Staff Cloud Engineer/Finance/AWS/Chicago, IL LOCAL

Our client in the finance space is looking to looking to hire a Staff Cloud Engineer to help design, build, and scale their cloud infrastructure behind their payments platform. This company has powered and protected the U.S. financial system for over thirty years with cutting-edge solutions in the finance space.

As a trusted name in payments, they partner with thousands of institutions to increase access to financial services and protect transactions for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses. This role is hybrid 3 days a week in downtown Chicago

This is a high-impact role for an experienced engineer who wants ownership over broad, open-ended technical problems. You'll drive cloud architecture and infrastructure-as-code strategy that engineering teams across the company rely on, working hands-on with AWS, Kubernetes, and modern CI/CD pipelines.

If you want the autonomy to shape technical direction, mentor other engineers, and help scale infrastructure that supports one of the country's most widely used payment networks, this role offers that growth and impact.

Required Skills & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in computer science or a related technical field, or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of relevant experience, including 7+ years building distributed systems, SaaS, cloud solutions, and microservices
• Hands-on Docker experience
• 2+ years developing front-end solutions, with hands-on familiarity with modern frameworks (Angular/React)
• 6+ years of experience with Java/Spring, with proficiency in Maven/Gradle
• Experience designing and building scalable, event-driven systems using messaging frameworks (Pub/Sub, Kafka, RabbitMQ, etc.)
• Working experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.)
• Solid grasp of mature engineering practices (CI/CD, testing, secure coding) and SDLC methodologies (Agile, Scrum, LEAN, DevOps)
• Ability to pass a background check and drug screen

Desired Skills & Experience

• MS or PhD
• JavaScript and scripting framework experience (jQuery, AngularJS)
• Monitoring and alerting systems experience (e.g., AppDynamics)
• Additional language experience (C#, Ruby, Python, PHP)
• Knowledge of ACH/EFT and real-time payment networks (RTP, FedNow)
• FinTech experience
• Kubernetes experience
• AWS, Azure, or other cloud-based certification(s) strongly preferred

What You Will Be Doing

• Build technical strategy for complex, open-ended infrastructure problems and drive cloud architecture, design, and implementation
• Lead infrastructure-as-code projects (Terraform, Ansible), building APIs and tools engineering teams use for reliable, repeatable cloud deployments
• Design and troubleshoot AWS and Kubernetes-based infrastructure for robustness, security, and observability
• Own features and systems end-to-end, from design through production delivery, and improve the health of surrounding systems
• Partner with product managers, designers, and other engineering teams to conceptualize and build new features
• Support production issue resolution and build tests that ensure the quality, performance, and scalability of the application
• Represent engineering in cross-functional sessions and drive improvements to engineering standards, tooling, and processes

The Offer

• Bonus eligible

You will receive the following benefits

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
• Vacation Time
• Stock Options

Applicants must be currently authorized to work in the US on a full-time basis now and in the future.