Associate Principal Cloud Engineer

Why this role exists:

The Associate Principal Cloud Engineer is a senior technical authority responsible for defining and leading the infrastructure strategy across AWS and GCP. As Officeworks executes a brand-new AI technology roadmap, this role ensures that cloud environments are scalable, resilient, and optimised for high-value data and AI platforms. This role will bridge the gap between infrastructure and delivery, driving the automation and security standards required for a democratised, self-service data environment.

Where you will make a difference:

In this role you will:

Cloud Architecture & Infrastructure Design:

• Define, provision and automate enterprise scale Snowflake platform deployments across both AWS and GCP to support enterprise data and AI initiatives.
• Build and optimize scalable enterprise data platforms, pipelines, and domain-aligned data products across Snowflake and cloud-native services (AWS/GCP), enabling secure, reusable, and high-performance Data-as-a-Service capabilities for analytics, operational reporting, APIs, and AI/ML workloads.
• Lead infrastructure design using Terraform, ensuring robust IAM, networking, and security configurations.
• Engineer and support enterprise data architecture patterns including medallion data layers (Bronze, Silver, Gold), semantic modelling, metadata-driven ingestion, automated schema evolution, partitioning, clustering, workload scaling, and performance optimization across large-scale distributed cloud environments.
• Ensure all environments are secure, scalable, resilient, and cost-efficient, managing the financial risk of underutilization.

Automation & Engineering Excellence:

• Drive automation and CI/CD practices to increase delivery velocity and stability across the distributed delivery model.
• Establish and govern engineering best practices for cloud deployments, ensuring code quality and architectural integrity.
• Implement proper configuration management and change controls for all enterprise cloud environments.
• Support the modernization of data platforms, including the integration with SAP Datasphere and modern cloud-native environments.

Process & Continuous Improvement:

• Possess a continuous improvement mindset, proactively identifying opportunities to optimize cloud performance and reduce the cost of doing business.
• Challenge existing workflows and mindsets to ensure technology solutions deliver maximum value with minimal friction.
• Monitor and evaluate service outcomes to identify trends and implement iterative improvements to global infrastructure.
• Stay ahead of emerging technology trends, iteratively improving cloud assets to maintain a competitive advantage for Officeworks.

Who you will be working with:

• Insights & Data Leadership: Collaborating on enterprise-wide strategy, platform stability, and the execution of the data democratization roadmap.
• AI & Data Hubs: Partnering with AI Technical Associate Managers, Data Architects, and Engineers to bring architectural solutions to reality.
• Specialist Technology Teams: Working with technical specialists across various disciplines to ensure seamless integration.
• Business Stakeholders: Translating complex cloud infrastructure capabilities into actionable commercial narratives that drive performance.

What success looks like:

• Hub Enablement: The data and analytics hubs are supported by high-performing, secure, and automated cloud environments.
• Deployment Velocity: Successful implementation of automation that minimizes manual effort and release risk for teams.
• Platform Resilience: A robust, future-proof cloud foundation that supports the move toward data democratization and self-serve analytics.
• Operational Maturity: Demonstrable optimization of cloud spend while scaling to meet the needs of the AI roadmap.
• Thought leadership and operational skills that contribute ideas to the cost-management of the Enterprise Data Platform.

How you will lead:

Individual Contributor:

• Lives our Officeworks values and behaviors
• Proactively contributes to a safe working environment, escalates appropriately if there are unsafe conditions or inappropriate behavior
• Operates in line with applicable Officeworks company policies and Code of Conduct
• Demonstrates a strong sense of personal accountability and curiosity to learn and develop

Qualifications and work experience:

Essential:

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, IT, Software Engineering, or a related field. Cloud certifications will be well regarded.
• Experience: 10+ years of experience in IT architectural and infrastructure design roles, with a focus on senior cloud leadership.
• Technical Mastery: Strong experience with Terraform, IAM, networking, and contemporary cloud platforms (AWS and GCP).
• Systems Knowledge: Hands-on proficiency with GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, and integrating data platforms like Snowflake.
• Adaptability: Proven ability to lead the technical transitions into brand-new AI technology spaces and adapt to evolving architectures.
• Cultural Fit: A proactive self-starter who values deep technical experience and practical application.

Preferred:

• Retail Context: Experience in a high-volume omnichannel retail environment or complex consumer data space.
• Global Delivery: Experience working within high-performing distributed technical hub models.