Staff Site Reliability Engineer in Hoffman Estates, Illinois - #71359 | VanderHouwen

Description

Job Id: 71359

Staff Site Reliability Engineer
Our client is seeking a Staff Site Reliability Engineer to serve as a senior technical authority guiding large-scale cloud migration and reliability strategy across a complex application ecosystem. This role partners closely with engineering, product, and business leaders to evaluate migration approaches, surface risk and cost drivers, and ensure long-term operational readiness as systems transition to AWS. The ideal candidate brings deep systems thinking, strong influence without authority, and the ability to translate technical insight into business-relevant guidance.

This role is fully remote. Central or Eastern Time Zone working hours are preferred.

Staff Site Reliability Engineer Responsibilities

• Provide staff-level technical leadership for reliability engineering, cloud strategy, and infrastructure-adjacent decision-making across a broad application portfolio.
• Review and challenge proposed cloud migration plans, identifying architectural risk, hidden dependencies, cost exposure, and sequencing constraints that could impact delivery or operations.
• Recommend alternative migration strategies that improve reliability, reduce total cost of ownership, and accelerate execution where appropriate.
• Analyze complex application landscapes spanning on-premises and AWS environments, clarifying shared services, infrastructure dependencies, and failure domains.
• Guide decomposition, consolidation, or modernization opportunities that improve system resilience and migration velocity.
• Establish and promote standards for migration readiness, dependency analysis, and technical plan validation.
• Assess post-migration operational models, including observability, resiliency, automation, incident response, and overall SRE maturity.
• Ensure reliability objectives are realistically represented in AWS architecture and service selection decisions.
• Translate technical risks and tradeoffs into clear business impact related to cost, timelines, and operational outcomes.
• Influence prioritization, funding, and sequencing decisions through data-driven technical analysis.
• Partner with product, platform, security, finance, and portfolio stakeholders to drive aligned and pragmatic migration decisions.
• Mentor engineers on systems thinking, dependency modeling, and business-aware reliability practices.
• Represent the SRE perspective in architecture reviews, governance forums, and executive-level discussions.

Staff Site Reliability Engineer Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in site reliability engineering, platform engineering, infrastructure, or cloud architecture, operating at a senior or staff-equivalent level.
• Demonstrated experience assessing or leading large-scale migrations from on-premises environments to AWS within complex enterprise systems.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, multi-tier architectures, and failure domains.
• Strong knowledge of on-prem infrastructure, including compute, storage, networking, and virtualization.
• Extensive experience with AWS services, architectural patterns, and design tradeoffs at scale.
• Proven ability to analyze application dependencies and infrastructure adjacency to inform migration sequencing.
• Strong track record of influencing architectural and migration decisions without direct authority.
• Ability to challenge assumptions and plans constructively while maintaining executive-level credibility.
• Excellent analytical skills, including evaluation of cost models, delivery risk, and operational tradeoffs.
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical topics in clear business terms.

Preferred:

• Prior experience functioning as a Staff or Principal engineer in a matrixed or highly cross-functional organization.
• Familiarity with AWS Well-Architected Framework, Cloud Adoption Framework, and common migration methodologies.
• Exposure to FinOps practices or cloud financial management.
• Experience establishing standards, review processes, or governance models for cloud migration initiatives.
• Background supporting regulated, mission-critical, or highly available enterprise systems.

Compensation: (DOE)

VanderHouwen Contractors Enjoy Exceptional Benefit Perks!
As an eligible contract employee with VanderHouwen, you’ll have access to a full suite of benefits designed with your well-being in mind. Our comprehensive package includes medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, and a matching 401(k) to help secure your future.

Meet VanderHouwen
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VanderHouwen is an award-winning, Women & Diversity-Owned, WBENC certified professional staffing firm. Founded in 1987, VanderHouwen places experienced professionals across the nation! Our recruitment teams specialize in either Technology and IT, Engineering, Human Resources, or Accounting and Finance career markets. Partner with us to land your next exciting career!

VanderHouwen is an Equal Opportunity Employer and participates in E-Verify. VanderHouwen does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local, state, or federal civil rights laws.

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