Senior/Staff Cloud Engineer

Sovrn•Boulder, CO

45d•Hybrid

About The Position

Sovrn is a Software and Data business that helps Open Web businesses be and remain independent. We help them understand their business better, operate more efficiently, and make & keep more money. We believe in the freedom and free-flow of information. We believe the Open Web is the largest source of this information. We believe in helping Open Web businesses be and remain Independent. Through Software products and Data solutions we help our customers: Understand their business better , so they can make better decisions Operate their business more efficiently, so they can invest in what matters most Make (and Keep) more money , so they control their own destiny. As a Senior or Staff Cloud Engineer at Sovrn, you are a key technical decision-maker and force multiplier for our engineering organization. You'll design large-scale, enterprise-grade AWS architectures, lead the adoption of Infrastructure as Code and automation best practices across teams, and serve as an escalation point for complex production incidents. This role bridges deep technical ownership with cross-functional dependencies — you'll mentor engineers at multiple levels, translate architectural decisions for non-technical stakeholders, and shape how we build, observe, and continuously improve our data cloud platform.

Requirements

Deep proficiency in AWS cloud services (VPC, EC2, S3, IAM, CloudWatch, etc) with a track record of designing and owning secure, scalable, production-ready architectures using cloud-native design principles.
Deep familiarity with industry leading architecture and administration of Peta-scale data lakehouse platforms, such as Databricks, Snowflake, or similar.
Extensive hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) — building reusable internal modules, implementing policy-as-code, and architecting CI/CD pipelines for full infrastructure automation.
In-depth knowledge of cloud networking, security best practices, and Identity and Access Management; experience enforcing governance through automated policy checks.
Experience designing observability systems (metrics, logs, alerting) and applying data-driven approaches to incident management, root cause analysis, and operational improvement.
Demonstrated experience designing agent skills that will reduce the administrative drag of the engineering team.
Champions for AI integration from inception and responsible for adoption into production environments.
Strong communication skills: ability to present complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences, negotiate cross-team requirements and timelines, and produce architectural documentation that others build from.

Nice To Haves

AWS certifications (Solutions Architect – Professional or DevOps Engineer) are a strong plus.
Experience comes in different forms, many skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way.
Clear demonstration of accountability and the ability to thrive in a fluid and collaborative environment.
Learn new things in this role and encourage you to apply if your experience is close to what we're looking for.

Responsibilities

Design large-scale, enterprise-level AWS cloud architectures (VPC, EC2, S3, IAM) that are secure, scalable, and cost-effective; act as the primary decision-maker on platform selection and cloud-native design patterns for your domain.
Manage, optimize, and scale a Databricks lakehouse layer to maximize performance, reduce costs and enforce governance frameworks (RBAC/ABAC, IAM, SCIM).
Lead IaC adoption across teams — develop internal Terraform modules, implement policy-as-code, and architect CI/CD pipelines that fully automate infrastructure deployment and management.
Own observability for your services: design comprehensive monitoring, metrics, and alerting strategies that drive data-driven root cause analysis and meaningfully reduce escalation noise.
Implement AIOps solutions for automated anomaly detection; define standards for responsible AI use in operations and ensure AI tooling measurably improves reliability without introducing new risk.
Serve as an on-call escalation point for complex, cross-team incidents; apply expert-level troubleshooting skills to diagnose and resolve issues spanning multiple services and systems.
Own delivery of projects with multiple dependencies and lead large cross-team initiatives — coordinating across engineering to maintain clarity on scope, quality, and timelines.
Create high-level architectural documentation, contribute to the long-term technology roadmap, set documentation standards for the team, and help junior engineers develop their technical writing skills.
Stay current with emerging technologies and evaluate new tools for team adoption; contribute learnings back through internal tech talks, certification roadmaps, and structured mentorship of junior and mid-level engineers.