Cloud Engineer – AWS, Security, CI/CD & Infrastructure Ownership (No Agencies)

Type: Full-time, Long-term, Remote
No agencies — individual applicants only
On your application, please include your actual bid (monthly salary).

About the Role

We’re hiring a Cloud Engineer to own our cloud infrastructure end-to-end.

• This is not a support role and not a “just deploy things” position.
• You will be responsible for architecture, reliability, security, scalability, and cost efficiency across our entire infrastructure.
• You will also act as a technical bridge between internal systems and external partners, ensuring secure and reliable integrations.
• We are moving toward a more structured security posture (ISO 27001 direction), so systems, processes, and decisions should reflect auditability, least privilege, and operational discipline.

If systems go down, are misconfigured, insecure, or too expensive — you own it.
If infrastructure does not scale — you redesign it.
If alerting is noisy or missing — you fix it.
If integrations are fragile or unsafe — you standardize and secure them.

This is a fast‑moving startup environment with high expectations and real ownership.

Responsibilities

Cloud Ownership & Architecture

• Own and evolve the entire AWS infrastructure
• Design systems that are:
  • Scalable
  • Fault‑tolerant
  • Cost‑efficient
• Make and document infrastructure decisions and tradeoffs
• Continuously improve system design as scale increases

Infrastructure & Deployment

• Manage and operate:
  • EC2, RDS, S3, CloudFront, VPC
• Implement and maintain Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred)
• Ensure environments are:
  • Reproducible
  • Consistent across staging / production
• Own deployment strategy and infrastructure lifecycle

CI/CD & Automation

• Design and maintain CI/CD pipelines
• Automate:
  • Deployments
  • Rollbacks
  • Environment provisioning
• Improve deployment reliability and speed
• Integrate testing, validation, and safeguards into pipelines

Monitoring, Alerting & Reliability

• Own system observability:
  • Metrics
  • Logs
  • Alerts
• Work with tools such as:
  • CloudWatch
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
• Build dashboards that are:
  • Actionable (not vanity metrics)
  • Tied to real system health and business impact
• Ensure:
  • Fast detection of issues
  • Clear, high‑signal alerts (minimal noise)
• Lead incident response and post‑mortems

Networking

• Own AWS networking setup:
  • VPCs, subnets, routing
  • Load balancers
  • Security groups
• Ensure secure and efficient communication between services
• Debug networking issues in production environments

Security (Critical Responsibility)

• Enforce best‑in‑class security practices across infrastructure and development workflows
• Define and enforce:
  • IAM roles and policies (least privilege)
  • Secrets management standards
  • Encryption (at rest and in transit)
• Establish secure development patterns:
  • Credential handling
  • Access boundaries between services
  • Safe CI/CD practices
• Design systems with auditability and traceability in mind
• Align infrastructure and processes toward ISO 27001‑style practices:
  • Access control discipline
  • Change tracking
  • Clear ownership and documentation
• Identify and mitigate vulnerabilities proactively
• Continuously improve overall security posture

External Integrations & Technical Coordination

• Act as the technical point of contact for external partners and systems
• Work with external technical teams to:
  • Enable secure system‑to‑system communication
  • Define integration patterns (APIs, networking, auth)
  • Troubleshoot cross‑system issues
• Ensure integrations are:
  • Reliable
  • Secure
  • Observable
• Standardize how external systems connect to internal infrastructure

Cost Optimization

• Monitor and optimize AWS costs
• Identify inefficiencies and reduce waste
• Balance performance vs cost tradeoffs
• Build systems that scale efficiently, not just functionally

Troubleshooting & Ownership

• Debug and resolve production issues
• Identify root causes (not just patch symptoms)
• Implement long‑term fixes and improvements

Required Skills (Non‑Negotiable)

• Strong hands‑on experience with AWS in production environments
• Proven experience owning infrastructure end‑to‑end
• Terraform (or equivalent IaC) — real‑world usage
• Strong experience with:
  • CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, etc.)
  • Linux systems
• Solid understanding of:
  • Networking (VPC, routing, load balancing)
  • Security best practices (IAM, secrets, encryption)
• Experience with:
  • Monitoring / alerting systems
  • Production debugging
  • Working with external systems / APIs / integrations
• Python (or scripting) for automation and tooling
• Experience with Docker (Kubernetes/EKS is a plus)
• Strong ownership mindset
• Clear communication with internal and external technical stakeholders
• Comfortable in fast‑paced startup environments

Nice‑to‑Have

• Experience with:
  • Grafana (dashboards, alerting, observability design)
  • Multi‑account AWS setups
  • High‑scale or real‑time systems
  • Kubernetes / EKS
• Exposure to:
  • ISO 27001 or similar security/compliance frameworks
• Experience improving:
  • Infrastructure cost efficiency at scale
  • Security posture in production systems

🚀 This Role Is (and Isn’t)

✅ You own cloud infrastructure
✅ You design systems, not just deploy them
✅ You improve reliability, security, and cost efficiency
✅ You handle real‑world integrations with external systems

🚫 Not a junior role
🚫 Not a DevOps “ticket executor”
🚫 Not a role with constant hand‑holding

🕐 Availability

• 6 AM – 10 AM EST required
• Often extended until 12 PM EST
• Flexibility is essential

💰 Compensation

• Monthly salary (based on experience and ownership level)
• Performance‑ and profitability‑based bonuses possible

💬 If you’ve owned infrastructure, enforced strong security practices, and operate with the discipline required for compliant systems — this role is for you.