Principal Cloud Engineer

Job Type: Full time

Job Number: JR-023119

Location: Salt Lake City,
UT

If you’re passionate about building a better future for individuals, communities, and our country-and you’re committed to working hard
to play your part in building that future-consider WGU as the next step in your career.

Driven by a mission to expand access to
higher education through online, competency-based degree programs, WGU is also committed to being a great place to work for a diverse
workforce of student-focused professionals. The university has pioneered a new way to learn in the 21st century, one that has received
praise from academic, industry, government, and media leaders. Whatever your role, working for WGU gives you a part to play in helping
students graduate, creating a better tomorrow for themselves and their families.

The salary range for this position takes into
account the wide range of factors that are considered in making compensation decisions including but not limited to skill sets; experience
and training; licensure and certifications; and other business and organizational needs.

At WGU, it is not typical for an individual
to be hired at or near the top of the range for their position, and compensation decisions are dependent on the facts and circumstances of
each case. A reasonable estimate of the current range is:

Grade: Technical 412 Pay Range: $157,000.00 – $243,400.00

Job
Description

The Principal Software Engineer is a position of technical expertise, influence, and leadership in the technology realm.
The position will be required to apply their expert knowledge to ensure best practices and well-engineered architecture across the
department. They will also be a key stakeholder and initiator of major changes to processes, engineering practices, and system
administration. This position will be required to work in a space of solving critical issues and initiatives across all of Ed Tech. It will
require an extensive and deep understanding of cutting-edge practices and innovative approaches to problems. Principal Software Engineers
are also tasked with establishing and maintaining a positive and productive culture based on the WGU Leadership Principles.

Western
Governors University (WGU) is reimagining higher education through technology and innovation. We’re seeking a Principal Cloud
Engineer to help design and build the next generation of cloud infrastructure that powers accessible, high-quality education for
hundreds of thousands of students nationwide.

This is a hands-on engineering and leadership role – ideal for someone who can
both architect and implement cloud-native solutions, drive Kubernetes platform innovation, and lead DevOps automation at scale.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and optimize AWS-based infrastructure for scalability, performance,
  and reliability.

  
  

• Serve as WGU’s Kubernetes expert, leading cluster design, deployment automation, monitoring, and
  continuous improvement.

• Implement and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD pipelines using tools like
  Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.

  
  

• Define and maintain High Availability (HA) and
  Disaster Recovery (DR) strategies to meet RTO/RPO targets.

• Partner with engineering, product, and architecture teams
  to ensure cloud infrastructure supports academic and business objectives.

  
  

• Automate provisioning, monitoring, and deployments
  to accelerate delivery and reduce operational overhead.

• Mentor engineers and promote DevOps, security, and cloud architecture
  best practices across teams.

  
  

What You Bring

• Expert-level hands-on experience with AWS
  services and distributed systems design.

  
  

• Deep Kubernetes expertise, including cluster configuration, scaling,
  networking, and observability.

• Strong proficiency with automation and configuration management tools such as
  Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.

  
  
• 
  

  Scripting and programming skills in Python, Bash,
  or Node.js.

• Solid knowledge of cloud networking, security, and monitoring.

  
  

• Experience with
  observability tools like CloudWatch, New Relic, or Prometheus.

• Proven success implementing CI/CD
  pipelines and infrastructure automation at scale.

  
  

• Excellent communication, documentation, and collaboration
  skills.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology or related field
  (or equivalent relevant experience).

• AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional and AWS Certified
  Solutions Architect – Professional (both required).

  
  

• 6+ years of experience managing production cloud or IT
  workloads.

• 3+ years of hands-on experience with core AWS services (VPC, IAM, EC2, ELB, RDS, Route53, S3).

  
  

• 3+
  years of experience building CI/CD pipelines using CodeBuild, CodePipeline, and/or CodeDeploy.

• 3+ years
  of experience automating infrastructure with Terraform, Ansible, and CloudFormation.

  
  

• 3+ years using AWS
  governance and compliance tools such as Config, Inspector, and Lambda.

Preferred
Qualifications

• Experience integrating AWS with on-prem or hybrid enterprise technologies.

• Expertise
  with serverless computing (Lambda, Step Functions) and cloud cost optimization.

  
  

• Familiarity with compliance
  frameworks (HIPAA, FERPA, PCI, SOX).

• JSON/YAML fluency and API integration experience.

  
  

• Experience mentoring
  engineers and leading cross-functional technical initiatives.

Why Join WGU

At WGU, you’ll help shape
the future of education through cloud innovation. You’ll join a mission-driven team that values collaboration, autonomy, and purpose –
working on systems that truly make a difference in learners’ lives.

Job Description Disclaimer: This position description provides
the major duties/responsibilities, requirements and working conditions for the position. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the
current position, however management reserves the right to revise or change as necessary to meet organizational needs. Other
responsibilities may be assigned when circumstances require.

Position & Application Details

Full-Time Regular Positions
(classified as regular and working 40 standard weekly hours): This is a full-time, regular position (classified for 40 standard weekly
hours) that is eligible for bonuses; medical, dental, vision, telehealth and mental healthcare; health savings account and flexible spending
account; basic and voluntary life insurance; disability coverage; accident, critical illness and hospital indemnity supplemental coverages;
legal and identity theft coverage; retirement savings plan; wellbeing program; discounted WGU tuition; and flexible paid time off for rest
and relaxation with no need for accrual, flexible paid sick time with no need for accrual, 11 paid holidays, and other paid leaves,
including up to 12 weeks of parental leave.

How to Apply: If interested, an application will need to be submitted online. Internal WGU
employees will need to apply through the internal job board in Workday.

Additional Information

Disclaimer: The job
posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive.

Accommodations:
Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation during the application or interview process should contact our Talent
Acquisition team at recruiting@wgu.edu.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified
applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any protected characteristic as required by law.

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