Principal AWS Cloud Architect Job Johannesburg area,South Africa,IT/Tech

Job Description

We are seeking a highly experienced Principal AWS Architect / Team Lead to head up our AWS capability within CSD. This senior leadership role is responsible for defining and driving AWS strategy, leading a high‑performing team of cloud architects and consultants, and ensuring excellence across enterprise‑scale AWS engagements. The ideal candidate will combine deep AWS technical expertise with strong leadership and consulting experience, operating confidently at both strategic and hands‑on levels with senior client stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

Lead the architecture, design, and technical governance of enterprise‑scale AWS solutions.
Partner with sales and client stakeholders to develop compelling cloud strategies, solution architectures, and transformation roadmaps.
Design highly available, resilient, 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, AWS Cloud Formation, and AWS CDK.
Provide architectural leadership for cloud migration, application modernization, containerization, and serverless initiatives.
Collaborate with engineering, Dev Ops, security, and application teams to implement CI/CD and platform automation strategies.
Drive cloud security, compliance, governance, and Fin Ops 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.

Required Qualifications & Experience

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related discipline.
10+ years of experience in 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, Cloud Watch, 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 Cloud Formation, and/or AWS CDK.
Strong understanding of Dev Ops 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.

Preferred Experience

Experience leading large‑scale cloud migration and modernization programs.
Working knowledge of Microsoft Azure and/or Google Cloud Platform in hybrid or multi‑cloud environments.
Experience with serverless architectures, event‑driven systems, and cloud‑native application patterns.
Experience with observability and monitoring platforms such as Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/Open Search, or Splunk.
Background in software development or scripting using Python, Bash, Power Shell, or similar languages.
Experience with cloud financial management (Fin Ops), cost optimization, and cloud governance frameworks.
Experience supporting pre‑sales, solution consulting, RFP responses, and executive‑level client engagements.
Experience supporting complex sales pursuits, RFP/RFI responses, solution workshops, and executive‑level client presentations.