Cloud Engineer

Skyward IT Solutions, LLC•Rockville, MD

8d•$115,000 - $145,000•Remote

About The Position

We are Skyward, a people-centered business passionate about human advancement through information technology. We are a diverse, unified, creative, and collaborative team driven by a civic tech mission. Our values of Integrity, Compassion, Inquisitiveness, Unconventionality, and Authenticity guide our actions. We are seeking a Cloud Engineer to build, deploy, and operate secure, scalable AWS environments that support our mission of modernizing government services with cutting-edge technology.

Requirements

3-5 years of hands-on AWS experience.
Solid comfort with core AWS services: compute, networking (VPC), IAM, storage, and managed databases.
Security-first reflex and familiarity with cloud-native security and compliance tooling (Security Hub, Config, Audit Manager, or similar).
Automation instincts: Python, Bash, and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Ansible).
An eye for cost optimization.
Curiosity and a desire to understand root causes.
A sense of humor and a calm head under pressure.

Nice To Haves

Experience hosting AI/ML or LLM workloads in the cloud (SageMaker, GPU instances, or self-hosted open-source models).
AWS certifications (Solutions Architect, SysOps, or Security Specialty).
Federal or civic-tech experience.
Experience operating within a FISMA boundary, navigating an ATO, or surviving a cATO effort.

Responsibilities

Design, deploy, and operate secure, scalable AWS environments (EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, Aurora, and Neptune) to support system performance and data integrity.
Build to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, balancing performance, reliability, security, and cost.
Set up the cloud environment for AI, hosting open-source LLMs and ML workloads (SageMaker, Glue, DataBrew) within the CMS AWS account.
Implement high availability, disaster recovery, and COOP continuity to meet SLAs.
Implement AWS Security Hub, Config, and Audit Manager for continuous compliance within a FISMA Moderate boundary.
Build isolated, segregated, quota-managed spaces for different teams to experiment with AI.
Design and maintain least-privilege IAM and role-based access controls, conducting regular access reviews and audits.
Configure monitoring and alerting, and establish baselines for system health.
Model cloud costs, identify savings using tools like AWS Trusted Advisor, and manage AI workspace finances.

Benefits

Medical, dental, vision insurance (fully paid for employees)
15 days of paid leave
7 days of sick leave
2 days bereavement leave
11 paid Federal holidays
Up to 40 hours for jury duty
401K with 4% employer contribution (no vesting period)
Up to 4 weeks of paid paternity and maternity leave
Company provided laptop
$5,000 per year for professional development
$600 per year for technical supplies and equipment
$2,000 referral bonus
Life and disability insurance
HSA and FSA
Legal Shield and ID Shield Voluntary Benefits
Opportunity to work in a collaborative, motivated team focused on modernizing government services with cutting-edge technology.