Cloud/Platform/System Specialist

Job Title: Cloud/Platform/System Specialist
Location: Des Moines, IA
Duration: 2 months (will extend on 7/1/26 for upcoming fiscal period)
Type: Contract - Onsite


The client is seeking a candidate for a critical cloud/platform/systems specialist to Support senior resources. Expectations include Leading infrastructure initiatives to modernize IT infrastructure and operations to enhance efficiency, scalability, and reliability across hybrid cloud environments. This role supports enterprise modernization goals by providing support for modern approaches to hybrid-cloud administrative and engineering practices to eliminate expensive and inefficient legacy solutions, while improving operational efficiency, reducing manual intervention, and enabling scalable infrastructure solutions.


Job Description:

Note:

• Experience with Ansible would be handy
• Experience related to AWS IAM functionality for controlling RBAC is needed.
• FIN OPS - strong understanding on how to estimate costs and delivery quickly needed.

5 or more years of experience required in the following areas:

Designs, maintains, and optimizes hybrid platforms that bridge onpremises
infrastructure with AWS cloud services, aligning with the shift toward
cloudcentric operations:

• Designing and administering AWS environments (EC2, VPC, IAM, S3) to support
• enterprise workloads.
• Creating hybrid workload patterns where identity, authentication, and application
• services function seamlessly across cloud and onpremises systems.
• Migrating legacy systems to AWS, including developing modernization roadmaps
• and workload readiness assessments.
• Documenting system architectures and producing AWS architecture diagrams
• showing network topology, dependencies, and service interactions.

Provides seniortier support for issues escalated from Service Desk, Applications, Networking, or automation teams:

• Diagnosing complex AWS identity, network, or compute issues affecting dependent
• applications.
• Documenting troubleshooting workflows, root causes, and longterm mitigation
• strategies.
• Guiding teams through hybrid dependency failures such as directory sync
• disruptions, routing conflicts, or misconfigured IAM policies.

Ensures platform resilience by monitoring, optimizing, and maintaining cloud
and onprem compute, storage, networking, and identity components:

• Eliminate single points of failure in designs patterns
• Provide backup, recovery, and DR to meet all RTO/RPO requirements.
• Implementing performance dashboards covering compute utilization, storage I/O, and network throughput across AWS and onprem.
• Conducting rootcause analysis for performance issues and documenting remediation steps.
• Identifying cost optimization opportunities through instance rightsizing, storage tier adjustments, and lifecycle automation.
• Maintaining architecture diagrams, standards, IaC manifests, and operational procedures in versioncontrolled environments.
• Preparing change impact statements for major infrastructure modifications.
• Creating release documentation for platform updates promoted through CI/CD pipelines. Ensuring consistency across platform standards, enforcement rules, and automation artifacts.

Works closely with automation specialist and other team members to ensure
infrastructure deployments follow consistent, automated, and auditable
patterns:

• Defining IaC patterns and collaborating on Terraform module designs.
• Documenting provisioning workflows, configuration standards, and parameter usage for automated deployments.
• Supporting CI/CD infrastructure pipelines that promote test, staging, and production environments through automated checks.
• Collaborate with engineering and application teams to optimize workloads for hybrid cloud environments.
• Provide guidance on migration strategies, performance tuning, and cost optimization for hybrid-cloud deployments.

Maintain comprehensive documentation for hybrid cloud architecture,
operational procedures, and automation workflows. Ensure documentation
supports knowledge transfer and compliance audits.

Supports organizational security and compliance goals by implementing and
documenting platform controls across cloud and onprem environments.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Enforcing AWS guardrails such as encryption, MFA, IAM role boundaries, and network segmentation.
• Producing audit evidence packages (configuration exports, pipeline logs, screenshots).
• Documenting platform hardening guidelines for compute, identity, and storage systems.
• Creating policy interpretation guides to clarify required platform configurations for other technical teams.
• Writing operational guides, onboarding materials, and "howto” documentation for AWS and hybrid operations.
• Delivering platform standards, architecture reference materials, and annotated diagrams explaining system interactions.
• Producing executivelevel briefings summarizing modernization progress and platform initiatives.