Senior Cloud Engineer

Below are our notes from the intake call with the team and Amex’s JD for the position we spoke about. Additionally, this is the information sent directly from the hiring manager to add to the prep:

“This position we’re leaning a little more on programming experience so prioritizing accordingly. Please set expectation that learning additional language such as go would be expected as needed by job requirements.(for example creating/maintaining terraform provider, infra API service, etc.)

They all appear to meet the three requirements for this:
1. Programming
2. Cloud/Infra
3. Kubernetes”

Writeup from the intake call with Motion:

Group supports Azure, AWS, GCP, and on prem
Role we are planning to hire should have good understanding of cloud technology - preferably AWS and/or GCP
From the tool set standpoint- Terraform. Need strong Terraform
More of an architecture role- might work in any of the clouds or on prem
Defining the strategy in all of those things
Turning all of the platforms into a self-service module for all of the teams
Primary clouds are AWS and GCP- all data lakes in GCP and common workloads on AWS. Either works experience-wise

All four clouds we support run k8s. Azure environment has less K8s
All of the infrastructure managed through Terraform
Should be able to define the architecture and provide guidance to other teams to build automation around these platforms.
Software background - we need some kind of programming. A lot of custom Terraform providers to automate the platform. All written in Go. Also, for infra automation. Lambda functions in Python for some.
Python or Go - Go ideally would be great in candidates
Automation and scripting purposes vs applications.
We need them to have good DevOps
GitOps workflows

Interfacing with these vertical teams
When an app wants to consume a service, can't just go and consume it. It goes through a lot of certification processes. These candidates will work with teams to enable that service. Developer a wrapper with security team, only enable the features which app teams can consume. If there is any automation around those services. Architecting those and working with the other teams to build it. They need to have good understanding of Terraform and be able to drive other teams to develop.

This is a very senior-level position.

Goals:
Cloud modernization effort, hybrid multi-cloud strategy.
Moving to public cloud. Using cloud native services. Most will have questions on why to go to cloud. Evangelizing cloud across the org.
Most workloads on prem- close to 90%. Really just getting started. Not going to fully close down on prem.

Will be pretty focused on platform enablement side. It’s across the enterprise. Build tools to enable app teams to be able to consume cloud services. Apps are across the board.

AMEX’s JD:

The Senior Cloud Engineer will be part of broader enterprise cloud technology office, responsible for driving architecture design and engineering delivery of multi-cloud services in partnership with broader Enterprise Cloud and Amex teams. This role will help achieving the primary outcomes of the cloud strategy including better agility, innovation, and economics for all American Express applications.
Responsibilities:

• Drive the design delivery of multi-cloud services adhering to Enterprise Cloud strategy.
• Perform hands-on evaluations before we scale up the adoption of cloud platform services/tools to highly critical applications.
• Performs hands-on architecture, design, and development of systems specially as it pertains to Public Clouds, Kubernetes, service Mesh, Terraform, and Gen AI capabilities.
• Define and translate vision into actionable plans; ability to see the “big picture.”
• Work with product owners to understand the features and ensure proper design for the cloud capabilities.
• Understand the current implementation of the cloud platform services across multiple clouds and look for improvements to the platform and its dependencies.
• Monitor emerging technologies and manage relationships with technology vendors.

Minimum Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience in leading Cloud (AWS or GCP) and infrastructure design and implementation for highly available and scalable enterprise grade platforms and applications
• 4+ years of software development experience in one object-oriented programming language: Java, Python, Go
• 2+ years of experience with Infrastructure automation tools, Terraform preferred, with a focus on immutable infrastructure.
• 2+ Years of Experience with Container & Orchestration Technologies such as Docker, or Kubernetes
• Strong experience on cloud architecture, cloud fundamentals on compute, network, storage, and security to ensure high availability while ensuring the highest level of security, compliance, and visibility.
• Good understanding of cloud networking concepts and traffic flow management
• Experience in managing multi-tenant and highly resilient services across various cloud computing models.
• Experience in CI/CD, Infra-as-code frameworks tools (i.e Terraform, Ansible), API Gateways, CNCF technologies, Cloud Native application architectures.
• Experience with observability tools such as Prometheus, Splunk, ELK, Dynatrace, Stackdriver, CloudWatch and CloudTrail.
• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science or related science discipline or relevant experience
• Strong communication, listening, and negotiation skills; able to convey important messages in a clear and compelling manner.

Preferred Qualifications
At the core of Software Engineering, every member of our team should be able to demonstrate the following technical, functional, leadership and business skills you'll use every day, including:

• Agile Practices
• Porting/Software Configuration
• Programming Languages and Frameworks
• Business Analysis
• Analytical Thinking
• Cloud Infrastructure Product Knowledge

You will receive the following benefits:

• Medical Insurance - Four medical plans to choose from for you and your family
• Dental & Orthodontia Benefits
• Vision Benefits
• Health Savings Account (HSA)
• Health and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Voluntary Life Insurance, Long-Term & Short-Term Disability Insurance
• Hospital Indemnity Insurance
• 401(k) including match with pre and post-tax options
• Paid Sick Time Leave
• Legal and Identity Protection Plans
• Pre-tax Commuter Benefit
• 529 College Saver Plan

Motion Recruitment Partners (MRP) is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All applicants must be currently authorized to work on a full-time basis in the country for which they are applying, and no sponsorship is currently available. Employment is subject to the successful completion of a pre-employment screening. Accommodation will be provided in all parts of the hiring process as required under MRP’s Employment Accommodation policy. Applicants need to make their needs known in advance.