Senior AWS Cloud Engineer

Senior AWS Cloud Engineer

Vela is a Cerberus-backed aerospace and defense manufacturing platform building the enterprise infrastructure, capabilities, and operational foundation to support a growing network of manufacturing companies, including Votaw Precision Technologies. Through its operating companies, Vela supports demanding aerospace, defense, and industrial programs by combining advanced manufacturing expertise with scalable business and technology infrastructure.

The Senior AWS Cloud Engineer will build and own Vela's cloud foundation in AWS Gov Cloud (US), where CUI and manufacturing data will reside. This hands-on role will establish the landing zone, infrastructure-as-code standards, and secure data architecture connecting manufacturing operations to analytics. The engineer will help build the cloud environment that supports Vela and its operating companies as the platform grows.

Essential Functions:

• Design and build the Gov Cloud landing zone in AWS Gov Cloud (US) accounts, networking, identity, guardrails, and logging aligned to FedRAMP High / CMMC L2 expectations.
• Establish infrastructure-as-code standards using infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Cloud Formation, or similar) so the environment is version-controlled, repeatable, and auditable.
• Build the platform data architecture — secure ingestion from the shop floor via industrial IoT / edge connectivity, a CUI-tiered data lake, and downstream analytics.
• Stand up secure access — bastion/jump hosts, private connectivity (Direct Connect/VPN), and least-privilege access patterns for a controlled environment.
• Implement FIPS-validated encryption in transit and at rest, KMS key management, immutable logging, and boundary controls.
• Own cloud networking — VPC design, Transit Gateway, and Direct Connect/VPN connectivity to on-prem sites, in partnership with the network engineer.
• Establish delivery automation with CI/CD pipelines and Git-based workflows so infrastructure and deployments are automated and repeatable.
• Own operational health — monitoring, logging, and observability (e.g., Cloud Watch), plus cost visibility and optimization discipline appropriate to a lean, PE-backed platform.
• Partner on M&A integration to integrate acquired companies' data and systems into the platform on a repeatable pattern.

Qualifications and Skills:

Education & Experience:

• 7+ years of cloud engineering, with deep hands-on AWS experience.
• Direct experience with AWS Gov Cloud (US) (not only commercial AWS) — 2+ years in Gov Cloud or another accredited/regulated cloud strongly preferred.
• Strong AWS networking skills — VPC, Transit Gateway, and hybrid connectivity (Direct Connect/VPN).
• Strong infrastructure-as-code skills (Terraform, Cloud Formation, or similar) and CI/CD / Git-based automation.
• Experience designing secure data pipelines / data lakes on AWS (S3, IAM, KMS, VPC, networking).
• Familiarity with CMMC / NIST SP 800-171 or FedRAMP control expectations in a cloud context (a plus; willingness to learn required).
• Comfortable operating independently in an early-stage environment and documenting for a team that will grow around them.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Industrial IoT / edge experience — AWS IoT Green grass / Site Wise, Azure IoT, or similar OT data-ingestion technologies.
• Manufacturing or defense-sector cloud experience.
• AWS certifications (Solutions Architect / Dev Ops / Security).
• Bachelors in a technical field or equivalent hands-on experience.
• Experience integrating acquired companies onto a common cloud platform.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Establish and maintain a secure AWS Gov Cloud foundation aligned with CMMC Level 2/NIST 800-171 requirements.
• Implement repeatable, version-controlled infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD automation.
• Deliver secure, scalable manufacturing data architecture connecting shop-floor systems to analytics.
• Maintain 99.9%+ availability, monitoring, logging, and operational resilience for critical cloud services.
• Maintain strong cloud security, access controls, encryption, and audit readiness.
• Establish repeatable cloud integration patterns for new sites and M&A activity.
• Optimize cloud infrastructure for security, scalability, performance, and…