AWS Cloud Engineer
Strategic Staffing Solutions · McLean, VA
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Jul 19, 2026
McLean, VA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A contract role focused on keeping a third-party application running reliably in AWS, rather than building new systems. Day-to-day work covers production support, vulnerability remediation, secrets and certificate management, IaC and Chef cookbook maintenance, and monitoring via CloudWatch and New Relic. Suits an operations- or DevOps-oriented engineer comfortable in regulated enterprise environments and hybrid Agile/ops workflows.
Senior level · Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV · Contract
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 120 people in the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 25–190
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $158,337 (middle half $126,441–$180,105).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
This role sits between a DevOps/SRE software developer (15-1252) and a systems/cloud operations administrator (15-1244). The emphasis on maintaining production stability, IaC, Chef cookbooks, and scripting in PowerShell/Python tips it toward 15-1252, but the heavy operational/support framing (patching, vulnerability remediation, monitoring) makes 15-1244 a credible runner-up.
The posting lists IaC as a required skill but names no specific IaC tool beyond Chef. Terraform and CloudFormation are the dominant AWS IaC tools and are listed as alternatives to reflect the open-ended 'IaC' requirement.
PowerShell and Python are listed together under Required Technical Skills with an 'and/or' framing; they are captured as a single skill with Python as an alternative since either satisfies the requirement.
Actimize, Tomcat, Oracle, and Active Directory ('Active' in the original) appear under Preferred Qualifications and are marked accordingly.
The posting specifies W2 contract only — no C2C — with a 16+ month duration. Visa sponsorship is noted as available.
No compensation range is stated in the posting.
Location is McLean, VA (preferred) or Richmond, VA, with a hybrid on-site requirement. The CBSA reflects the primary/preferred McLean, VA location (Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro).
Posting is for a contract engagement — the market benchmarks below price full-time roles, so read the comp comparison with that in mind.
Read the full posting
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