Principal Engineer, Cloud Strategy Lead

Where Ambition Meets Innovation Build a career that matches all your initiative with an impressive dose of innovation. From cutting-edge resources and a collaborative environment to the freedom to make an impact and more, you’ll find the ingredients you need at LPL Financial to shape your success while helping clients pursue their financial goals. This is the most senior individual contributor role at the heart of LPL's AWS-first Cloud Center of Excellence. You'll set the multi-year strategy for our cloud tooling, Terraform code architecture, and self-service platform — with a dotted line to all five CCOE teams and the five Foundations pods — while spending the majority of your time in code, design documents, and proof-of-concept work. If you want technical leadership, mentorship, and influence at scale without the day-to-day of direct people management, this is your seat. Job Overview: As the Principal Engineer, Cloud Strategy Lead, you set and drive the multi-year technical strategy and architecture for LPL's Cloud Center of Excellence (CCOE). This is a senior individual contributor role — not a team or pod leader — that leads cloud strategy and technical architecture across CCOE, with a dotted line to all five CCOE teams (Foundations, Platforms, Containers, Support, Delivery) and the five Foundations pods (Security & Governance, FinOps, Functional Design Engineering & Strategy, Network Engineering, Monitoring) so that strategy and technical architecture stay aligned across the organization. You own the engineering direction for our cloud tooling, Terraform code architecture, and self-service platform, and you are the primary technical liaison between CCOE and Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, and Application Engineering. LPL is an AWS-first CCOE: a multi-account landing zone with 100+ private reusable Terraform modules that enable 60+ AWS services, all delivered through Terraform Cloud and GitHub Actions. You are a hands-on senior IC who spends the majority of your time in code, reference patterns, and proof-of-concept work; technical mentorship across LPL's US offices and India Global Capability Center (GCC) drives your impact, not direct people management. Responsibilities: Set and evolve the multi-year technical strategy for cloud tooling, IaC, and developer experience across all five CCOE teams (Foundations, Platforms, Containers, Support, Delivery) and the five Foundations pods (Security & Governance, FinOps, Functional Design Engineering & Strategy, Network Engineering, Monitoring) Define and govern Terraform code architecture standards: module library curation, versioning, deprecation, contribution patterns, and module quality gates Architect and operate the self-service infrastructure vending platform, including Account Factory for Terraform (AFT), Service Catalog, golden paths, and Internal Developer Platform (Backstage-class) integration Establish enterprise standards for IaC quality: pre-commit, policy-as-code (Sentinel / OPA), security and compliance scanning, drift detection, and automated remediation Act as the primary technical liaison between CCOE and Enterprise Architecture, Information Security, and Application Engineering Drive engineering excellence across CCOE: code review standards, pairing culture, on-call quality, post-incident review discipline, and continuous improvement of the developer experience Embed agentic AI capabilities into the team's engineering practice (e.g., Cursor, Claude Code, Bedrock, MCP servers, agentic IaC and review workflows) and into the platform's self-service experience for internal customers Drive the technical strategy for embedding agentic AI capabilities into the self-service platform: agentic IaC generation, automated PR review, MCP-backed agents for internal data, and conversational interfaces that let internal customers self-serve common requests Operate as a senior individual contributor with dotted-line technical leadership to all five CCOE teams (Foundations, Platforms, Containers, Support, Delivery) and the five Foundations pods (Security & Governance, FinOps, Functional Design Engineering & Strategy, Network Engineering, Monitoring) — leading cloud strategy and technical architecture across the organization Mentor and uplift senior engineers, AVPs, and VPs across CCOE through code review, design partnership, technical pairing, architecture guidance, and certification-path technical advice per the CCOE certification matrix — acting as a force multiplier without direct reports Operate as a hands-on senior IC: spend the majority of your time in Terraform code, design documents, peer reviews, prototyping, and incident response — technical contribution and mentorship are the primary leverage points Personally participate in 24x7 on-call rotations as senior incident commander and cross-CCOE technical escalation point Partner with peer VPs across the Cloud Center of Excellence — the leaders of the five CCOE teams (Foundations, Platforms, Containers, Support, Delivery) and the leaders of the pods within Foundations (Security & Governance, FinOps, Functional Design Engineering & Strategy, Network Engineering, Monitoring) — to align technical direction across boundaries Champion AWS Well-Architected Framework adoption across all six pillars and drive continuous improvement against operational, security, reliability, performance, cost, and sustainability outcomes Contribute to and curate the private Terraform module library that powers self-service infrastructure for application teams, including module standards, versioning, deprecation, and contribution patterns Participate in Agile/Scrum ceremonies as a senior technical voice and partner with the RTE and PMO on dependencies and technical feasibility Represent CCOE technical strategy in executive forums, architecture review boards, internal audit, and customer engagements; communicate technical risk and trade-offs to non-technical executives What are we looking for? We’re looking for strong collaborators who deliver exceptional client experiences and thrive in fast-paced, team-oriented environments. Our ideal candidates pursue greatness, act with integrity, and are driven to help our clients succeed. We value those who embrace creativity, continuous improvement, and contribute to a culture where we win together and create and share joy in our work. Requirements: 10+ years of progressive technical experience including 5+ years in cloud infrastructure or platform engineering leadership; Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related discipline (or equivalent work experience) 5+ years of hands-on production AWS at scale in a multi-account landing zone, with 4+ years of authoring production Terraform in a private module ecosystem delivered through Terraform Cloud and GitHub Actions 5+ years experience operating as a senior individual contributor (Principal Engineer or equivalent), influencing technical direction across multiple teams without direct authority — including hiring-loop technical interviewing, architecture review participation, and technical mentorship of staff and senior engineers Experience leading and personally participating in 24x7 production on-call rotations in a fast-paced, security-conscious, regulated environment (financial services strongly preferred) Core Competencies: Strong systems-thinking across security, networking, finance, and developer experience — chooses the change that improves all four Strategic communicator: equally credible with engineers in a code review and with executives in an ARB Player-coach who is comfortable in code reviews, architecture sessions, and people 1:1s in the same day Continuous learner, especially in cloud-native, IaC, platform engineering, and applied AI Sets vision and translates ambiguous strategy into executable engineering roadmaps Bias for self-service, automation, and reducing toil for downstream internal customers Builds high-trust relationships across the US and India organization and across functions (Architecture, Security, FinOps, Application Engineering, Network, Audit) Calm, decisive incident commander; fosters a strong post-incident learning culture Excellent written and verbal communication, executive presence, and ability to influence without direct authority Thrives in matrixed, fast-paced, regulated environments with imperfect information Preferences: Experience leading the engineering response to a major regulatory or audit event in a financial-services or otherwise regulated firm Experience defining and rolling out an enterprise platform engineering operating model (Team Topologies, paved roads, golden paths) Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or MBA Experience building, scaling, or leading globally distributed engineering teams across the US and India / GCC Experience integrating agentic AI / GenAI tooling (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, Bedrock, MCP) into platform, IaC, and engineering practice Strong scripting / programming proficiency in Python, Bash, or PowerShell AWS Solutions Architect - Professional AWS Certified Generative AI Developer - Associate HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate (004) or Authoring & Operations Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Open-source contributions, public technical writing, or conference speaking on cloud, IaC, or platform engineering topics Experience with Backstage or another Internal Developer Platform (IDP) Experience with FinOps practices and cloud cost management at scale Pay Range: $149,350.00 - $248,848.00 Actual base salary varies based on factors, including but not limited to, relevant skill, prior experience, education, base salary of internal peers, demonstrated performance, and geographic location. Additionally, LPL Total Rewards package is highly competitive, designed to support your success at work, at home, and at play – such as 401K matching, health benefits, employee stock options, paid time off, volunteer time off, and more. Your recruiter will be happy to discuss all that LPL has to offer! Company Overview: LPL Financial Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: LPLA) is among the fastest growing wealth management firms in the U.S. As a leader in the financial advisor-mediated marketplace(6) , LPL supports over 32,000 financial advisors and the wealth management practices of approximately 1,100 financial institutions, servicing and custodying approximately $2.3 trillion in brokerage and advisory assets on behalf of approximately 8 million Americans. The firm provides a wide range of advisor affiliation models, investment solutions, fintech tools and practice management services, ensuring that advisors and institutions have the flexibility to choose the business model, services, and technology resources they need to run thriving businesses. For further information about LPL, please visit At LPL, independence means that advisors and institution leaders have the freedom they deserve to choose the business model, services, and technology resources that allow them to run a thriving business. They have the flexibility to do business their way. And they have the freedom to manage their client relationships, because they know their clients best. Simply put, we take care of our advisors and institutions, so they can take care of their clients. For further information about LPL, please visit Join the LPL team and help us make a difference by turning life’s aspirations into financial realities. Please log in or create an account to apply to this position. Principals only. EOE. Information on Interviews: LPL will only communicate with a job applicant directly from an @lplfinancial.com email address and will never conduct an interview online or in a chatroom forum. During an interview, LPL will not request any form of payment from the applicant, or information regarding an applicant’s bank or credit card. Should you have any questions regarding the application process, please contact LPL’s Human Resources Solutions Center at View phone number on click.appcast.io. EAC 5.19.26 LPL Financial is the nation’s largest independent broker-dealer.* Our company is widely known for its financial strength, exceptional service, and favorable industry reputation among financial professionals. To understand who we are, it’s important to know our core belief: financial guidance is a fundamental need for everyone. LPL Financial creates the space to let you do what you do best – create personal, long-term client relationships that turn financial aspirations into realities. Each year, thousands of financial professionals successfully manage billions of dollars in assets. Because our company is not too big and not too small, you can seize the opportunity to make a real impact. To learn more about our organization visit our About LPL page. * As reported by Financial Planning magazine, June 1996-2019, based on total revenue. Want to learn more about the benefits of working at LPL? Check out the links below! We Are LPL Benefits Culture Social Responsibility