Principal Cloud Engineer Data & AI

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Principal Cloud Engineer - Data & AI
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Equinix
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Principal Cloud Engineer - Data & AI
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Equinix
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Who are we?
Equinix is the world’s digital infrastructure company, operating over 260 data centersacross the globe.

Digital leaders harness Equinix's trusted platform to bring together and interconnect foundational infrastructure at software speed.

Equinix enables organizations to access all the right places, partners and possibilities to scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value, while supporting their sustainability goals.


Who are we?
Equinix is the world’s digital infrastructure company, operating over 260 data centersacross the globe.

Digital leaders harness Equinix's trusted platform to bring together and interconnect foundational infrastructure at software speed.

Equinix enables organizations to access all the right places, partners and possibilities to scale with agility, speed the launch of digital services, deliver world-class experiences and multiply their value, while supporting their sustainability goals.


Our culture is based on collaboration and the growth and development of our teams.

We hire hardworking people who thrive on solvingchallengingproblems and give them opportunities to hone new skills and try new approaches, as we grow our product portfolio with new software and network architecture solutions.

We embrace diversity in thought and contribution and are committed to providingan equitable work environment that is foundational to our core values as a company and is vital to our success.


Job Summary
We’re looking for a Principal Cloud Engineer with a strong foundation in Multi-Cloud & multi region deployment, data architecture, distributed systems, and modern cloud-native platforms to architect, build, and maintain intelligent infrastructure and systems that power our AI, GenAI and data-intensive workloads.


You’ll work closely with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, ML & software engineers, and product managers & play a key role in designing a highly scalable platform to manage the lifecycle of data pipelines, APIs, real-time streaming, and agentic GenAI workflows, while enabling federated data architectures.

The ideal candidate will have a strong background in building and maintaining scalable AI & Data Platform, optimizing workflows, and ensuring the reliability and performance of Data Platform systems.


Responsibilities
Cloud Architecture & Engineering
Deep expertise in designing, implementing, and managing architectures across multiple cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP)
Proven experience in architecting hybrid and multi-cloud solutions, including interconnectivity, security, workload placement, and DR strategies
Strong knowledge of cloud-native services (e.g., serverless, containers, managed databases, storage, networking)
Experience with enterprise-grade IAM, security controls, and compliance frameworks across cloud environments
AI & GenAI Platform Integration
Integrate LLM APIs (OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, etc.) into platform workflows for intelligent automation and enhanced user experience
Build and orchestrate multi-agent systems using frameworks like CrewAI, LangGraph, or AutoGen for use cases such as pipeline debugging, code generation, and MLOps
Experience in developing and integrating GenAI applications using MCP and orchestration of LLM-powered workflows (e.g., summarization, document Q&A, chatbot assistants, and intelligent data exploration)
Hands-on expertise building and optimizing vector search and RAG pipelines using tools like Weaviate, Pinecone, or FAISS to support embedding-based retrieval and real-time semantic search across structured and unstructured datasets
Engineering Enablement
Create extensible CLIs, SDKs, and blueprints to simplify onboarding, accelerate development, and standardize best practices
Streamline onboarding, documentation, and platform implementation & support using GenAI and conversational interfaces
Collaborate across teams to enforce cost, reliability, and security standards within platform blueprints.


Work with engineering by introducing platform enhancements, observability, and cost optimization techniques
Foster a culture of ownership, continuous learning, and innovation
Automation, IaC, CI/CD
Mastery of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools — especially Terraform, Terragrunt, and CloudFormation / ARM / Deployment Manager
Experience building and managing cloud automation frameworks (e.g., using Python, Go, or Bash for orchestration and tooling)
Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions) for cloud resource deployments
Expertise in implementing policy-as-code & Compliance-as-code (e.g., Open Policy Agent, Sentinel)
Security, Governance & Cost
Strong background in implementing cloud security best practices (network segmentation, encryption, secrets management, key management, etc.).


Experience with multi-account / multi-subscription / multi-project governance models, including landing zones, service control policies, and organizational structures
Ability to design for cost optimization, tagging strategies, and usage monitoring across cloud providers
Monitoring & Operations
Familiarity with cloud monitoring, logging, and observability tools (e.g., CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, GCP Operations Suite, Datadog, Prometheus)
Experience with incident management and building self-healing cloud architectures
Platform & Cloud Engineering
Develop and maintain real-time and batch data pipelines using tools like Airflow, dbt, Dataform, and Dataflow/Spark
Design and develop event-driven architectures using Apache Kafka, Google Pub/Sub, or equivalent messaging systems
Build and expose high-performance data APIs and microservices to support downstream applications, ML workflows, and GenAI agents
Architect and manage multi-cloud and hybrid cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS, Azure) optimized for AI, ML, and real-time data processing workloads
Build reusable frameworks and infrastructure-as-code (IaC) using Terraform, Kubernetes, and CI/CD to drive self-service and automation
Ensure platform scalability, resilience, and cost efficiency through modern practices like GitOps, observability, and chaos engineering
Leadership & Collaboration
Experience leading cloud architecture reviews, defining standards, and mentoring engineering teams
Ability to work cross-functionally with security, networking, application, and data teams to deliver integrated cloud solutions
Strong communication skills to engage stakeholders at various levels, from engineering to executives
Qualifications
15+ years of hands-on experience in Platform or Data Engineering, Cloud Architecture, Multi-Cloud Multi-Region Deployment & Architecture, AI Engineering roles
Strong programming background in Java, Python, SQL, and one or more general-purpose languages
Deep knowledge of data modeling, distributed systems, and API design in production environments
Proficiency in designing and managing Kubernetes, serverless workloads, and streaming systems (Kafka, Pub/Sub, Flink, Spark)
Experience with metadata management, data catalogs, data quality enforcement, and semantic modeling & automated integration with Data Platform
Proven experience building scalable, efficient data pipelines for structured and unstructured data
Experience with GenAI/LLM frameworks and tools for orchestration and workflow automation
Experience with RAG pipelines, vector databases, and embedding-based search
Familiarity with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry) and strong debugging skills across the stack
Experience with ML Platforms (MLFlow, Vertex AI, Kubeflow) and AI/ML observability tools
Prior implementation of data mesh or data fabric in a large-scale enterprise
Experience with Looker Modeler, LookML, or semantic modeling layers
Preferred Certifications
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Professional
Google Professional Cloud Architect
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate
Other relevant certifications (CKA, CKS, CISSP cloud concentration) are a plus.


Why You’ll Love This Role
Drive technical leadership across AI-native data platforms, automation systems, and self-service tools
Collaborate across teams to shape the next generation of intelligent platforms in the enterprise
Work with a high-energy, mission-driven team that embraces innovation, open-source, and experimentation
Equinix is committed to ensuring that our employment process is open to all individuals, including those with a disability.

If you are a qualified candidate and need assistance or an accommodation, please let us know by completing this form.


Equinix is an Equal Employment Opportunity and, in the U.S., an Affirmative Action employer.

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to unlawful consideration of race, color, religion, creed, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, place of birth, citizenship, sex, pregnancy / childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic partnership status, age, veteran or military status, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, political / organizational affiliation, status as a victim or family member of a victim of crime or abuse, or any other status protected by applicable law.


Seniority level
Seniority level Mid-Senior level
Employment type
Employment type Full-time
Job function
Job function Engineering and Information Technology
Industries Internet Publishing
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