDI.
• Security Posture & Compliance: drive SSPM/SOC 2/ISO 27001 alignment.
• Strategy & Integration Leadership: guide cross-functional platform initiatives.
• Mentorship & Operational Excellence: mentor engineers across time zones.

Skills

Leadership

Cloud architecture

Infrastructure as code

GitOps

Network security

Automation

SRE practices

Communication

Education

Master's Degree

Tools

Terraform

Atlantis

Argo

Semaphore

Rundeck

Cloud Run

Cloud Functions

Palo Alto Networks

GitHub Enterprise

Job description

Confluent, an IBM Company, seeks a Staff Systems Engineer to lead Cloud, Network & Automation within Corporate IT. You will shape architecture across AWS, GCP, Azure, and automation platforms, driving secure, scalable patterns for the entire organization.

You will mentor engineers, set standards for infrastructure as code, and partner with Identity and Security pillars to ensure least-privilege access. This role emphasizes cross-functional leadership and durable, enterprise-grade solutions.