Senior Cloud Engineer

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country—and you’re committed to working hard to play your part in building that future—consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:
 

Grade: Technical 409

Pay Range: $127,700.00 - $191,500.00

Job Description

Job Summary

The Senior Cloud Engineer serves as a strategic technical leader bridging software development and infrastructure operations. This role is responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining scalable, secure, and highly available cloud environments. The Senior Cloud Engineer mentors junior engineers, leads complex projects, and ensures the reliability and efficiency of cloud-based systems supporting student and employee services.

Essential Functions and Responsibilities

• Leads and performs software deployments across cloud environments.

• Designs and implements advanced monitoring and observability solutions.

• Develops and maintains automation tools for deployment and infrastructure management.

• Optimizes application and system performance and responsiveness.

• Proactively identifies and resolves operational issues to ensure system reliability.

• Enhances infrastructure scalability and stability through continuous improvement.

• Implements and monitors AWS cost optimization strategies to ensure efficient resource usage and budget adherence.

• Documents technical processes and progress using in-house tools.

• Communicates delays and roadblocks to leadership and stakeholders.

• Provides expert guidance and mentorship to development and infrastructure teams.

• Leads maintenance and innovation-based projects with cross-functional teams.

• Participates in and supports the team’s on-call rotation.

• Manage disaster recovery planning and support for applications running on Amazon EKS to ensure high availability and resilience.

  Performs other job-related duties as assigned.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Expert-level understanding of AWS core technologies and tools.

• Practitioner knowledge of utilizing GenAI/AgenticAI tooling to automate and expedite engineering delivery

• Advanced administration knowledge of Linux systems.

• Proficient in scripting/programming with Bash, Java, Python, and Node.js.

• Deep understanding of DevOps, Scrum, and ITIL methodologies.

• Expertise in virtualization and containerization technologies.

• Understanding of trunk-based Git feature flagging, GitFlow, and Continuous Integration with Travis or Jenkins

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform, CloudFormation, Chef, or SaltStack.

• Experience using observability tooling like Dynatrace, Prometheus/Grafana, CloudWatch, or New Relic

• Excellent communication, documentation, and leadership skills.

• Self-motivated with the ability to work independently and collaboratively.

• Strong customer service orientation and analytical problem-solving skills.

Job Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology or related field or equivalent experience.

• 5+ years of experience working with AWS.

• 3 years of combined experience in CI/CD pipelines using Octopus, Jenkins, Argo CD, or similar AWS tooling (CodeBuild, CodePipeline, CodeDeploy)

• 8+ years of experience as a Linux Systems Administrator/Engineer.

• 6+ years of experi