Principal Cloud Engineer

Job DetailsJob Location: Richmond, VA 23219Position Type: Full TimeEducation Level: 4 Year Degree or Equivalent ExperienceTravel Percentage: NonePosition Description

The Principal Cloud Engineer is a senior individual contributor within Enterprise Architecture responsible for designing, validating, and advancing cloud architecture patterns and platform capabilities across public, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments. This role serves as the domain subject matter expert for cloud engineering, translating enterprise architecture strategy into implementable designs, standards, and reference architectures.

Operating with a high degree of independence, the Principal Cloud Engineer interprets complex technical and business requirements and develops scalable, secure, and operationally sustainable cloud solutions aligned with enterprise objectives. This role leads architectural initiatives of moderate to high complexity and provides technical leadership across delivery teams while supporting adoption of enterprise cloud standards and best practices.

Working collaboratively across product, engineering, operations, security, and DevOps functions, the Principal Cloud Engineer ensures cloud solutions are resilient, performant, secure, and cost-effective while meeting business and regulatory requirements. As a senior technical leader, this role mentors engineers and promotes engineering excellence across the enterprise cloud domain.

 

Key Responsibilities

Cloud Architecture


Design and evolve cloud architectures, landing zones, and shared cloud services aligned with enterprise architecture direction.
Define and maintain architectural patterns for identity and access management, network segmentation, tenant and subscription structures, and environment isolation.
Develop hybrid and multi-cloud connectivity patterns integrating on-premise and cloud environments through cloud-native control planes and management services.
Interpret enterprise architecture guidance and translate it into implementable cloud designs and engineering standards.
Define workload classification, cloud readiness, and hosting models guiding application and platform placement.
Ensure cloud architectures address scalability, availability, security, observability, disaster recovery, and cost optimization requirements.
Provide domain-level architectural guidance for cloud engineering decisions across initiatives and delivery teams.


Cloud Governance and Security


Implement cloud governance, security, and cost architecture in partnership with Information Security and Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) teams.
Design cloud security architectures aligned with zero trust principles, including identity protection, network security, platform hardening, and compliance-aligned controls.
Embed governance, compliance, and cost management controls into platform designs and automation workflows.
Recommend improvements to governance and operational practices based on engineering and platform outcomes.
Ensure cloud solutions align with organizational regulatory and security requirements.


Architecture Enablement and Automation


Develop landing zones, reference architectures, and proof-of-concept implementations to validate cloud designs and reduce delivery risk.
Define infrastructure-as-code, automation, and CI/CD patterns in collaboration with DevOps teams.
Lead technical validation efforts supporting large-scale workload onboarding, migration, and modernization initiatives.
Design scalable automation and provisioning approaches supporting cloud-native deployment models.
Evaluate emerging cloud services, automation tools, and platform capabilities and recommend adoption approaches aligned with enterprise needs.
Partner with operations and engineering teams to transition validated designs into production-ready solutions.


Delivery and Engineering Partnership


Collaborate with product, engineering, operations, security, and DevOps teams to translate business and technical requirements into well-architected cloud solutions.
Provide architectural guidance across initiatives involving application hosting, data platforms, and cloud-based services.
Support migration, modernization, and decommissioning efforts through architectural design and reference implementations aligned with target-state architecture.
Lead technical workstreams or architectural initiatives with moderate complexity and organizational impact.
Mentor engineers, review solution designs and infrastructure-as-code implementations and promote engineering standards and best practices.
Influence adoption of architectural standards through expertise, collaboration, and technical leadership rather than direct authority.


Minimum Requirements


8+ years of experience in cloud engineering, cloud architecture, or infrastructure platform roles, including delivery of enterprise-scale cloud platforms.


Critical Skil