Principal Cloud Solutions Architect

Posted Monday, December 22, 2025 at 5:00 AM | Expires Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 4:59 AM

Dayforce is a global human capital management (HCM) company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, with operations across North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA), and the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region.

Our award-winning Cloud HCM platform offers a unified solution database and continuous calculation engine, driving efficiency, productivity and compliance for the global workforce.

Our brand promise - Makes Work Life Better ™ - Reflects our commitment to employees, customers, partners and communities globally.

About the opportunity

The Senior Cloud Solutions Architect is a technical leader who defines, builds, and governs the company’s enterprise cloud architecture—while staying close to the ground to enable and upskill platform engineering teams. This role is equal parts strategist and practitioner, driving modernization through automation, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and DevSecOps best practices across AWS and Azure.

You’ll bridge architectural vision with execution—designing scalable, secure, and cost-optimized cloud environments while mentoring engineering teams to operate and evolve them independently.

What you’ll get to do

Cloud Strategy & Architecture

- Define and maintain the Dayforce Corporate IT’s cloud architecture roadmap, standards, and patterns across AWS and Azure.

- Lead modernization efforts focused on infrastructure automation and CI/CD enablement.

- Architect solutions that balance security, performance, scalability, and cost optimization, ensuring alignment with enterprise and security standards.

- Drive consistency through reference architectures, reusable templates, and automated guardrails.

- Collaborate with Enterprise Architecture, Security, and Infrastructure teams to ensure governance and design alignment across domains.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & Automation

- Champion and implement IaC practices using Terraform, CloudFormation, and Ansible, ensuring infrastructure is fully versioned, automated, and repeatable.

- Lead the design of automated pipelines for provisioning, configuration management, and deployment across multi-environment setups.

- Define and enforce standards for GitOps, CI/CD, and automated testing of infrastructure changes.

- Introduce and maintain self-service capabilities for development and operations teams through IaC modules and templates.

- Review and optimize existing scripts, configurations, and automation frameworks for performance and maintainability.

Hands‑On Enablement & Technical Leadership

- Work directly with Infrastructure Engineering and Cloud Operations teams, guiding them in applying best practices in IaC, automation, and observability.

- Provide technical training, workshops, and code reviews to upskill engineers and promote a “build-with” approach rather than “build-for.”

- Act as a hands‑on coach during the design, implementation, and troubleshooting of cloud infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines.

- Serve as a trusted advisor and mentor, helping teams balance agility and compliance in their cloud deployments.

Security, Governance & Cost Optimization

- Embed security by design—defining patterns for encryption, access control, and monitoring within IaC frameworks.

- Implement tagging standards, budgets, and automated policies to manage costs and ensure visibility across environments.

- Partner with Security and Compliance teams to align with regulatory and governance frameworks.

- Continuously evaluate new AWS and Azure services to enhance automation, reliability, and performance.

- Collaborate with product, platform, and security leaders to align infrastructure strategy with business needs.

- Partner with engineering leads to define environment requirements, deployment models, and operational standards.

- Support project delivery by providing architectural oversight and hands-on implementation as needed.

- Participate in Architecture Review Boards to guide design decisions and enforce architectural discipline.

Skills and experience we value

- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (Master’s preferred).

- AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional (required); additional Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification strongly preferred.

- 7+ years experience designing and implementing enterprise-scale cloud and infrastructure solutions, with at least 5 years hands‑on in AWS and/or Azure environments.

- Proven track record of architecting and deploying Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, AWS CloudFormation, or Ansible, with deep understanding of version control, pipelines, and automation best practices.

- Strong hands‑on experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps), integrating automated testing, security, and policy enforcement.

- Practical experience with containerization and orchestration technologies (ECS, EKS, AKS, Docker) to support scalable, resilient infrastructure designs.

- Solid background in networking, identity and access management (IAM), security-by-design principles, and cost optimization within cloud environments.

- Skilled in scripting and automation (Python, PowerShell, or Bash) for infrastructure deployment, configuration, and monitoring.

- Experienced in mentoring platform engineering and DevOps teams, driving adoption of IaC, automation, and cloud-native best practices.

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex technical topics for diverse audiences, from engineers to executives.

What’s in it for you

Dayforce is fueled by the diversity of our talented employees. We are an equal opportunity employer and consider and embrace ALL individuals and what makes them unique. We believe our employees should be happy and healthy, with peace of mind and a sense of fulfillment.

We encourage individuals to apply based on their passions.

Dayforce encourages personal and professional growth. We offer excellent time away from work programs, comprehensive wellness initiatives and recognition through competitive pay and benefits.

With a commitment to community impact, including volunteer days and our charity, Dayforce Cares we provide opportunities for you to thrive both in your career and personal life. Our focus is not just on your job but on supporting you to be the best version of yourself.

Fraudulent Recruiting

Beware of fraudulent recruiting. Legitimate Dayforce contacts will use an @dayforce.com email address. We do not request money, checks, equipment orders, or sensitive personal data during the recruitment process. If you have been asked for any of the above, or believe you have been contacted by someone posing as a Dayforce employee, please refer to our fraudulent recruiting statement found here: https://www.dayforce.com/be-aware-of-recruiting-fraud

Dayforce actively monitors all job applications to ensure authenticity. Submissions determined to be fraudulent or misleading will be declined from the recruitment process.

#J-18808-Ljbffr