Senior Cloud Architect (AWS/AI)

Location: US - Remote

Salary: $110,000–$151,000 USD per year

Company

Robots & Pencils is an applied AI engineering firm that designs and ships AI co-workers and cloud applications for enterprise clients across multiple industries.

What you will do

• Design cloud-native applications on AWS, including service boundaries, API contracts, data flows, microservices, serverless functions, containers, and managed compute.
• Implement event-driven patterns, asynchronous messaging, APIs, and API gateways across REST, GraphQL, and gRPC.
• Support infrastructure as code and CI/CD pipelines for repeatable, safe deployments.
• Implement observability, scalability, resilience, security, and cost practices using AWS Well-Architected principles.
• Build and integrate AI and LLM services, including RAG and inference workflows, using AI-forward development tools such as Claude and Cursor.
• Collaborate with engineering, data, AI, and product teams; document architecture, participate in reviews, own system components, contribute to standards, and mentor junior engineers.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including hands-on design of cloud-native applications.
• Working knowledge of a cloud platform and cloud-native application patterns; AWS is preferred.
• Proficiency in at least one backend language and familiarity with another, such as Python, TypeScript, Java, or Go.
• Experience building microservices, serverless functions, and event-driven systems.
• Familiarity with containers and orchestration.
• Experience designing and consuming REST, GraphQL, or gRPC APIs and working with API gateways.
• Working knowledge of infrastructure as code and CI/CD, plus familiarity with observability, scalability, and resilience practices.
• Understanding of cloud security, identity, and access management fundamentals.
• Experience integrating AI or LLM services into applications, including RAG or inference patterns.
• Demonstrable day-to-day use of AI-forward tools such as Claude and Cursor, with strong problem-solving skills and sound judgment in ambiguous technical situations.

Nice to have

• CMS integration experience with localized site builds and content migration, including hands-on exposure to SurfOS.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote role for US-based employees working in a delivery-embedded, cross-functional environment.
• Culture emphasizes ownership, direct communication, craftsmanship, continuous learning, and resourcefulness under budget, timeline, or team constraints.
• Teams average 15+ years of experience and collaborate across delivery centers in Canada, the United States, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.
• Benefits include paid time off, medical, dental and vision insurance, and a 401(k) for eligible employees.
• Employment may be conditional on a background check in accordance with local legislation.