AWS Cloud Platform Engineer

Title: AWS Cloud Platform Engineer

Location: Hybrid position with a strong preference for candidates local to the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area, as they must be able to come on-site at least once a week, preferably on Wednesdays.

Terms of Employment:
W2 Contract, 6 Months (Potential Extension)
This is a hybrid position with a strong preference for candidates local to the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) area, as they must be able to come on-site at least once a week, preferably on Wednesdays.
Office is located in Reston, VA.
Overview & Key Responsibilities
We are seeking a dynamic and experienced Lead AWS Cloud Platform Engineer to provide hands-on technical expertise and leadership for our client s AWS cloud footprint. You will play a pivotal role in a major cloud migration initiative, focused on moving applications from on-premise to a modern AWS ecosystem. This is not an administrative role, but a hands-on position where you will support the entire lifecycle of services from inception and design to deployment and operations. The ideal candidate has a strong background in AWS platform engineering, automation, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) principles. Key responsibilities include:
Provide hands-on technical expertise for supporting our AWS footprint, including security and guardrails.
Design, implement, and integrate our cloud platform resources on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Engage in and improve the end-to-end lifecycle of services, starting from inception & design, deployment, and operations.
Drive and support cloud transformation and migration efforts, including providing consultation on infrastructure planning and engineering.
Establish automation capabilities leveraging Cloud native solutions and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform, Ansible, and Python. Our goal is to provision infrastructure with code and policy as code.
Support activities including system design consulting, capacity planning, and launch reviews.
Willingly troubleshoot difficult issues and provide consultation to internal development and architecture teams.
Promote and ensure modern application design, apply engineering best practices, and mitigate vulnerabilities.
Monitor and manage the stability, availability, and performance of enterprise systems and platforms across IT domains.
Actively participate in and help guide customers on using Cloud-native design and architecture patterns, leveraging components like containers, microservices, and serverless computing.
Automate end-to-end processes to maintain (patches and upgrades) our AWS Cloud ecosystem.
Make data-driven recommendations and mentor peers.
Engage with various teams, including security, architecture, and project management.
Required Skills & Experience:
Minimum of 10 years of overall IT experience, with at least 5-10 years focused on AWS Cloud Platform engineering and administration.
Strong hands-on knowledge and current implementation experience with a wide range of AWS services, including but not limited to VPC, Networking, EC2, S3, IAM, ELBs, Lambda, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and EKS.
Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as Terraform, Ansible playbooks, and Python code. Experience with AWS CloudFormation is also required.
Minimum of 3 years of experience with containerization (Kubernetes) and DevOps toolchains (e.g., Jenkins, Bitbucket, Artifactory).
3-5 years of experience in a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) role.
Experience with an end-to-end software engineering lifecycle (Build, Integration, Test, Releasing, and Deployment).
Solid understanding of cloud architecture principles, design patterns, and best practices for building scalable, resilient, and secure cloud environments.
Hands-on experience with writing Lambda functions, preferably in Python (Boto3).
A great understanding of various DevOps toolchains, including Git/repo, Crucible, and Jenkins.
Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to effectively interact with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
A bachelor s degree in computer science, Information Technology, or a related field.