Cloud Platform Engineer (AWS)

Cloud Platform Engineer (AWS) ExploreGod harnesses the power of digital technology to spread the Gospel around the globe. Through advanced data-driven strategies, we connect with millions, fostering their spiritual growth in Christ. We aim to offer every person on Earth the chance to discover Jesus via various digital channels, creating a faith-based community that unites volunteers with individuals worldwide seeking spiritual enlightenment. The infrastructure behind that mission has to be reliable, secure, and fast to iterate on. That’s where this role comes in. Position Summary We are seeking a talented, proactive, and mission-driven Cloud Platform Engineer to own, automate, and secure the cloud infrastructure that powers our digital ministry. In this role, you will bridge the gap between software development, cloud operations, and security. Your mission is to ensure that our applications are highly available, deployments are seamless and automated, and our cloud perimeter is robustly protected. You will be the primary owner of our AWS environment end-to-end: you architect it, automate it, and secure it. The ideal candidate views infrastructure as code, values automated safeguards over manual intervention, and acts as an enabler for our engineering teams to deploy software rapidly and safely — so the people building tools for the mission can move quickly without breaking things. Our Philosophy on Skills This is an ownership role. We are hiring a builder who takes responsibility for the whole platform — architecture, automation, and security together — not a specialist in any one of them. A genuine security mindset is non-negotiable; security is the highest-stakes part of what we do, and we need someone who treats it as inseparable from how they build rather than as a separate gate. Security alone is not enough, however: the value of this role is owning infrastructure and release automation end-to-end. We recognize that deep, comprehensive expertise spanning cloud architecture, DevOps automation, and cloud security is a rare and expansive skill set, and we do not expect you to be a master of all three on day one. If you own two of these pillars confidently and have a solid foundation, plus the drive and aptitude to scale up in the third, you are exactly who we are looking for. We value continuous growth, technical curiosity, and problem-solving agility over checking every single requirement box. Core Responsibilities 1. AWS Cloud Infrastructure & Management Architecture & Maintenance: Provision, scale, and optimize high-availability AWS cloud infrastructure supporting production and non-production environments. Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Maintain, modularize, and expand our infrastructure definitions using AWS CDK (TypeScript), eliminating manual configuration drift. Familiarity with Terraform or CloudFormation transfers well here. Monitoring & Observability: Design and maintain robust logging, metrics, and alerting frameworks (e.g., AWS CloudWatch) to proactively spot performance bottlenecks and system anomalies. Cost & Performance Optimization: Continually audit resource utilization to optimize cloud spend while ensuring top-tier application performance and system resilience. 2. DevOps & Release Automation CI/CD Pipeline Engineering: Design, build, and maintain automated deployment pipelines in CircleCI — integrating build, test (Vitest, Cypress), linting (Biome), and security scanning (Semgrep) — to ensure fast, predictable, and repeatable software releases. Developer Enablement: Serve as an internal infrastructure partner to the software engineering team, removing friction from their workflows and enabling smooth, self-service application deployments. Our engineers work in a modern TypeScript/Node.js stack, including the PATH platform: an Angular frontend with a Prisma/Node.js backend on PostgreSQL/RDS. Containerization & Orchestration: Manage and scale containerized applications using Docker and AWS container services (e.g., ECS). Disaster Recovery: Develop, document, and regularly test disaster recovery and automated backup strategies to guarantee minimal downtime. 3. Cloud Security & Compliance (DevSecOps) Proactive Perimeter Defense: Implement and enforce network-level security controls — secure VPC design, security groups, and encryption for data at rest and in transit — applying defense in depth throughout. Identity & Access Management: Enforce strict principle-of-least-privilege access across all AWS environments via IAM roles, policies, and SSO configurations, including scoped, per-source roles that isolate blast radius for sensitive data. Automated Security Gates: Integrate security checks directly into the CI/CD pipeline, including static application security testing (SAST), and dependency vulnerability scanning. Secrets Management: Ensure applications and environments securely manage API keys, passwords, and tokens using AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Parameter Store and AWS Secrets Manager. Compliance & Auditing: Collaborate with internal teams to track compliance metrics, review system logs, and implement technical controls aligned with industry security standards. Candidate Qualifications & Requirements While we evaluate candidates on their holistic skill set and potential, the following qualifications serve as an excellent benchmark: Education: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field preferred, or equivalent hands-on experience. Experience: 5+ years of professional experience across disciplines including infrastructure, platform, operations, and security, including substantial hands-on time running production cloud environments. This is an end-to-end ownership role; we’re looking for someone with the operational judgment that comes from having run — and fixed — real systems under load. Cloud Depth (AWS preferred): Our stack is all-in on AWS, so deep production AWS experience is ideal. That said, we care more about depth than logo: equivalent mastery of GCP or Azure counts toward seniority, provided you can demonstrate the ability to ramp quickly on a new cloud. Infrastructure as Code: Proven experience managing cloud systems deterministically via AWS CDK, Terraform, or CloudFormation. Automation Spirit: Strong scripting capability in at least one modern language (e.g., TypeScript, Python, or Go) for system automation, plus familiarity with bash. CI/CD Literacy: Deep understanding of modern software deployment strategies (Blue/Green, Canary) and pipeline configuration. CircleCI experience a plus. Security Mindset: Practical, first-principles understanding of cloud-native security — vulnerability management, least-privilege access, network-layer protection — and a habit of building it in rather than bolting it on. How You Think: More than any single tool, we’re looking for someone who reasons from first principles, picks up unfamiliar systems fast, and takes ownership without waiting to be told. If that’s you, gaps in any specific technology are far less important than your track record of figuring things out. Team-Oriented Builder: A strong team player who partners seamlessly with software engineers, ministry stakeholders, and leadership. Views infrastructure and security as an enabler for the development team and adopts a collaborative approach to DevOps. Cross-Departmental Synergy: Ability to build strong relationships across the organization and work collectively toward the shared mission. Continuous Learner: Possesses a natural curiosity and eagerness to stay ahead of the curve on new cloud technologies, security threats, and DevOps best practices. Additional Requirements This position is fully remote. Only U.S.-based applicants will be considered. Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S. Alignment with our Statement of Faith is required. To Apply If you have a passion for using your skills for Gospel purposes, we encourage you to apply. Please submit your resume and a cover letter here. Your cover letter should detail your interest in joining ExploreGod and highlight your experience and skills. Join us in our mission to make a significant global impact through innovative digital means, spreading the Gospel and connecting people with the message of Jesus Christ!