Senior AWS Cloud Architect & Strategy Lead

ATS Client; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,400,000; Full time

Job summary

ATS Client seeks a Principal AWS Architect / Team Lead to head the AWS capability within CSD. You will define AWS strategy, lead a team of cloud architects and consultants, and drive enterprise‑scale AWS engagements from strategy to hands‑on delivery.

The role requires 10+ years in IT infrastructure/cloud, with 5+ years on AWS, strong leadership, and advanced AWS certifications. Expect client-facing leadership and ongoing modernization initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Engineering, or a related discipline.
• 10+ years of IT infrastructure, cloud architecture, or platform engineering, with at least 5 years focused on AWS.
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (required or strongly preferred). Additional AWS Specialty certifications are advantageous.
• Deep expertise across AWS services including VPC, Transit Gateway, EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, IAM, Organizations, CloudWatch, Route 53, and AWS Backup.
• Strong experience designing enterprise networking, identity, security, and governance architectures within AWS.
• Hands‑on expertise with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, and/or AWS CDK.
• Strong understanding of DevOps and platform engineering practices, including Git, CI/CD pipelines, Docker, Kubernetes, and automation frameworks.
• Experience implementing cloud security controls, compliance frameworks, and operational monitoring solutions.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, solution presentation, and documentation skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the architecture, design, and technical governance of enterprise‑scale AWS solutions.
• Partner with sales and client stakeholders to develop cloud strategies, solution architectures, and transformation roadmaps.
• Design highly available, secure, and scalable cloud platforms using AWS best practices and Well‑Architected Framework principles.
• Define target‑state architectures covering networking, security, identity, observability, automation, disaster recovery, and operational excellence.
• Develop and promote Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, CloudFormation, and AWS CDK.
• Provide architectural leadership for cloud migration, application modernization, containerization, and serverless initiatives.
• Collaborate with engineering, DevOps, security, and application teams to implement CI/CD and platform automation strategies.
• Drive cloud security, compliance, governance, and FinOps best practices.
• Perform architecture reviews and provide technical oversight throughout solution delivery.
• Act as a trusted advisor to clients, presenting technical solutions to executive, business, and technical audiences.
• Mentor architects and engineers while contributing to cloud capability development and thought leadership.
• Stay current with emerging AWS services, industry trends, and cloud‑native technologies.

Skills

AWS architecture

Team leadership

Stakeholder management

Communication

Mentoring

Cloud strategy

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/IT/Engineering

Tools

Terraform

AWS CloudFormation

AWS CDK

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

Datadog

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK/OpenSearch

Splunk

Job description

ATS Client seeks a Principal AWS Architect / Team Lead to head the AWS capability within CSD. You will define AWS strategy, lead a team of cloud architects and consultants, and drive enterprise‑scale AWS engagements from strategy to hands‑on delivery.

The role requires 10+ years in IT infrastructure/cloud, with 5+ years on AWS, strong leadership, and advanced AWS certifications. Expect client-facing leadership and ongoing modernization initiatives.