"Principal Cloud Engineer"

Principal Cloud Engineer

Company: Western Governors University

Job Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Category: Network/System Administrator

Type: Full-Time

Job Type: Full time

Job Number: JR-023119

Location: Salt Lake City Office

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 411 Pay Range: $157,000.00 - $243,400.00

Job Description

Western Governors University (WGU) is reimagining higher education through technology and innovation. We're seeking a Principal Cloud Engineer to help design and build the next generation of cloud infrastructure that powers accessible, high-quality education for hundreds of thousands of students nationwide.

This is a hands-on engineering and leadership role - ideal for someone who can both architect and implement cloud-native solutions, drive Kubernetes platform innovation, and lead DevOps automation at scale.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and optimize AWS-based infrastructure for scalability, performance, and reliability.
• Serve as WGU's Kubernetes expert, leading cluster design, deployment automation, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD pipelines using tools like Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.
• Define and maintain High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) strategies to meet RTO/RPO targets.
• Partner with engineering, product, and architecture teams to ensure cloud infrastructure supports academic and business objectives.
• Automate provisioning, monitoring, and deployments to accelerate delivery and reduce operational overhead.
• Mentor engineers and promote DevOps, security, and cloud architecture best practices across teams.

What You Bring

• Expert-level hands-on experience with AWS services and distributed systems design.
• Deep Kubernetes expertise, including cluster configuration, scaling, networking, and observability.
• Strong proficiency with automation and configuration management tools such as Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.
• Scripting and programming skills in Python, Bash, or Node.js.
• Solid knowledge of cloud networking, security, and monitoring.
• Experience with observability tools like CloudWatch, New Relic, or Prometheus.
• Proven success implementing CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure automation at scale.
• Excellent communication, documentation, and collaboration skills.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology or related field (or equivalent relevant experience).
• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer - Professional and AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional (both required).
• 6+ years of experience managing production cloud or IT workloads.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience with core AWS services (VPC, IAM, EC2, ELB, RDS, Route53, S3).
• 3+ years of experience building CI/CD pipelines using CodeBuild, CodePipeline, and/or CodeDeploy.
• 3+ years of experience automating infrastructure with Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.
• 3+ years using AWS governance and compliance tools such as Config, Inspector, and Lambda.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience integrating AWS with on-prem or hybrid enterprise technologies.
• Expertise with serverless computing (Lambda, Step Functions) and cloud cost optimization.
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks (HIPAA, FERPA, PCI, SOX).
• JSON/YAML fluency and API integration experience.
• Experience mentoring engineers and leading cross-functional technical initiatives.

Why Join WGU

At WGU, you'll help shape the future of education through cloud innovation. You'll join a mission-driven team that values collaboration, autonomy, and purpose - working on systems that truly make a difference in learners' lives.