If you are unable to author or read code without AI, this job is not for you.
Cynaxus is hiring a contractor AWS Engineer to provide peer code review, architecture feedback, and hands-on technical oversight across our cloud and managed-services engagements. This is not a delivery role disguised as a contractor engagement — it is structured as a focused peer-review and advisory engagement for someone who wants meaningful, high-quality work on a flexible schedule.
About the role
You will review infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CDK, CloudFormation), deployment pipelines, and AWS architecture decisions produced by our engineering teams and clients. You will catch what slipped through, ask the question that reframes the design, and document findings with enough specificity to be actionable. Engagements are paced; you will not be on-call or asked to attend daily standups. The expectation is deep review on a defined cadence, not constant availability.
What you'll do
Review IaC and deployment pipeline code for correctness, security posture, cost discipline, and architectural soundness — across services including VPC, IAM, ECS/EKS, Lambda, RDS, S3, CloudFront, and supporting tooling. Flag misconfigurations, overpermissioned IAM, drift from AWS Well-Architected principles, and patterns that look fine today but break under load or incident. Produce written review notes clear enough for a senior engineer to act on without a follow-up call. Weigh in on architecture trade-offs when the engagement lead wants a second opinion. Occasionally join a brief technical sync when the review surfaces something that warrants discussion.
What you bring
Substantial, hands-on AWS experience accumulated before AI-assisted code generation was the norm — you learned to design and build these environments the hard way, and the depth shows. You can read Terraform and CloudFormation cold, identify IAM blast-radius problems at a glance, and explain why a VPC design will cause pain two years from now.
Active AWS certifications are required, and applications without them will not be considered. Solutions Architect Professional, DevOps Engineer Professional, Security Specialty, and hands-on AWS depth in production environments. Experience with regulated workloads (HIPAA, CMMC, FedRAMP, PCI) is a meaningful differentiator. Excellent written communication — your review output is the deliverable.
Compensation
Hourly or retainer rate commensurate with senior AWS depth, plus a performance bonus tied to engagement quality and client outcomes. Flexible scheduling; no set weekly hours minimum beyond what engagements require. Full details discussed openly in the first conversation.
What we offer
Meaningful work without the overhead of a full-time role. Senior engineering and security peers across the firm. Vendor-neutral delivery — your recommendations are never shaped by what we resell. US-based, fully remote.