We have partnered with our client in their search for a Consulting Principal AWS Cloud Engineer in Raleigh, NC. This is a remote contract to hire opportunity. Responsibilities: As a Consulting Principal AWS Cloud Engineer, you will help define best practices, establish cloud vision, mentor teams, and collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to ensure our cloud infrastructure is robust, secure, scalable, resilient and cost-efficient. This role offers a unique opportunity to influence strategic cloud initiatives and build world-class cloud solutions that enable business agility and long-term innovation. Cloud Strategy & Leadership • Develop and implement a comprehensive AWS cloud strategy, ensuring alignment with business and technology goals. • Provide technical leadership and advocacy, championing cloud-native best practices and innovation. • Lead and drive architectural decisions, ensuring scalability, security, and operational efficiency. • Cloud Architecture & Design • Architect secure, scalable, and highly available AWS cloud environments. • Develop and maintain enterprise-wide cloud blueprints, patterns, and frameworks to drive consistency. • Research and integrate emerging cloud technologies to foster continuous innovation. Infrastructure as Code & Automation • Lead adoption and implementation of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, and Helm. • Design and optimize CI/CD pipelines to streamline cloud deployments and operations. • Implement self-healing and automated failover mechanisms to enhance resilience and reliability. • Kubernetes & Cloud-Native Technologies • Manage and optimize Kubernetes clusters (EKS, Helm, IAM) for scalability and security. • Define and enforce best practices for containerized applications and orchestration. • Improve Kubernetes networking, ingress, and observability solutions to enhance performance. Security & Compliance • Establish and enforce security best practices for AWS environments, including IAM, WAF, Secret Manager, and encryption. • Implement zero-trust security models and secure multi-account AWS environments. • Conduct security audits, incident response, and ensure compliance with industry standards. • Monitoring, Logging & Reliability Engineering • Deploy and manage monitoring tools (DataDog, Splunk, CloudWatch, Coralogix) to ensure visibility and observability. • Implement SRE principles to enhance system uptime, reliability, and efficiency. • Conduct post-mortem analysis and drive continuous improvements in cloud performance. Collaboration & Thought Leadership • Work closely with software developers, system engineers, and security teams to design and implement cloud solutions. • Provide mentorship, training, and technical leadership to engineering teams. • Drive industry engagement by sharing expertise through public speaking, contributing to open-source projects, and participating in technical advisory boards. Skills Required: • Deep understanding of AWS services, including EC2, EKS, RDS, S3, Lambda, VPC, IAM, Transit Gateway, and CloudFormation. • Expertise in Kubernetes (EKS, Helm, Daemon Sets, StatefulSets, Karpenter, external-dns, aws-cni). • Strong experience with Terraform, CloudFormation, and automation scripting (Bash, Python, PowerShell). • Hands-on experience managing CI/CD pipelines (Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps). • Proficiency in monitoring and logging tools (DataDog, Splunk, Coralogix, CloudWatch). • Strong networking and security knowledge (DNS, VPC, NAT, Security Groups, IAM). • Experience designing and developing scalable, production-grade software tools and automation scripts using Python. Preferred Certifications • AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional (or equivalent). • Additional certifications in Kubernetes (CKA), AWS Security, or DevOps are a plus. Leadership & Soft Skills • Proven experience leading cloud architecture and strategy initiatives. • Ability to mentor and guide technical teams in a fast-paced, agile environment. • Strong problem-solving and troubleshooting skills in complex cloud environments. • Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts for engineering, business, and executive stakeholders. • Demonstrated ability to drive cultural change and advocate for cloud transformation. Education & Work Experience: • 10+ years of experience in IT, with at least 5+ years in AWS cloud engineering and architecture. • Bachelor's degree in similar field Title: Consulting Principal AWS Cloud Engineer Location: Raleigh, NC Client Industry: Insurance Reference ID: About Korn Ferry Korn Ferry unleashes potential in people, teams, and organizations. We work with our clients to design optimal organization structures, roles, and responsibilities. We help them hire the right people and advise them on how to reward and motivate their workforce while developing professionals as they navigate and advance their careers. To learn more, please visit Korn Ferry at www.Kornferry.com