Lead AWS DevOps Engineer & Deployment Coordinator

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced onshore full-time Lead AWS DevOps Engineer / Deployment Coordinator to own the DevOps architecture, guide deployment strategy, and partner closely with engineering, security, and operations teams. This role is expected to provide hands-on technical leadership while working effectively with the broader team to ensure reliable, compliant, and efficient application delivery, production stability, and well-governed release management.

Key Responsibilities

Technical Leadership & Architecture Ownership

• Own the DevOps and deployment architecture for the platform, ensuring solutions are scalable, secure, maintainable, and aligned to enterprise standards.
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to the team, driving best practices across cloud engineering, automation, release management, and operational support.
• Partner effectively with development, security, QA, and operations teams to translate business and engineering needs into practical architecture and delivery plans.
• Act as a lead resource who can work independently, influence decisions, and bring teams into alignment on tooling, processes, and technical direction.

Cloud & DevOps Engineering

• Design, implement, and support AWS-based architectures, ensuring scalability, reliability, performance, and security.
• Act as a technical owner for DevOps practices, supporting end-to-end build, deployment, and release workflows.
• Collaborate with application teams on cloud adoption, architecture reviews, and operational best practices.

CI/CD & Infrastructure as Code

• Build, maintain, and enhance CI/CD pipelines using GitLab CI/CD, aligned with enterprise standards.
• Develop and manage Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform (HCL) for AWS resources.
• Coordinate and execute application deployments across environments, ensuring minimal downtime and controlled rollouts.
• Contribute to pipeline modernization efforts and support transition planning where experience across multiple CI/CD platforms adds value.

Security, Risk & Compliance

• Enforce cybersecurity policies and controls throughout the SDLC and deployment lifecycle.
• Integrate and manage security tools including DAST, SAST, SCA, penetration testing tools, and Sonar.
• Perform risk assessments for production releases and infrastructure changes, ensuring compliance with organizational and regulatory standards.

Deployment & Change Management

• Own and coordinate deployment activities leveraging CI/CD pipelines and ServiceNow.
• Ensure all deployments follow ITSM and Change Management practices, including approvals, documentation, and rollback strategies.
• Partner with stakeholders to plan releases across business and technical timelines.

Incident, Problem & RCA Management

• Provide leadership during production incidents, ensuring timely triage, communication, and resolution.
• Perform deep-dive root cause analysis (RCA) for production issues and drive preventive actions.
• Support Incident Management practices, ensuring SLAs, escalation procedures, and post-incident reviews are adhered to.

Mandatory Skills & Experience

• Strong AWS solution architecture knowledge with hands-on cloud implementation experience.
• Proven experience with Terraform (HCL) for infrastructure provisioning.
• Hands-on experience with GitLab CI/CD for pipeline creation and management.
• Strong expertise in deployment practices, including CI/CD and ServiceNow-based release processes.
• Deep understanding of cybersecurity tools and practices, including DAST, SAST, SCA, penetration testing, and Sonar or equivalent code quality tools.
• Solid experience in ITSM Change Management processes.
• Proven ability to handle incident management, RCA, and production support activities.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to deep dive into complex production issues.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical architecture discussions, make sound design decisions, and own end-to-end DevOps solutions.
• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and team collaboration skills; able to work well with cross-functional teams and influence outcomes.

Nice to Have

• Experience with GitHub Actions is a plus; as we migrate off the current platform, experience across both GitLab CI/CD and GitHub Actions will be highly valuable.
• Experience operating in regulated or enterprise-scale environments.
• Prior role involving release coordination or deployment ownership.
• Exposure to Agile / DevSecOps operating models.

Ideal Candidate Profile

• A lead-level engineer who can balance architecture ownership with hands-on delivery.
• Comfortable partnering with globally distributed teams and bringing structure to complex releases and operational issues.
• Able to coach others, create alignment across stakeholders, and drive improvements in tools, processes, and reliability.

Salary Range:

Salary range is a good faith estimate of base pay. Northern Trust provides a comprehensive benefits package including retirement benefits (401k and pension), health and welfare benefits (medical, dental, vision, spending accounts and disability), paid time off, parental and caregiver leave, life & accident insurance, and other voluntary and well-being benefits. Northern Trust also provides a discretionary bonus program that may include an equity component.