Cloud Developer

Job-:
Information Technology

Location:

Nashville, TN, United States Workplace:
On-site

Schedule:

Full time Posted:

Position Summary:

The Cloud Developer performs critical infrastructure and development functions for Vanderbilt’sgrowing initiatives in digital scholarship, cloud-based research computing, and generative AI(GenAI) deployment. Working closely with technologists across the Heard Libraries and other campus units, the Cloud Developer is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining thescalable cloud infrastructure required to make research data scalable and accessible. Given theagile, collaborative nature of the work unit, this role demands a blend of deep technical execution, nimble project management, and mentorship capabilities.

The Cloud Developer willserve as a "Principal Engineer" within our experiential learning programs, helping to manage student developers, architect "fail-fast" innovations, and scale computational solutions for wide impact.

About the Work Unit:

The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries at Vanderbilt University comprise nine libraries and multiple specialized service departments. The libraries are fundamental to the university’s goalof advancing scholarship and learning by collecting, preserving, and making accessible a wide variety of resources,and partnering with faculty and students to shape research. The Digital Labadvances the creation, development, and sustainability of faculty and student-driven digital projects. As an applied research and learning center, the Lab transforms unstructured library collections into machine-readable computational assets and builds cutting-edge software solutions leveraging generative AI.

The AWS-sponsored Vanderbilt Cloud Innovation Lab(VCIL), which provides immersive, hands-on software development experiences for studentfellows, is a core focus of this work. By embedding students directly into professionalengineering workflows as junior developers, the Digital Lab bridges advanced faculty research, technical mentorship, and scalable cloud infrastructure to broaden computational innovation across campus.

Key Functions and Expected Performance:

Cloud Architecture & Software Development Design, deploy, and maintain secure, scalable cloud infrastructure (primarily AWS) tohost digital scholarship platforms and process massive library archives.

Implement and scale generative AI pipelines and machine-learning models to automate metadata enrichment and text extraction.

Ensure faculty and institutional projects are built on modern, sustainable, and well-documented technical stacks that integrate efficiently with broader university infrastructure.

Position Description Project Management & Operational Delivery Manage the full lifecycle of assigned digital projects, tracking timelines, deliverables, and resource allocation across partner units.

Serve as an agile project manager for select faculty-driven R&D initiatives, ensuring transparent communication and consistent progress.

Coordinate technical requirements and scope with key campus partners, including Research IT, the Advanced Computing Center for Research & Education (ACCRE), and the Data Science Institute.

Student Mentorship & Team Leadership Recruit, interview, and hire undergraduate and graduate student fellows and research assistants.

Act as a "Principal Engineer" by embedding students into professional software development workflows, conducting code reviews, and providing technical mentorship.

Guide student teams through real-world deployment challenges, balancing structured learning with hands-on software delivery.

Sustained Innovation & Grant Support In coordination with Digital Lab leadership, write staff technical expertise and infrastructure costs into external grant applications.

Explore and implement "fail-fast" innovations using emerging technologies to maintain the Lab's best-in-class standing in GenAI and research computing.

Education and Certifications Undergraduate degree in computer science, cloud computing, data science, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent professional experience and industry certifications is required. Postgraduate degree preferred.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Sys Ops Administrator, or Developer certification ishighly preferred.

Experience and Skills:

Two to four years of relevant experience is necessary.

Technical Skills & Experience Cloud

Infrastructure: Proven experience provisioning and managing cloud environments, preferably AWS (including EC2, S3, Lambda, and IAM…