Senior Cloud Engineer

Application closing date: Thursday, 16 January 2026 • 11:59pm, Canberra time Estimated start date: Monday, 02 March 2026 Location of work: VIC Working arrangements: Working from home arrangements will be considered in the provision of these services following an initial requirement of the contractor being in the office for the first 2 weeks of the engagement before a flexible working arrangement will be considered. WFH arrangements will be negotiated upon commencement and aligned to the work and assignment. Note: Candidates may be required to be in the office a min of 3 days per week, based upon team dynamics. Length of contract: Up to 12 Months depending on the start date Contract extensions: Up to a maximum of 24 months Security clearance: Must have a current Negative Vetting Level 1 clearance Rates: $130 - $160 per hour (inc. super)Services Australia is at the frontline of government service delivery, supporting millions of Australians, and is front and centre of a vision to be a world leader in government service delivery. It’s using cutting-edge technology to build world class platforms and capabilities to help Australians get on with their lives. Services Australia is seeking a Senior Cloud Engineer with 5+ years’ experience in Azure/AWS, specialising in greenfield/brownfield setups, IaC, and secure‑by‑design principles. They must be skilled in networking, governance, and security (RBAC/IAM, guardrails), hybrid connectivity, and DevOps (CI/CD, scripting). They must have strong knowledge of Australian government cloud compliance, data sovereignty, and privacy laws and have a proven ability to deliver scalable, secure solutions aligned with regulatory requirements. Position description for the Senior Cloud Engineer: Technology Architects at the EL2 equivalent level are also called Senior Cloud Engineer (Senior Technical Engineering Expert). Technology Architects/ Senior Cloud Engineer determine the appropriate technologies to be used in the service development and delivery environment. They monitor emerging technologies and plan technology exploration, implementation and retirement. Services Australia is seeking to procure a Senior Cloud Engineer (expert) to play a pivotal role in delivering complex application development projects on public cloud platforms across the Technology and Digital Program (TDP) Group that align with the agency’s strategic objectives. The position requires a seasoned professional with extensive experience and expertise in Public Cloud Services. As a Senior Cloud Engineer, you will specialise in either Azure or AWS public cloud platforms, with the capability to design, implement, and optimise environments from new (greenfield) implementations as well as enhance existing setups (brownfield). This role is focused on building secure‑by‑design architectures, incorporating reusable patterns and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to deliver scalable, compliant cloud solutions in line with APS frameworks and regulations. Senior Cloud Engineer will collaborate with Architecture, Cyber Security, and Core Infrastructure teams in the group to establish foundational infrastructure, enforce governance, and apply best practices across networking and resource management in your primary platform, while demonstrating skills in both Azure and AWS. The Senior Cloud Engineer is expected to operate with a significant degree of independence with a high level of autonomy, while also maintaining close working relationships with key stakeholders and strict adherence to agency processes and procedures. In performing the role, the candidate will be required to identify and drive innovation, manage and lead change, and has an active role in contributing to and implementing the agency’s strategic direction with decision‑making and advice to others highly dependent on their own judgement. The Senior Cloud Engineer is vital in ensuring that Services Australia effectively leverages technology to enhance service delivery and meet the needs of the community. Develop, describe present and influence outcomes and/or findings across various forums. Excellent problem‑solving, communication, and leadership skills in a collaborative environment Technical experience for the Senior Cloud Engineer: 5+ years of hands‑on experience as a Cloud Engineer, with expertise in building greenfield and brownfield setups in either Azure OR AWS public clouds, including IaC implementations and secure‑by‑design principles. Proven track record with foundational elements in Azure (Landing Zones, Management Groups, Resource Groups, Key Vault, Blob Storage, Virtual Machines) OR AWS equivalents (Landing Zone, Organizations, VPCs, Secrets Manager, S3, EC2). Strong knowledge of networking in either or both platforms: Azure (VNets, peering, NSGs, routing) and/or AWS (VPCs, subnets, security groups, NAT gateways), including hybrid connectivity. Experience in governance and security: Implementing policies, guardrails, RBAC/IAM, and tools like Azure Security Center or AWS Security Hub. Experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines (e.g., Azure DevOps, AWS CodePipeline), and scripting (PowerShell, Python, Bash). Understanding of Australian government cloud requirements, including data sovereignty, security classifications, and regulatory compliance. Proficiency in relevant technologies, frameworks, and tools, as well as the ability to translate complex technical requirements into scalable and sustainable solutions is imperative. Data governance, privacy laws, and other pertinent policies that impact solution delivery within Services Australia. Knowledge and Qualifications for the Senior Cloud Engineer:: Certifications such as AZ-104/AZ-305 (Azure) or AWS SysOps/CloudOps highly desirable. Strong communication and negotiation skills Professional presentation skills The key position responsibilities for the Senior Cloud Engineer are: Design and deploy greenfield and brownfield cloud platforms in either Azure or AWS, including foundational structures like Azure Landing Zones/Management Groups or AWS Landing Zone/Organizations/Control Tower, to support organisational scalability and hierarchy. Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using tools such as Terraform, ARM/Bicep (Azure), or CloudFormation (AWS) for reusable, automated, and secure deployments. Configure and manage core services, such as Azure Key Vault/Blob Storage/Virtual Machines or AWS Secrets Manager/S3/EC2, ensuring secure‑by‑design principles like least privilege, encryption at rest/transit, and threat modelling. Establish robust networking components, including Azure VNets/Subnets/NSGs/Firewall or AWS VPCs/Subnets/Security Groups/Transit Gateway, with focus on secure connectivity (e.g., VPN/ExpressRoute in Azure or Direct Connect in AWS). Develop and enforce governance frameworks, including policies and guardrails via Azure Policy/RBAC or AWS Control Tower/IAM, to align with Australian government standards (e.g., ISM, PSPF), incorporating security assessments, cost optimisation, and compliance monitoring. Integrate secure‑by‑design practices throughout the lifecycle, such as zero‑trust models, automated vulnerability scanning, and identity federation. Provide technical guidance, documentation, and training to teams on best practices for both Azure and AWS environments. Document, present and discuss the end‑to‑end implementation options, recommendations and implications, to facilitate and support the decision‑making process. Ensure work aligns with business processes and overall delivery outcomes. Drive innovation, continuous improvement and manage and lead change. Proactively share knowledge and expertise as the subject matter expert. Oversee and prepare a range of documentation and reports. Collaborate with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders to achieve outcomes and key deliverables. Resolve very complex, sensitive and/or escalated technical issues. Develop and present outcomes confidently to a range of stakeholders across multiple forums. Essential criteria Emerging technology monitoring: Level 6 (SFIA): - Plans and leads the identification and assessment of emerging technologies and the evaluation of potential impacts, threats and opportunities.- Creates technology roadmaps that align organisational plans with emerging technology solutions. Engages with, and influences, relevant stakeholders to obtain organisational commitment to technology roadmaps.- Develops organisational guidelines for monitoring emerging technologies. Collaborates with internal and external parties to facilitate intelligence gathering. Information security: Level 3 (SFIA): - Applies and maintains specific security controls as required by organisational policy and local risk assessments.- Communicates security risks and issues to business managers and others. Performs basic risk assessments for small information systems.- Contributes to the identification of risks that arise from potential technical solution architectures.- Suggests alternate solutions or countermeasures to mitigate risks. Defines secure systems configurations in compliance with intended architectures. Supports investigation of suspected attacks and security breaches. Innovation: Level 5 (SFIA): - Manages the innovation pipeline and executes innovation processes.- Develops and adapts innovation tools, processes and infrastructures to drive the process of innovation.- Identifies resources and capabilities needed to support innovation.- Encourages and motivates innovation communities, teams and individuals to share creative ideas and learn from failures.- Manages and facilitates the communication and open flow of creative ideas between interested parties and the set-up of innovation networks and communities. Solution architecture: Level 4 (SFIA): - Contributes to the development of solution architectures in specific business, infrastructure or functional areas.- Identifies and evaluates alternative architectures and the trade‑offs in cost, performance and scalability.- Determines and documents architecturally significant decisions.- Produces specifications of cloud‑based or on‑premises components, tiers and interfaces, for translation into detailed designs using selected services and products.- Supports projects or change initiatives through the preparation of technical plans and application of design principles.- Aligns solutions with enterprise and solution architecture standards (including security). Specialist advice: Level 5 (SFIA): - Provides definitive and expert advice in their specialist area.- Actively maintains recognised expert level knowledge in one or more identifiable specialisms.- Oversees the provision of specialist advice by others.- Consolidates expertise from multiple sources, including third‑party experts, to provide coherent advice to further organisational objectives.- Supports and promotes the development and sharing of specialist knowledge within the organisation. Systems design: Level 5 (SFIA) - Designs large or complex systems and undertakes impact analysis on major design options and trade‑offs.- Ensures that the system design balances functional and non‑functional requirements.- Reviews systems designs and ensures that appropriate methods, tools and techniques are applied effectively.- Makes recommendations and assesses and manages associated risks.- Adopts and adapts system design methods, tools and techniques.- Contributes to development of system design policies, standards and selection of architecture components. Desirable criteria Consultancy: Level 6 (SFIA): - Manages the provision of consultancy services and/or a team of consultants. In own areas of expertise, provides advice and guidance to consultants and/or the client when delivering consultancy services.- Engages with clients and maintains client relationships.- Establishes consultancy agreements/contracts and manages completion and disengagement. Enterprise and business architecture: Level 5 (SFIA): - Develops models and plans to drive the execution of the business strategy, taking advantage of opportunities to improve business performance.- Contributes to creating and reviewing a systems capability strategy which meets the business's strategic requirements.- Determines requirements and specifies effective business processes, through improvements in technology, information or data practices, organisation, roles, procedures and equipment. Information assurance: Level 5 (SFIA): - Interprets information assurance and security policies and applies these to manage risks.- Provides advice and guidance to ensure adoption of and adherence to information assurance architectures, strategies, policies, standards and guidelines.- Plans, organises and conducts information assurance and accreditation of complex domains areas, cross‑functional areas, and across the supply chain. Contributes to the development of policies, standards and guidelines. Network design: Level 6 (SFIA): - Takes responsibility for major aspects of network specification, standards, technologies and overall network design models within the organisation.- Produces network design policies, principles and criteria covering connectivity, capacity, interfacing, security, resilience, recovery and access. Requirements definition and management: Level 4 (SFIA): - Defines and manages scoping, requirements definition and prioritisation activities for initiatives of medium size and complexity.- Contributes to selecting the requirements approach. Facilitates input from stakeholders, provides constructive challenge and enables effective prioritisation of requirements.- Establishes requirements base-lines, obtains formal agreement to requirements, and ensures traceability to source. HOW TO APPLY Please provide an updated CV (a maximum of 3-5 pages) to reflect your suitability to the role based on the job description. You will also need to complete a summary which is no more than 5000 characters in total in response to the requirements for the role and the essential and desirable criteria. Your application will be reviewed based on ability to demonstrate, or potential to develop, the capabilities required. #J-18808-Ljbffr