Principal Engineer Cloud Automation and Standards
Syneos Health
This listing was originally posted on Syneos Health's careers page. Formulate is an equal opportunity job aggregator and is not involved in the hiring process. Where salary information is estimated, it is derived from BLS industry benchmarks and may differ from actual compensation.
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Upgrade to Pro — $25/moSyneos Health® is a leading fully-integrated life sciences services organization built to accelerate customer success. We partner with innovators at every point across the drug development and commercialization continuum, helping them navigate complexity, anticipate change and accelerate progress.
Every day we perform better because of how we work together, as one team, each the best at what we do. We bring together talented experts across a broad spectrum of business critical corporate functions. Every role plays an essential part in enabling our customers to achieve their goals. Our teams are agile, collaborative, and committed to delivering—for each other, for our customers, and ultimately for the people who rely on the services we support.
Discover what your 25,000 future colleagues already know:
Why Syneos Health
• We are passionate about developing our people, through career development and progression; supportive and engaged line management; technical and therapeutic area training; peer recognition and total rewards program.
• We are committed to building an inclusive culture – where you can authentically be yourself. Central to this is our purpose – Driven to Deliver – which captures the passion of our colleagues to show up each day and shape solutions that have the ability to dramatically impact someone’s life.
• We are continuously building the company we all want to work for and our customers want to work with. Why? Because we know that when we bring together smart colleagues from across the world, we can shape the future of healthcare, driving impact for customers and defining the pace of patient progress.
Job Responsibilities
Job Summary
The Principal Engineer provides technical leadership for delivering standardized, compliant, and scalable infrastructure foundations (IaaS) through automation, operating as a predictable internal service provider. This role owns infrastructure standards and configurations, base images, capacity and quota management, lifecycle and patching execution, and integration with foundational services such as network, DNS/Infoblox, storage (NetApp), and identity. The Principal Engineer establishes and enforces infrastructure-as-code standards, image factory and lifecycle automation, and cloud-native quota/capacity modeling to ensure repeatable provisioning and operational rigor. Operating within guardrails that prohibit bespoke builds, the role drives an automation-first mindset and implements controls that prevent manual variance so all consumption flows through approved patterns defined by Architecture and Engineering.
Core Responsibilities
Own and evolve standardized infrastructure foundation patterns, configurations, and base images for Windows and Linux platforms.
Build and operate an automation-first provisioning model, ensuring all consumption flows through approved patterns and engineering-defined pipelines (no bespoke/manual builds).
Define and enforce infrastructure-as-code standards, modules, and guardrails to enable repeatable, compliant deployments at scale.
Design and run an “image factory” capability, including automated build, validation, hardening, versioning, and publishing of golden images.
Lead patching, lifecycle, and baseline compliance for foundational infrastructure services, with measurable SLAs/SLOs and audit-ready evidence.
Own capacity management and cloud-native quota modeling (forecasting, trend analysis, thresholds, and lifecycle plans) to ensure predictable supply.
Engineer and maintain network and name services integration, including DNS and Infoblox, ensuring secure and resilient connectivity patterns.
Integrate and operate storage foundations (e.g., NetApp), including standard configurations, access patterns, and lifecycle controls.
Implement identity integration and access patterns that align with enterprise security requirements and platform standards.
Establish controls to eliminate manual variance (policy/validation checks, automated drift detection, and remediation workflows).
Troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues across compute, network, storage, and identity; drive root-cause analysis and continuous improvement through operational rigor.
Apply standards across Azure, GCP, AWS and OCI
Additional Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience); advanced degree preferred.
Senior-level experience in infrastructure engineering or solution architecture, with strong emphasis on standardized IaaS foundations and automation in Azure, GCP, AWS and OCI (or comparable cloud environments).
Strong Windows and Linux administration skills, including patching, baseline hardening, and lifecycle management.
Demonstrated expertise with core infrastructure services: networking, SSL, DNS, and Infoblox (or equivalent IPAM/DNS tooling).
Experience with enterprise storage platforms (e.g., NetApp) and standardized storage/access patterns.
Proven ability to integrate identity and access patterns with enterprise directory and security standards.
Hands-on experience building automation and IaC standards (e.g., Terraform/Bicep/ARM), including reusable modules, guardrails, and policy-based controls.
Experience implementing image factory pipelines (build, validation, publishing) and controls that prevent manual variance/drift in builds.
Strong operational rigor: incident/problem management, root-cause analysis, documentation, and measurable service outcomes (SLA/SLO).
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence stakeholders and align engineering teams to approved patterns and guardrails.
Years of experience required
Minimum of 8 years of Cloud Engineering experience
Get to know Syneos Health
Over the past 5 years, we have worked with 94% of all Novel FDA Approved Drugs, 95% of EMA Authorized Products and over 200 Studies across 73,000 Sites and 675,000+ Trial patients.
No matter what your role is, you’ll take the initiative and challenge the status quo with us in a highly competitive and ever-changing environment. Learn more about Syneos Health.
Additional Information
Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive. The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities. Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above. Further, nothing contained herein should be construed to create an employment contract. Occasionally, required skills/experiences for jobs are expressed in brief terms. Any language contained herein is intended to fully comply with all obligations imposed by the legislation of each country in which it operates, including the implementation of the EU Equality Directive, in relation to the recruitment and employment of its employees. The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.
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