Principal AWS Cloud Architect

About the role

The Principal AWS Cloud Architect is a lead-level technical role on our cloud engagements. You'll own the technical direction of a workstream or engagement end to end, working with the customer's technical teams to set strategy and drive it to a documented, agreed target state. This is a leadership role that stays hands-on. You'll lead and mentor a blended onshore/offshore delivery team. When the project calls for it, you'll roll up your sleeves and build: designing landing zones, running migration waves, and writing and reviewing IaC yourself. You're equally comfortable leading a team of engineers or working independently as the sole architect on a project.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical strategy for the engagement and drive it to a documented, agreed target state.
• Act as the primary technical point of contact for the customer's technical leadership on architecture, sequencing, and risk; drive discussions to decisions rather than leaving them open.
• Recommend best-fit approaches prescriptively and with conviction, backed by delivery experience. Say so clearly when the customer's preferred path is the wrong one.
• Make and document consequential architecture decisions, including trade-offs considered and those deliberately deferred.
• Set the engineering standard by example: review designs, code, and IaC personally.
• Work independently as the sole architect on smaller or early-phase engagements, owning design and build without a supporting team.
• Step in hands-on when the project needs it to: build foundational environments, execute migration waves, troubleshoot replication and cutover issues, write Terraform/CDK, lead remediation personally when a workstream needs stabilization.
• Lead and coordinate offshore engineering teams across time zones: assign and sequence work, set clear acceptance criteria, and run effective handoffs so progress continues around the clock.
• Review offshore deliverables (designs, IaC, runbooks, migration plans) for quality and consistency before they reach the customer.
• Mentor consultants and engineers to raise their technical depth, delivery discipline, and customer-facing skill.
• Unblock them quickly and help them grow into more senior roles.
• Partner with the Engagement Manager and customer to build an achievable project plan with realistic milestones and dependencies.
• Confirm the team has the right skill mix and capacity; escalate gaps early.