Senior Cloud Engineer

The Senior Cloud Engineer will report to the Engineering Manager, Infrastructure.

As the Senior Cloud Engineer, you will:

• Architect, own, and evolve critical AWS infrastructure and multi-account cloud foundations that power Earnest’s high-availability, regulated lending platform.
• Define and drive service reliability standards (SLOs, observability maturity, and incident response frameworks) across engineering teams to systematically reduce MTTR and prevent repeat incidents.
• Lead the design and adoption of scalable Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/OpenTofu) and CI/CD tooling, treating internal infrastructure as a product that accelerates developer velocity.
• Partner with Security to embed automated security-first patterns and regulatory controls directly into the cloud lifecycle.
• Drive cloud cost efficiency across the platform by identifying architectural optimizations and establishing resource utilization standards.
• Mentor Cloud Engineers and software teams through technical design reviews, operational runbooks, and blameless post-incident analyses to raise the bar on engineering excellence.

About You:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience building and managing reliable, scale-ready cloud systems (preferably in fintech or regulated spaces).
• Deep working knowledge of AWS core services, Linux environments, and core networking concepts (TCP/IP, DNS, TLS, VPCs).
• Proven track record scaling Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform/OpenTofu) and container ecosystems (Kubernetes/Docker) in production.
• Solid experience with relational databases, modern observability toolstacks, and a passion for automating away repetitive tasks.
• A strong sense of ownership and curiosity—you comfortably navigate ambiguity and focus on long-term, durable solutions.
• Clear, approachable communication skills that make technical alignment across engineering, security, and product teams feel seamless.

Even Better:

• Experience running cloud infrastructure in fintech or similar financial environments (SOC2, PCI compliance).
• Hands-on involvement in FinOps practices or driving smart cloud cost optimizations.
• Background building developer self-service platforms or internal developer tools.
• Familiarity with AI/ML workloads or using AI tools to streamline operational workflows and incident triage.

Where:

• This role will be based in the US.

Compensation:

A little about our pay philosophy: We take pride in compensating our employees fairly and equitably. We are showcasing a range of your potential base salary based on the roles location. The successful candidate’s starting pay will also be determined based on job-related qualifications, internal compensation, candidate location and budget. This range may be modified in the future.

Salary Range: $184,000 - $230,000 USD. Employees are also eligible for an annual performance-based bonus and equity.

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