Sr. Director, Cloud Foundations

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world's most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world's most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Title: Cloud Foundations Leader

Job Summary:

Northern Trust is seeking an experienced and visionary Cloud Leader to drive the strategy, design, and implementation of foundational cloud capabilities across our enterprise. This role focuses on cloud infrastructure foundations, platform engineering, and enablement of scalable, secure, and resilient cloud services. You will lead a team of cloud engineers and collaborate closely with security, architecture, and development teams to ensure cloud environments are robust, automated, and aligned to business goals.

Key Responsibilities:

Cloud Foundations & Architecture

• Design and evolve cloud foundational architecture including VPC/VNET design, account structure (e.g., Control Tower, Organizations), IAM, logging, monitoring, tagging, and networking.
• Establish and enforce cloud platform standards, blueprints, and reusable patterns for infrastructure.
• Lead cloud landing zone design and manage ongoing operational readiness.

Platform Engineering & Automation

• Build and manage reusable infrastructure components using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform, Cloud Formation, ARM.
• Drive automation and CI/CD practices for cloud infrastructure and foundational services.
• Lead the adoption of modern DevOps, GitOps, and platform engineering practices to improve reliability and developer experience.
• Deliver self-service blueprints and reusable patterns for application teams.

Leadership & Enablement

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of cloud engineers and platform specialists.
• Define and drive the cloud foundations vision and roadmap, ensuring alignment with business and technology strategies.
• Collaborate with application teams to enable self-service infrastructure, reusable pipelines, and secure-by-default patterns.
• Champion cloud best practices and guide stakeholders on cloud-native and hybrid architectures.

Governance, Security & Cost Optimization

• Partner with security and compliance teams to ensure cloud environments meet governance and regulatory standards.
• Define cloud governance models, including policies for resource provisioning, tagging, and access.
• Implement automated security and compliance guardrails to reduce operational risk.

• Partner with security teams to ensure alignment with frameworks like CIS, NIST, or ISO 27001.

Required Qualifications:

• 12 years of IT experience, with 5+ years of hands-on cloud leadership.
• Strong understanding of core cloud services
• Experience building and managing scalable infrastructure using IaC tools (e.g., Terraform).
• Strong background in platform engineering, DevOps, and infrastructure automation.
• Experience with cloud networking, multi-account strategies, and landing zones.
• Solid grasp of cloud security, IAM policies, encryption, and auditability.
• Proven leadership experience in leading cross-functional teams or engineering squads.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Multi-cloud experience.
• Familiarity with FinOps principles and cloud cost optimization.
• Certifications such as AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, or equivalent.
• Experience in highly regulated industries (finance, healthcare, government).

Soft Skills & Traits:

• Strategic thinker with the ability to align engineering practices to business goals.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Passion for automation, scalability, and simplification.
• Strong sense of ownership and accountability.

Salary Range:
$205,700 - 360,100 USD

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.

Working with Us:

As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas.

Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose.

We'd love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world's most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today. #MadeForGreater

Reasonable accommodation

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center at .

We hope you're excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people.

Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.