Staff Engineer - Cloud Engineering

About Early Warning

At Early Warning, we've powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting‑edge solutions like Zelle, Paze, and so much more. As a trusted name in payments, we partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Location & Work Model

Positions located in Scottsdale, San Francisco, Chicago, or New York follow a hybrid work model to allow for a more collaborative working environment.

Eligibility

Candidates responding to this posting must independently possess the eligibility to work in the United States, for any employer, at the date of hire. This position is ineligible for employment Visa sponsorship.

Overall Purpose

The Staff Engineer – Cloud Engineering plays a critical role in Early Warning's design, implementation, and optimization of scalable, secure and cost‑effective infrastructure. The role works closely with cross‑functional teams and our engineering partners to deliver high‑performance cloud native solutions as we complete our multi‑year cloud journey migrating mission critical applications and their data from on‑premise to AWS.

Essential Functions

• Leads the design, implementation and optimization of cloud‑native solutions using AWS services such as EC2, Lambda, S3, RDS, EKS, and more and with a keen focus on cost management and optimization.
• Troubleshoots complex infrastructure problems, often spanning multiple layers of the stack and requiring collaboration across teams. Leads root cause analyses for incidents and participates in the team's 24/7 on‑call rotation.
• Partners with Security and Compliance teams to ensure cloud environments meet regulatory requirements (e.g., PCI‑DSS, SOC 2, FFIEC) and leads internal and external audit reviews collecting evidence and responding to audit requests in a timely manner.
• Architects and implements disaster recovery plans ensuring that our systems are highly available, fault‑tolerant, and able to recover from failure.
• Implements and enforces cloud security best practices including IAM policies, VPC design, encryption and key management (KMS).
• Drives the adoption and implementation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and leveraging CI/CD best practices.
• Oversees the cloud vulnerability management and configuration program ensuring patching meets our Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• Maintains comprehensive technical documentation of cloud infrastructure, policies, and procedures.
• Designs cloud infrastructure for robustness, security, and observability, including logging and alerting solutions (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk).
• Provides leadership and technical expertise in support of building a technical plan and backlog of stories, then follows through on execution of the design and build process through to production delivery.
• Supports the company's commitment to risk management and protects the integrity and confidentiality of systems and data.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education and/or experience typically obtained through a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related technical field.
• At least 8 years in Cloud Engineering or DevOps roles, with 3+ years of hands‑on experience in AWS.
• Deep expertise in AWS core services (EC2, EKS, Lambda, RDS, S3, IAM) and strong knowledge of Kubernetes (EKS) and Linux environments.
• Hands‑on Docker experience.
• Demonstrated experience in delivering business‑critical systems to the market.
• Ability to influence and work in a collaborative team environment.
• Knowledge of mature engineering practices (CI/CD, testing, secure coding, etc.), plus software development methodologies (Agile, Scrum, LEAN) and DevOps practices.
• Proven track record implementing security & compliance controls aligned with frameworks like PCI‑DSS, SOC 2, or FFIEC.
• Experience maintaining Infrastructure as Code with tools such as Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or Ansible.
• Experience in building and automating observability at scale for complex transactional systems.
• High level of customer responsiveness, excellent documentation and communication skills, attention to detail, clear understanding of how to prioritize work and deal with ambiguity.
• Current AWS (and/or other cloud‑based) certification(s).
• Background and drug screen required.

Preferred Qualifications

• MS or PhD in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or related field.
• Experience with monitoring and alerting systems (AppDynamics) and container security solutions (e.g., Twistlock, Aqua Security).
• Experience with other languages (C#, Ruby, Python).
• Knowledge of ACH/EFT and real‑time payment networks (RTP, FedNow).
• Experience in FinTech, banking, or other highly regulated industries.

Physical Requirements

Working conditions consist of a normal office environment. Work is primarily sedentary and requires extensive use of a computer and involves sitting for periods of approximately four hours. Work may require occasional standing, walking, kneeling, and reaching. Must be able to lift 10 pounds occasionally and/or a negligible amount of force frequently. Requires visual acuity and dexterity to view, prepare, and manipulate documents and office equipment, including personal computers. Requires the ability to communicate with internal and/or external customers. Employee must be able to perform essential functions and physical requirements of the position with or without reasonable accommodation.

Compensation

• Phoenix, AZ / Chicago, IL: $145,000 – $186,000 per year
• San Francisco, CA: $174,000 – $223,000 per year

Candidates are also eligible for a discretionary incentive plan and benefits. This pay scale is subject to change and is not necessarily reflective of actual compensation that may be earned, nor a promise of any specific pay for any specific candidate. Early Warning Services considers a variety of factors when determining a competitive salary offer, including job scope, market rates, geographic location, candidate’s education, experience, training, specialized skills or certifications, and internal equity. The business actively supports and reviews wage equity to ensure pay decisions are not based on gender, race, national origin, or any other protected class.

Benefits

• Healthcare Coverage: Competitive medical (PPO/HDHP), dental, and vision plans; company contributions to Health Savings Account (HSA) or pre‑tax Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for commuting, health & dependent care expenses.
• 401(k) Retirement Plan: 100 % Company Safe Harbor Match on your first 6 % deferral immediately upon eligibility.
• Paid Time Off: Flexible Time Off for exempt (salaried) employees, generous PTO for non‑exempt (hourly) employees, 11 paid company holidays, and a paid volunteer day.
• Parental Leave: 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Maven Family Planning: Support for parenting journey including egg freezing, fertility, adoption, surrogacy, pregnancy, postpartum, early pediatrics, and returning to work.
• And so much more! See our Benefits page for the latest details.

Equal Opportunity & Fair Chance

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Early Warning Services, LLC (“Early Warning”) considers for employment, hires, retains and promotes qualified candidates on the basis of ability, potential, and valid qualifications without regard to race, religious creed, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, protected veteran or disability status, or any factor prohibited by law. The company also prohibits discrimination on other bases such as medical condition, marital status, or any other factor that is irrelevant to the performance of our employees.