Cloud Architect, Senior Staff

Qualcomm IT is seeking a Sr. Staff Cloud Architect to own the strategy, architecture, and execution of ourGitOps-driven platform engineering capabilities. You will serve as a technical authority and organizational multiplier, setting the direction for ourEKS platform today while building the foundation for future multi-cloud expansion. This is a high-impact, high-autonomy role for an IT architect who operates at the intersection of deep technical expertise and broad organizational leadership. 

This role requires full-time onsite work in San Diego, CA (5 days per week).

**This role is not eligible for Qualcomm immigration sponsorship.

What You Will Own:

•Platform Strategy & Architecture: Define and drive the multi-year platform roadmap acrossEKS maturation and multi-cloud expansion; establish scalable platform patterns for multi-tenant environments including cluster lifecycle, upgrade strategies, and operational readiness; co-own architectural governance as a peer to others in IT. 

•Infrastructure as Code: Own theTerraform platform strategy across module design, state management, multi-environment patterns, and IaC governance; establish reference implementations and guardrails that enable distributed engineering teams to deliver infrastructure consistently and safely at scale. 

•Kubernetes Platform Engineering (EKS): Own end-to-end cluster provisioning and lifecycle management including autoscaling withKarpenter, add-on lifecycle management, and cluster upgrade and rollout strategies; establish organizational standards for cluster operations that scale across multiple teams and environments. 

•GitOps & CI/CD Operating Model: Establish and own the enterpriseGitOps operating model usingArgo CD as the primary continuous delivery platform; define multi-environment promotion strategies, deployment guardrails, and auditable delivery pipelines; extendGitOps standards across multiple application and platform teams usingGitHub Actions for CI/CD orchestration. 

•Reliability, Observability & Cost: Own platform reliability and cost efficiency strategy; drive observability standards usingDatadog andPrometheus/Grafana including dashboards, alerting, and SLO frameworks that measurably improve operational outcomes. 

•Security & Policy: Define secure-by-default platform patterns and own policy enforcement usingKyverno andCilium; serve as the technical authority partnering with security stakeholders on controls, exceptions, and governance. 

•Organizational Leadership & Communication: Communicate platform strategy, investment rationale, and operational health to senior IT leadership; represent platform engineering in architecture reviews and cross-organizational forums; build alignment across platform, security, and application teams without direct authority. 

•Technology Evaluation & Innovation: Lead structured build vs. buy assessments and proactively evaluate emerging platform technologies across theCNCF landscape; ensure the platform strategy remains forward-looking through disciplined evaluation of open-source projects, vendor capabilities, and multi-cloud control plane developments. 

•Technical Talent Development: Mentor senior and staff engineers; shape hiring bar standards; establish communities of practice that raise the platform engineering capability across the Qualcomm enterprise. 

•Operational Excellence: Own the on-call model, runbook standards, and incident response practices; lead high-severity incident resolution and long-term corrective action planning. On-call participation is required, including potential 24/7 coverage.

Minimum Qualifications:

•10+ years of IT-related experience with abachelor’s degreein computer science, Applied Mathematics, or EngineeringOR 14+ years without, with clear progression from technical execution to organizational technical leadership 

•5+ years operating Kubernetes at enterprise scale; deepEKS expertise required including multi-tenant architecture and cluster lifecycle ownership 

• AdvancedTerraform expertise including module strategy, state management, and multi-environment governance 

• Strong CI/CD fundamentals usingGitHub Actions or similar experience to build pipelines integrating building, linting, testing,DevSecOps, andArgo CD integration 

• AdvancedAWS expertise across networking, IAM, and theEKS ecosystem in complex enterprise environments 

• Proven track record driving cross-organizational technical strategy and influencing senior stakeholders without direct authority 

• StrongLinux and distributed systems troubleshooting skills across Kubernetes, networking, andAWS 

• Experience withHelm/Kustomize, Kubernetes networking fundamentals, andCilium 

• Clear written and verbal communication skills across both engineering and executive audiences 

• Platform product thinking, treating developer experience as a product with measurable outcomes 

Highly Desired:

• Kubernetes certifications (CKA/CKAD/CKS) and/orAWS Solutions Architect Professional / DevOps Engineer Professional 

• Experience withKarpenter cost optimization,Kyverno policy-at-scale, andCrossplane concepts 

• Demonstrated success building self-service "paved road" platform capabilities at scale