Prin Cloud Engineer

Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.8 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties. Consumers Energy knows job number one is to keep the lights on for customers. We are committed to delivering reliable, clean, and affordable energy to our customers 24/7.  

 

Location: This is a hybrid (virtual/onsite) position with required onsite days on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday assigned to One Energy Plaza located in Jackson, MI.  The selected candidate must be within a commutable distance or willing to relocate (relocation package is available for those that qualify).

 

GENERAL SUMMARY OF JOB RESPONSIBILITIES
The Principal Cloud Engineer is a senior technical leader who architects, governs, and advances the enterprise cloud platform across CMS Energy. This role is responsible for designing scalable, secure, and resilient infrastructure systems that align with business goals and for influencing cloud strategy across departments.
Principal Cloud Engineers serve as thought leaders who partner with Engineering, Architecture, Security, and Operations teams to define best practices, promote platform reusability, and guide major technical decisions. They act as accelerators—enabling teams through tooling, automation, mentorship, and technical direction.

 

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
• Lead architecture and design of enterprise-scale infrastructure solutions across hybrid and multi-cloud environments (Azure, AWS, GCP, on-prem)
• Develop and enforce cloud governance models, ensuring alignment with security, compliance, and operational standards
• Define reusable platform patterns and reference architectures to enable self-service, scalability, and secure-by-default design
• Drive adoption of cloud-native technologies, including container orchestration, serverless, service meshes, and event-driven infrastructure
• Partner with business stakeholders and product teams to align cloud solutions with long-term goals, ensuring platform decisions serve the company's mission
• Lead complex migrations or transformations, including data center exits, cloud modernization, or cross-cloud initiatives
• Mentor senior engineers and promote architectural thinking, helping teams balance speed with long-term sustainability
• Guide investment in tools and platforms, such as IaC pipelines, observability stacks, and platform engineering practices
• Participate in enterprise architecture reviews, ensuring consistency and quality across solutions
• Operate cloud platforms by performing OS-level patching, enforcing security policies, and maintaining high availability through proactive monitoring and alerting
• Troubleshoot complex issues involving infrastructure, networking, and application layers across multiple cloud platforms
• Other duties as assigned

 

KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS/ABILITIES
• Architecture & Design: Proven expertise in designing large-scale, resilient, multi-cloud, and hybrid infrastructure 
• Platform Engineering: Deep understanding of building reusable infrastructure platforms, developer enablement tooling, and service catalogs
• Security & Governance: Strong command of cloud security controls, compliance frameworks (SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001), and audit readiness 
• Innovation & Leadership: Ability to identify emerging technologies and strategically integrate them into enterprise environments 
• Cloud-Native Tools: Advanced experience with Kubernetes, service meshes, GitOps, and scalable CI/CD platforms 
• Cross-Functional Influence: Capable of driving decisions at the intersection of business, security, operations, and software engineering 
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Broad knowledge of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS offerings, especially Azure; experience with AWS and GCP is a plus. Broad knowledge of Linux/Windows operating systems 
• Automation & DevOps: Hands-on with Terraform, Bicep, Azure DevOps, scripting languages (PowerShell, Python, Bash), configuration management tools (Puppet), and backup tools for data retention and disaster recovery (CommVault, Zerto) 

 

EDUCATION
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field with seven (7) or more years of experience in cloud architecture, DevOps, infrastructure automation, or platform engineering roles
• (OR) Associate’s degree with nine (9) or more years of experience in cloud architecture, DevOps, infrastructure automation, or platform engineering roles
• (OR) High School Diploma/GED with eleven (11) or more years of experienc