Senior AWS Cloud Security Engineer

Vertical Relevance is seeking a Senior AWS Cloud Security Consultant to help design remotely and enforce enterprise cloud security controls within a highly regulated environment. This role sits at the intersection of cloud security architecture, policy engineering, and AWS governance, with a primary focus on preventing data exfiltration through policy-as-code, data perimeter controls, and proactive threat modeling.

You will evaluate AWS services before they are introduced into production environments, identify potential security risks at the API and configuration level, and implement preventive controls using AWS Organizations policies, IAM guardrails, and Rego-based policy frameworks.

This is an opportunity to work on complex cloud security challenges supporting critical business platforms where security, compliance, and operational rigor are non-negotiable.

Key Responsibilities • 8+ years of cloud engineering, cloud security, or infrastructure security experience.

• Deep expertise in AWS security architecture and governance.
• Demonstrated experience performing API-level threat modeling for AWS services.
• Strong hands-on experience with:• Open Policy Agent (OPA)
• Rego policy development
• Policy testing and validation

• Advanced knowledge of:• AWS IAM
• AWS Organizations
• SCPs and RCPs
• Data perimeter architecture

• Experience designing least-privilege access models in regulated environments.
• Strong understanding of cloud security controls, compliance requirements, and enterprise governance frameworks.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with Kivera.io, Cloudflare One, or similar cloud API policy enforcement platforms.
• Experience with Regal policy linting and OPA coverage reporting.
• Infrastructure-as-Code expertise using Terraform.
• CI/CD experience with:• GitHub Actions
• OIDC federation
• Policy validation pipelines
• Approval-based deployment models

• Experience with:• Checkov
• Conftest
• Policy Sentry
• Cloudsplaining

• Strong AWS observability experience using:• CloudWatch
• CloudTrail
• VPC Flow Logs

• Amazon EKS security and governance experience.
• Experience working directly with AWS Support and Technical Account Managers.
• Financial services, banking, capital markets, or other highly regulated industry experience.

Technical Environment

• AWS Organizations with SCP and RCP governance
• Open Policy Agent (OPA)
• Rego policy language
• Kivera.io policy enforcement platform
• Cloudflare One
• Terraform
• GitHub Actions
• CloudWatch
• CloudTrail
• VPC Flow Logs
• Amazon EKS
• Enterprise Data Perimeter Architecture

About Vertical RelevanceVertical Relevance was founded to help business leaders drive value through the design and delivery of effective transformation programs across people, processes, and systems. Our mission is to help firms at any stage of their journey develop custom solutions for success and growth. We provide a full range of services from strategy and design through to implementation and training. Our collective industry expertise is our greatest asset - our professionals have an average of 20+ years’ experience within Financial Services, across Wealth Management, Asset Management, Insurance, and Banking. Within our Customer Experience practice, we add complementary industry expertise (technology and media) synergizing the most relevant and successful customer trends. We focus wholly on your success by first rigorously assessing your business and technology challenges, and then right-sizing solutions that provide a meaningful ROI. With our industry experts hitting the ground running and focusing on nimble, quality delivery, we can see rapid, tangible improvements with our clients in productivity and effectiveness. When it makes sense for your company, we leverage our product partnerships in the areas of CRM, Sales Acceleration, Predictive Analytics, Digital Knowledge Management, and Cloud Transformation.