Senior Principal Cloud Engineer (AWS)

We are seeking a Senior Principal Cloud Engineer onsite in Washington, DC with deep expertise in AWS to lead cloud architecture, migration, and optimization initiatives. This role will support federal agency programs by designing, deploying, and securing enterprise-level AWS environments while guiding teams through best practices in cloud engineering, governance, and compliance.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, build, and manage AWS environments using Console, CLI, and Infrastructure as Code (CloudFormation, Control Tower).
• Deploy CloudFormation IAC stacks/stack sets across accounts.
• Configure cloud networks, IAM users/roles, VPCs, and native AWS services for development teams.
• Support migration of on-premise workloads to AWS following agency governance and reference architectures.
• Provide strategic direction to optimize cloud consumption and security posture.
• Review and improve Service Control Policies, configs, and remediations.
• Guide cloud adoption initiatives such as TIC 3.0, Zero Trust, and DevSecOps implementations.
• Collaborate with external development teams to validate cloud solution architectures.
• Review and approve cloud workload change requests.
• Mentor junior engineers to expand organizational cloud expertise.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience managing cloud environments; 15+ years in technology overall.
• Extensive AWS experience deploying and configuring workloads (Console, CLI, scripting).
• Strong knowledge of computers, networks, and storage principles.
• Proven ability to manage large AWS Organizations, OUs, and compliance policies.
• AWS Solutions Architect Professional certification (or other Professional/Specialty cloud certification).

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise across AWS Commercial Cloud and GovCloud environments.
• Proficiency in automating processes with Ansible, CloudFormation, Packer, PowerShell, or Python.
• Hands-on experience with AWS Control Tower, Landing Zone Accelerator, and stack set deployments.
• Knowledge of FedRAMP services (e.g., API Gateway, Lambda, Cognito, AWS CodeCommit, container services).
• Experience with orchestration tools and CI/CD pipelines for cloud infrastructure.
• Strong understanding of GovCloud provisioning, compliance frameworks, and security tools.
• Background in assessing, customizing, troubleshooting, and optimizing cloud platforms.