FinOps Cloud Engineer

Principal Financial Group • Des Moines, IA

5d • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a skilled engineer to join the FinOps team within Information Services, where you’ll play a key role in shaping how Principal’s cloud costs are managed, optimized, and governed across the organization. Upon joining the team, you would be developing and implementing solutions that advance our enterprise-wide FinOps strategy—helping Principal optimize cloud financial management, improve cost transparency, and drive smarter decision-making for teams making technology choices. Working within an agile environment, our team emphasizes consistent, fully managed deployments. This role provides a unique opportunity to influence both delivery processes and outcomes, while partnering closely with a high-performing group of infrastructure engineers and technology professionals. Our team currently focuses on managing and optimizing AWS cloud spend, but we're actively expanding our scope to include other cloud service providers (CSPs) used at Principal and technologies such as IaaS, SaaS, and vendor-hosted solutions. This role offers the opportunity to help shape our evolving FinOps strategy across a diverse and growing technology landscape.

Requirements

• Associate's or bachelor's degree (preference in a computer science, technology, engineering or math-related field) and 3+ years work experience or equivalent experience
• Strong understanding of AWS, Azure, or GCP billing and pricing models.
• Proficient with Typescript and/or Python.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CDK/CloudFormation).
• Familiarity with FinOps principles and frameworks.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Must have the desire and ability to learn new technology and continuously grow.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work cross-functionally.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in cloud infrastructure, cloud financial management, or FinOps.
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect or AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.
• Experience with BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, QuickSight).
• Knowledge of Kubernetes and containerized workloads on AWS (e.g., EKS).
• Background in finance, accounting, or business analytics.

Responsibilities

• Monitor, analyze, and report on cloud spend across platforms (currently this includes AWS & Azure).
• Identify cost-saving opportunities through rightsizing, scheduling, and purchasing strategies (e.g., Reserved Instances, Savings Plans).
• Build and maintain dashboards and reports to provide visibility into cloud usage and costs.
• Translate complex billing data into actionable insights for engineering, finance, and leadership teams.
• Partner with engineering, finance, procurement, and product teams to align cloud usage with business goals.
• Educate teams on cost-aware architecture and usage patterns.
• Help define and enforce cloud cost governance policies and tagging standards.
• Support compliance with internal and external financial controls.
• Implement and maintain FinOps tooling.
• Automate cost tracking, anomaly detection, and budget alerts.
• Assist in forecasting cloud spend and aligning budgets with usage trends.
• Provide input into financial planning and scenario modeling.
• Contribute to the evolution of the FinOps practice by identifying process improvements and scaling strategies.
• Stay current with industry trends and best practices in cloud financial management.
• Participate in vendor negotiations and evaluate pricing models for cloud services.

Benefits

• Flexible Time Off (FTO) is provided to salaried (exempt) employees and provides the opportunity to take time away from the office with pay for vacation, personal or short-term illness.
• Pension Eligible

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Associate degree