Principal Cloud Architect (AWS) - Outside IR35
12 months+, Fully Remote (UK only)
The Role
Our client is looking for a Principal-level architect with a strong consultancy background and deep financial services experience to provide technical leadership and architectural oversight across a complex AWS estate.
You will act as the senior technical authority across multiple workstreams, ensuring architectural integrity, quality, and alignment to agreed standards.
You will:
* Provide technical authority and oversight across delivery, ensuring solutions align with agreed architecture, standards, and best practice
* Validate key technical decisions, designs, and outputs, holding accountability for quality and fitness-for-purpose
* Guide teams through complex or high-risk areas, offering direction and constructive challenge to de-risk outcomes
* Ensure consistency and reuse across the organisation, avoiding fragmentation and reinforcing standard approaches
* Act as an escalation point for technical risks, issues, and trade-offs, supporting informed decision-making
* Balance pragmatism with engineering rigour, ensuring solutions are both deliverable and sustainable
* Work closely with delivery leads and senior customer stakeholders to maintain confidence in the technical direction and overall integrity of the solution
Required Experience & Skills
AWS & Cloud Architecture (Essential)
* Deep knowledge of AWS Cloud and enterprise-scale architecture
* AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (mandatory)
* Strong experience designing hybrid and multi-account AWS architectures
* Proven experience architecting within the financial services sector, with strong understanding of security, legal, regulatory and compliance considerations
Strong service knowledge across:
* EC2
* Load Balancing
* Networking (VPCs, VPC Lattice preferred)
* WAF
* IAM
* RDS and Aurora
* AppStream 2.0 / Amazon WorkSpaces
* EFS
* S3
* Lambda
* DMS
* AWS Security Tooling (e.g. Config)
* SSM
* CloudWatch
* CloudTrail
Desirable service knowledge:
* EKS, ECS
* API Gateway
* Direct Connect
* SQS, SNS, SES
* Route 53
* Secrets Manager
* AWS migration tooling
Infrastructure as Code & Engineering Governance (Essential)
* Deep expertise in Terraform / OpenTofu and Terragrunt
* Strong background operating within Agile delivery environments
* Experience leading and guiding engineers within Agile programmes
* Proven ability to design and present High-Level Designs (HLDs) and Low-Level Designs (LLDs) for formal sign-off
Desirable Experience
* Azure DevOps
* Oracle and PostgreSQL migrations into AWS
* Draw.io (or equivalent architecture tooling)
Profile Sought
* Principal-level architect with consultancy pedigree
* Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills
* Comfortable providing challenge at senior levels while maintaining trust
* Experienced operating as the accountable technical authority across complex programmes
* Able to combine strategic thinking with practical delivery awareness
This opportunity would suit a seasoned AWS Principal Architect looking for a long-term, outside IR35 engagement where they can provide strategic technical leadership within a regulated financial services environment. Apply now online - this is an urgent role requiring an immediate starter.