Cloud Platforms Technical Lead

Acknowledgement of Country

CSIRO acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land, sea and waters, of the area that we live and work on across Australia. We acknowledge their continuing connection to their culture and pay our respects to their Elders past and present. View our vision towards reconciliation.

Role highlights

• Lead CSIRO’s cloud strategy across AWS, Azure & Google Cloud Platform
• Drive secure, scalable & cost-effective cloud services that power world-class research
• Lead a high-performing DevOps team & shape the future of cloud innovation at CSIRO

About CSIRO

As Australia's national science agency, CSIRO is solving the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. Many of our iconic innovations were once considered impossible until someone, just like you, joined us and took on the challenge.

Visit CSIRO.au for more information.

The opportunity

Joining CSIRO as our Cloud Platforms Technical Lead offers a rare opportunity to architect the cloud foundation that powers groundbreaking scientific research and enterprise operations at Australia’s national science agency. As the senior technical authority for the Cloud Platforms Team, you will help shape the overarching technical vision and multi-cloud roadmap across AWS, Azure and GCP to accelerate real-world scientific discovery. Partnering closely with the Team Lead, you will lead proof-of-concept initiatives for emerging technologies and set the standards for security, resilience, and DevOps automation across both research and enterprise environments.

Balancing high-level strategy with hands-on engineering, you will solve complex architectural challenges while elevating our engineering culture through dedicated mentorship and cross-disciplinary collaboration. If you want your technical leadership to directly empower the research solving Australia’s greatest challenges, this is your platform to make a lasting impact.

High-level duties include:

• Provide leadership and direction to the Cloud Platforms team, ensuring high-quality delivery of CSIRO’s enterprise and research cloud services across AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform.
• Manage the technical aspects of CSIRO’s cloud platform capability, including responsibility for technical roadmaps, service maturity uplift, automation adoption, and alignment with CSIRO’s strategic technology direction.
• Allocate and coordinate cloud engineering resources to support operational stability, project delivery, and capability uplift across research and enterprise platforms.
• Drive adoption of cloud-native patterns, Infrastructure-as-Code, CI/CD pipelines, containerisation, and automated operational processes to improve reliability, scalability and efficiency.
• Lead cloud security uplift in line with Australian Government ISM controls, working with the Cyber Security team to maintain continuous compliance, robust identity models, and appropriate risk management.
• Oversee cloud cost optimisation activities including FinOps practices, tagging standards, spend forecasting, reserved instance planning, and workload rightsizing.

Role particulars

Location and office arrangements: Melbourne, Perth, Canberra, other Australian cities with CSIRO sites considered

Salary: AU$135,571 - AU$158,863 per annum, plus 15.4% superannuation

Tenure & work schedule: Indefinite

Reference: 104107

As the successful candidate, you will bring:

Essential criteria

• Demonstrated experience leading cloud engineering or DevOps teams in a complex, multi cloud environment.
• Deep technical expertise across AWS, Azure, and/or GCP, including architecture, security controls, automation, and operational best practice.
• Strong understanding of cloud-native technologies (IaC, CI/CD, containers, Kubernetes, observability stacks, API-driven automation).
• Proven ability to set strategic direction, lead complex technical programs, and deliver large scale platform capability uplift.
• Strong experience in cloud security, governance frameworks, identity management, and compliance obligations (including ISM).
• Demonstrated experience with cloud financial optimisation and cost governance models.
• Excellent stakeholder engagement, communication, and vendor management skills.

Desirable

• Cloud certifications (AWS Solutions Architect, Azure Architect Expert, GCP Professional Cloud Architect).
• Experience enabling cloud support for research workloads, data-intensive science, or HPC through-cloud.
• Understanding of FinOps practices and cloud budgeting cycles in large organisations.
• Experience working within government, research, or regulated environments.

For full details about this role, and other criteria, please review the Position Description.

Not sure if you meet all the criteria?

While it is CSIRO policy that the successful candidate must meet all the essential criteria, there are many ways to demonstrate this. Don’t let the list discourage you. If you are unsure about applying, please reach out to the contact person in the Position Description.

Setting you up for success

We are committed to providing a recruitment process that is fair, equitable and accessible to everyone. We recognise that it may be helpful for us to adjust our process to make it equitable for your individual situation. Please contact [email protected] and let us know how we can support you.

Life at CSIRO and flexible work arrangements

We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work. We can discuss flexible work arrangements with you during the recruitment process. CSIRO also offers a range of leave entitlements, benefits and career development opportunities. To find out more, visit Careers at CSIRO.

Inclusion and belonging

Solving Australia's greatest challenges takes a diversity of minds and lived experiences. We know diverse teams are more effective and deliver more innovative outcomes. As an equal employment opportunity organisation, we are committed to creating diverse and inclusive teams where people feel they belong. We recognise true diversity encompasses all ages, abilities, cultures, faiths, levels of education, genders, sexualities, diversity of thought and much more. We focus on hiring people who share our values of People First, Further Together, Making it Real and Trusted.

CSIRO holds Platinum Status for the Australian Workplace Equality Index for LGBTQIA+ inclusion, and a Science in Australia Gender Equity Bronze Award.

Eligibility

This is a security assessed position, applications for this position are open to Australian Citizens only with the successful candidate being required to be able to obtain and maintain a security clearance at the Negative Vetting level 1. Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.

Child safety

CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs. View our Child Safe Policy.

How to apply

Please apply online and submit a cover letter (maximum 2 pages) and CV that demonstrate your motivation and ability to meet the essential requirements of this role.

Applications close

Sunday 1st of November, 11pm AEDT