Lead Cloud Architect

About the role

Cooley AI is the wholly-owned subsidiary of Cooley LLP, the frontier development arm of the leading technology law firm. Its mission is to bring best-in-class technology practices into the legal domain to help lead the firm and the legal industry into the AI era. All employees of Cooley AI are employees of Cooley and are seconded to Cooley AI.

As a leading technology law firm, Cooley is determined to become a leader in the digital practice of law. The Lead Cloud Architect owns the technical architecture and engineering standards for a greenfield SOC2‑compliant SaaS platform built on AWS with hybrid connectivity to Azure and Databricks. This foundational leadership role will have input into every infrastructure, security, and delivery decision.

Responsibilities

• Design and maintain Terraform modules, CI/CD golden path templates, and cloud infrastructure that enforce SOC 2‑compliant patterns by default
• Own the “paved road” used by product engineers for deployment
• Partner with the DevSecOps Engineer to validate security requirements in every template
• Maintain dotted‑line governance reporting to Head of Information Security on compliance matters
• Serve as direct supervisor and mentor to direct reports; provide day‑to‑day supervision, ensure compliance with assigned work hours, monitor adherence to firm and department policies
• Manage staffing coverage, review and process time logs/time‑off requests
• Support business professional development and continued educational opportunities
• In collaboration with immediate supervisor and central HR, participate in hiring, performance appraisals, counseling, termination and other employee lifecycle events
• Perform other duties as assigned or required

Requirements

• After orientation at Cooley LLP, exhibit proficiency in Microsoft Office suite, iManage and other firm applications; demonstrated ability to learn and adopt new systems quickly
• Ability to work extended and/or weekend hours as required
• Ability to travel as required
• 7+ years direct applicable experience in cloud infrastructure or architecture roles
• Extensive hands‑on background with AWS (IAM, networking, Organizations) and Terraform at scale
• Experience with multi‑cloud or hybrid architectures involving Azure connectivity
• Ability to set technical direction while remaining hands‑on during the buildout phase
• Strong knowledge of infrastructure‑as‑code, zero‑trust networking, and least‑privilege access models

Qualifications

• Preferred: Bachelor’s degree

Skills

• Excellent analytical, problem‑solving and project management skills
• Ability to balance best practices with business objectives
• Entrepreneurial mindset
• Excellent attention to detail
• Exceptional interpersonal and communication skills; ability to facilitate and solve problems
• Ability to organize, prioritize and coordinate multiple activities under tight timelines
• Ability to drive projects to completion and achieve goals
• Strong judgment
• Team‑player with collaborative spirit
• Unwavering ability to handle and maintain confidentiality regarding firm information, projects, client data
• High level of professionalism at all times
• Demonstrated ability to lead through influence and develop talent
• Proactive, analytical mindset

Benefits

• Medical, health savings account (with applicable medical plan), dental, vision
• Health and/or dependent care flexible spending accounts
• Pre‑tax commuter benefits
• Life insurance, AD&D, long‑term care coverage
• Backup care for children and/or adults and other parental support benefits
• Firm‑paid life insurance, AD&D, LTD, short‑term medical benefits
• 21 days of Paid Time Off (PTO) and 10 paid holidays each year
• Generous parental leave and fertility benefits
• New employee benefit orientation

Pay