Cloud Engineer

## Staff Cloud Engineer
** Scottsdale,AZ85260
** Posted: 08/14/2026

Employment Type:

Contract Category: IT
- Infrastructure
- Storage/CLoudJob Number: 250905

Work Location:

Hybrid##

Job Description Staff Cloud Engineer (Contract-to-Hire)  
*
* Location:

** Scottsdale, AZ (preferred) | San Francisco, CA | Chicago, IL  
** Work Model:
** Hybrid (3 days onsite)  
* Contract Length: 12 months (strong conversion potential)
* Compensation: $90–$95/hour
* Work Authorization:
Must be authorized to work in the U.S. (no sponsorship available)---About the Role  Join a leading organization at the center of the U.S. financial ecosystem, powering secure, real-time payments used by hundreds of millions of consumers and businesses every day.
As a Staff Cloud Engineer, you’ll help modernize and scale cloud infrastructure supporting critical payment platforms. You’ll work at the intersection of cloud architecture, platform engineering, and security/compliance, driving solutions that operate at national scale and high reliability.
This is a 12-month contract with strong potential to convert full-time.  ---What You’ll DoLead Cloud Architecture
* Design and implement scalable, secure, and highly available AWS-based systems
* Define architecture patterns and standards used across multiple engineering teams
* Solve complex, open-ended technical challenges at scale

Drive Cloud Modernization
* Support migration of large-scale systems from on-prem environments to AWS
* Build resilient systems with strong fault tolerance, observability, and performance

Strengthen Security & Compliance
* Partner with audit teams to address findings and implement improvements
* Design systems aligned with security, risk, and compliance frameworks (e.g., SOC
2)
* Ensure systems meet strict requirements for reliability, auditability, and data protection

Build Internal Platforms & Tooling
* Lead Infrastructure as Code (IaC) initiatives using Terraform and similar tools
* Create reusable infrastructure components, APIs, and deployment pipelines
* Improve the developer experience by simplifying and standardizing cloud infrastructure

Collaborate & Influence
* Work cross-functionally with engineering, product, and security teams
* Drive alignment on technical decisions across multiple teams
* Act as a key contributor to long-term cloud strategy

Operate at Scale
* Troubleshoot complex distributed system issues in production
* Improve monitoring, alerting, and system reliability
* Continuously elevate engineering practices and standards---What You Bring Core Experience
* 8+ years of experience in cloud engineering, distributed systems, or platform engineering
* Strong expertise in AWS (compute, networking, storage, security, observability)
* Experience designing highly scalable, resilient systems

Technical Skills
* Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible, or similar)
* Kubernetes (EKS or equivalent) and containerized environments
* CI/CD pipeline design and automation
* Strong understanding of networking, DNS, HTTP, TLS, and load balancing

Architecture & Leadership
* Experience owning and driving technical architecture across teams
* Ability to influence decisions without direct authority
* Proven track record building systems used by multiple engineering teams

Development Background
* Strong foundation in backend development (Java/Spring or similar)
* Ability to debug and support application-layer issues when needed

Preferred Experience
* Work in regulated or high-security environments
* Exposure to audit processes or SOC 2 controls
* Experience with event-driven systems (Kafka, messaging frameworks)
* Fin Tech or payments systems experience
* Cloud certifications (AWS, Azure, or similar)---What Success Looks Like
* Deliver secure, scalable cloud solutions supporting critical financial systems
* Improve system reliability, performance, and compliance posture
* Enable engineering teams through better infrastructure, tooling, and standards
* Influence cloud strategy and make a measurable impact across the organization---Why Join
* Work on high-impact systems that power real-time financial transactions nationwide
* Help shape the future of a modern cloud platform at scale
* Operate at a staff engineering level, influencing architecture and direction
* Collaborate with talented teams focused on innovation, security, and reliability