Manager, Technical Cloud

Oversee both AWS cloud services and our on prem VMware footprint, ensuring operational stability while shaping our long-term cloud architecture and migration road map. This position will Work closely with application teams to understand workloads and prioritize migration candidates. Collaborate with transportation operations teams to ensure uptime, reliability, and safety of critical systems. Coordinate with AWS, VMware, and consulting vendors for support and solution design.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Cloud & Infrastructure Engineering (AWS + VMware)

• Build and maintain core AWS infrastructure: accounts, VPCs, IAM, logging, monitoring, and guardrails.

• Manage VMware on prem environments (vSphere/ESXi/NSX/vSAN), ensuring high availability and reliable day-to-day operations.

• Implement secure hybrid connectivity (VPN/Direct Connect) that supports legacy applications and gradual migration.

• Support lift and shift migrations at first, while identifying opportunities for modernization over time (containers, managed database services, serverless).

• Build initial automation and IaC foundations using Terraform, CloudFormation, or similar tools Operations & Reliability.

Improve operational maturity: create runbooks, establish change management practices, and implement monitoring/alerting.

• Lead incident response for cloud and on prem environments, reducing MTTR and building longterm reliability.

• Ensure effective capacity planning for both AWS and VMware resources.

• Introduce pragmatic SRE practices appropriate for a small team (SLOs, postmortems, metrics) Security, Compliance & Risk Management.

• Partner with security teams to implement identity controls, network segmentation, encryption, and logging.

• Put into place basic governance: account structure, role-based access control, tagging, and audit readiness.

• Help the organization adopt secure cloud use from early stages, including patching, secrets management, and configuration baselines.

• Support compliance efforts relevant to transportation operations and systems (e.g., SOC 2, ISO 27001) Cost Management.

• Track and manage cloud costs at an early stage-tagging, budgeting, rightsizing-ensuring predictable growth.

• Provide guidance to leadership on cost tradeoffs and migration impacts.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related area and ten (10) years supervisory IT technical experience.

• 5+ years of cloud/virtualization engineering experience with 2+ years in a technical leadership role.

• Strong hands-on AWS experience with core services (EC2, VPC, IAM, S3, RDS, CloudWatch).

• Solid experience managing and supporting VMware environments (vSphere/ESXi, HA/DRS, storage, networking).

• Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform preferred) and scripting (Python, Bash, or PowerShell).

• Experience working in environments that are early in their cloud journey or transitioning from legacy infrastructure.

Knowledge and Skills:

• Experience in transportation, logistics, or other operationally critical industries.

• Exposure to modernization technologies (EKS, ECS, Lambda), even if not fully deployed yet.

• Familiarity with CI/CD tooling and DevOps practices.

• Builder mindset: capable of creating processes, standards, and automation from scratch.

• Strong communication skills with both engineers and non technical stakeholders.

• Practical and incremental approach to cloud migration and modernization.

• High accountability and willingness to roll up your sleeves in a small team environment.

• Successful rollout of foundational AWS infrastructure and governance.

• Uptime and stability of both cloud and on prem environments.

• On time completion of early migration milestones.

• Improved team operational maturity (documentation, monitoring, automation).

• Predictable monthly cloud spend and cost optimization progress.

• At NJ Transit you will enjoy a competitive salary and excellent benefit package:

• Comprehensive Family Health Insurance - Medical, Prescription, Dental, Vision

• Flexible Spending Account

• Life Insurance

• Paid Leave

• Tuition Assistance

• Pre-Tax Commuter Benefits Plan

• Retirement Plans

• 401(a) - Retirement plan with a 6% employer contribution

• 401(k) - Retirement saving plan with up to an 3% company match

Move forward with us! At NJ TRANSIT, you'll join us in transforming the third-largest transportation agency in North America. We are committed to delivering safe, reliable service that gets customers to their destinations on time-and we're looking to hire talented folks with a commitment to excellence to make it all possible.