Senior Cloud & Backend Platform Engineer

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Salary Range:
$100,000.00 - $109,500.00 USD annually.

As part of Arizona State University's charter to provide access and excellence, ASU Preparatory Academy (ASU Prep) shares this commitment by demonstrating all students can achieve at the highest levels, regardless of their background. To scale our current impact, ASU Prep is advancing a major expansion program taking fundamental responsibility for the communities we serve.

The Senior Cloud & Backend Cloud Platform Engineer is responsible for designing, building, and operating cloud-native infrastructure and services that support ASU Preparatory Academy applications. This role owns platform architecture, cloud operations, and identity systems across Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS).

This position develops and maintains Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that expose data products, integrates with education technology platforms, and ensures secure, reliable system access. Python is the primary development language; however, the role is focused on cloud platform engineering and service delivery rather than application-only development.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field.
  
• 4+ years building and operating cloud-based systems in production environments.
  
• Strong experience with GCP (Cloud Run or GKE, IAM, networking, CI/CD, observability, secrets management).
  
• Working knowledge of AWS (IAM, Lambda/ECS/EC2, VPC, CloudWatch).
  
• Working knowledge of Azure B2B identity services or other federated identity solutions.
  
• Experience designing and operating secure, scalable APIs (REST/JSON; GraphQL a plus).
  
• Strong authentication and authorization experience (OAuth2, OIDC, SAML, JWT, service accounts).
  
• Proficiency in Python and modern frameworks (FastAPI or similar), including async patterns and API documentation (OpenAPI).
  
• Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform or similar) and containerization (Docker).
  
• Experience working with data platforms (e.g., BigQuery), SQL, and API-driven data access patterns (caching, pagination, performance tuning.)
  
• Familiarity with EdTech integrations (SSO, LTI 1.3, Edlink) and Learning Management System (LMS) ecosystems, preferred.
  
• Understanding of security and compliance considerations (FERPA, CIPA, IAM principles).
  
• Strong troubleshooting, documentation, and communication skills.
  
• Active GitHub profile demonstrating relevant technical work is required.
  
  
• Active AZ Department of Public Safety (DPS) IVP Fingerprint Clearance Card.
  
• Any equivalent combination of experience, training and/or education from which comparable knowledge, skills and abilities may be considered.
  
  

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Design, deploy, and operate cloud infrastructure and services in GCP (primary) and AWS.
  
• Own platform architecture, including IAM, networking, CI/CD pipelines, and service deployment.
  
• Architect and manage federated identity solutions across systems.
  
• Implement secure authentication and service-to-service communication (OAuth2, OIDC, JWT, mTLS as appropriate).
  
• Build and maintain Python-based backend services and APIs.
  
• Define and enforce API standards, including versioning, documentation, and performance expectations.
  
• Develop and maintain integrations with EdTech platforms (SSO, LTI 1.3, Edlink) and related systems.
  
• Partner with data teams to expose and optimize data access patterns (caching, pagination, performance tuning).
  
• Establish and maintain observability practices (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting) and service reliability targets.
  
• Triage and improve existing AWS environments, including account structure, IAM, networking, and CI/CD.
  
• Automate workflows and reduce operational overhead across platform and identity systems.
  
• Create and maintain technical documentation, runbooks, and operational guides.
  
• Provide level-3 support for backend and API-related production issues.
  
• Additional duties may be assigned as necessary.
  

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Strong diagnostic and troubleshooting skills.
  
• Ability to create, maintain, and update documentation.
  
• Desire to constantly learn and implement best practices.
  
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills, especially in high-stakes or customer-facing scenarios.
  
• Strong organizational skills and a solution-focused attitude.
  
• Knowledge of common information systems, connectivity, integrations from a security perspective.
  
• Effective organizational skills.
  
• Effective written and oral communication.
  
• Demonstrated knowledge in Edtech is a plus.
  
• Demonstrated knowledge with common e-learning tools and platforms is a plus.
  

PHYSICAL DEMANDS:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to stand and talk or hear and sometimes walk and sit. The employee must use hands, arms and fingers to input data, handle, feel or reach. While performing the duties of this job, the employee may occasionally push or lift up to 15 lbs. such as boxes, supplies, etc. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision such as to read handwritten or typed material, and the ability to adjust focus, close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision and depth perception.

LOCATION:


Hybrid


TRAVEL:

Occasional travel may be required for site visits, meetings, trainings and/or conferences. Locations may vary and may require overnight stays.

This job description is subject to change at any time.