# Cloud Engineer SME

- **Company:** Ignite IT
- **Location:** Suitland-Silver Hill, MD, US (Not specified)
- **Salary:** Salary not disclosed
- **Contract:** Full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-01-23

## Job description

We are seeking a highly skilled Cloud Engineer Subject Matter Expert (SME) to join our team. The Senior Cloud Engineer (Cloud Engineer SME) is the senior technical implementation lead responsible for designing, building, and operationalizing secure, scalable AWS-based environments supporting modernization of complex, interdependent systems.
This role requires deep AWS engineering expertise and advanced Python development skills, as well as active participation in discovery, legacy system analysis, and phased migration planning. The Cloud Engineer SME will work closely with the Systems Architect and Technical Program Manager to assess existing environments, design migration-ready architectures, and implement cloud-native solutions aligned to modernization sequencing and governance requirements.
This is not a pure infrastructure role — the Cloud Engineer SME must be capable of analyzing legacy systems, evaluating migration paths, and translating architectural strategy into deployable cloud solutions.
Key Responsibilities:
1. Discovery, Legacy Analysis & Migration Planning
Participate in structured discovery efforts across legacy systems.
Analyze existing application architectures, infrastructure dependencies, batch schedules, data flows, and integration points.
Contribute to formal system inventory documentation.
Identify cloud readiness gaps and modernization constraints.
Support classification of systems using the 7 Rs migration framework.
Provide technical input into phased migration roadmaps and sequencing plans.
Assess operational risk, integration complexity, and environment dependencies during modernization planning.
Document current-state (As-Is) technical architecture and assist in defining target-state (To-Be) environment patterns.
2. Cloud Infrastructure & Environment Engineering
Design and implement AWS cloud environments aligned to enterprise provisioning constraints.
Develop and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) using Terraform or CloudFormation.
Establish repeatable environment patterns for development, testing, staging, and production.
Implement secure network architecture (VPC segmentation, IAM least privilege, encryption).
Design for high availability, resiliency, and disaster recovery.
Align environment provisioning with migration waves and modernization sequencing.
3. Python Engineering for Cloud-Native Applications (Required)
Develop and maintain Python-based cloud components including:
Serverless functions
Orchestration utilities
Data validation and transformation scripts
Automation tooling
Write production-quality Python code with testability, logging, secure coding practices, and modular design.
Review and support Python refactoring patterns during legacy modernization.
Ensure Python runtime environments are reproducible and aligned with CI/CD standards.
4. Cloud-Native Application Enablement
Implement scalable AWS compute solutions (Lambda, ECS/EKS/Fargate, Glue, Aurora/PostgreSQL, S3, Batch).
Evaluate serverless vs containerized approaches based on workload characteristics.
Support refactoring efforts by providing optimized cloud runtime patterns.
Improve performance, scalability, and observability for data-intensive workloads.
5. DevSecOps & CI/CD Implementation
Design and implement CI/CD pipelines integrating:
Automated builds
Unit and integration tests
Regression validation
Security scanning
Embed quality and compliance gates into pipelines.
Automate environment provisioning and deployments.
Ensure version-controlled infrastructure and reproducible deployments.
6. Observability & Operational Readiness
Implement monitoring, logging, and alerting standards.
Establish performance baselines and capacity thresholds.
Support load testing and scalability validation.
Document operational runbooks for sustained support.
7. Cross-Team Integration Support
Support integration across multiple interdependent systems.
Assist in identifying and mitigating interface risks.
Collaborate with data engineering teams on schema stability and data lifecycle controls.
Ensure consistency in cloud patterns across teams.
8. Governance & Compliance Alignment
Contribute to architecture and environment documentation required for governance reviews.
Support ATO readiness and audit artifact collection.
Align cloud implementation with security and compliance requirements.
Maintain traceable, auditable deployment documentation.
Core Competencies
Ability to translate discovery findings into technical modernization solutions.
Strong cloud engineering depth combined with legacy system analysis capability.
Migration sequencing awareness and risk identification.
Automation-first engineering mindset.
Strong documentation and communication skills.
Ability to operate effectively within structured modernization programs
Requirements
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
8+ years of professional experience in cloud engineering.
Advanced Python expertise for cloud-native applications and automation.
Demonstrated experience performing legacy system analysis and cloud readiness assessments.
Experience contributing to migration plans using structured frameworks (including 7 Rs).
Strong AWS expertise across compute, networking, storage, database, identity, and monitoring services.
Experience implementing Infrastructure-as-Code.
Experience implementing CI/CD pipelines and automated testing.
Strong troubleshooting, performance optimization, and systems integration skills.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience supporting data-intensive or statistical processing systems.
Experience supporting SAS-to-Python modernization efforts.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect certification.
Experience in regulated or governance-heavy environments.
Experience working within enterprise data lake ecosystems.
Benefits
401(k)
401(k) matching
Dental insurance
Flexible spending account
Health insurance
Life insurance
Paid time off
Professional development assistance
Referral program
Tuition reimbursement
Vision insurance

[Apply on the company site](https://www.joonow.com/en/job/cloud-engineer-sme-suitland-silver-hill-md-090wef0m5k/apply)