AI Cloud Engineer

AI Cloud Engineer Software Engineer (Developer) (APS6 equivalent)

Security Clearance: Must have Baseline

Opportunity Location: QLD, ACT, VIC, SA -Hybrid. The LH Worker is expected to work onsite for the first 2 weeks, before a hybrid flexible working arrangement can be considered. Required to be in the office a min of 2/3 days per week. A hybrid flexible working arrangement may then be considered, ensuring the Labour Hire Worker’s residing address is within reasonable travel time and distance of the RFQ location to present onsite in cases of emergency or to meet business requirements. The location is the capital city of selected states

Contract Period: Upto 12 Months + Max. 24 months extension

• Software Engineers have experience overseeing software development projects, writing optimised code, and provide technical leadership to a team of software engineers. They are responsible for the quality and functionality of the software produced by their team.

• The client is seeking to procure AI Cloud Engineer / Developer (APS6 equivalent) with demonstratable experience with AI on-premises platforms to play a pivotal role in delivering complex application development projects on platforms across the Technology and Digital Program (TDP) Group that align with the agency’s strategic objectives. The position requires a seasoned professional with extensive experience and expertise in AI Engineering capabilities, including AI workload migrations, deployment and operations.

• As an AI Cloud Engineer / Developer (APS6 equivalent), you will specialise in public cloud platform tooling, with the capability to design, implement, and optimise environments from new (greenfield) implementations as well as enhance existing setups (brownfield). This role is focused on applying secure-by-design architectures, incorporating reusable patterns and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to deliver scalable, compliant solutions in line with APS frameworks and regulations.

• You will collaborate with Data Scientists, Architecture, Cyber Security, and Core data teams in the group to establish foundational platform capability and frameworks, enforce governance, and apply best practices across networking and resource management in your primary platform.

• The AI Cloud Engineer / Developer (APS6 equivalent) is expected to operate with a significant degree of independence with a high level of autonomy, while also maintaining close working relationships with key stakeholders and strict adherence to agency processes and procedures.

• In performing the role, the candidate will be required to identify and drive innovation, manage and lead change, and has an active role in contributing to and implementing the agency’s strategic direction with decision-making and advice to others highly dependent on their own judgement.

• The AI Cloud Engineer / Developer (APS6 equivalent) is vital in ensuring that the client effectively leverages technology to enhance service delivery and meet the needs of the community

• Develop, describe present and influence outcomes and/or findings across various forums.

• Excellent problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills in a collaborative environment.

Key duties and responsibilities

Duties may include some or all of the following:

• create software and technical designs for the realisation of complex development solutions

• develop high-quality code and long-term maintenance of a product's code base

• provide technical advice on software development and maintenance

• provide go-live support and maintenance for complex developments

• perform a range of analysis, design, software development, prototyping, unit testing and maintenance activities

• undertake analysis of technical requirements to support project evaluation with proposed solutions

• ensure compliance with endorsed software development methodologies

• identify, investigate, and resolve complex ICT issues

• assess, communicate, monitor, and control risk

• develop team plans and goals

• prepare draft reports and corporate documentation

• manage and prioritise own and others' workloads to meet business objectives in specified timeframes

• develop and deliver on projects within the assigned area of responsibility

• perform cost analysis activities as required

• act with integrity by promoting workplace practices aligned with the APS Values and the APS Code of Conduct

• exercise appropriate delegation in accordance with legislations and guidelines.

Technical Skills:

• 5+ years of hands-on experience as an AI Engineer, including solution design, implementation and operation of greenfield and brownfield AI/ML environments across on-premises, public cloud and hybrid platforms.

• Experience in Kubernetes including namespaces, RBAC, operators, CRDs, deployments, services, ingress/routes, secrets, config maps, workbenches, custom images, AI Pipelines/Kubeflow, model registry, model catalogue, model serving, distributed workloads and monitoring.

• Experience in containers and platform engineering, including Docker/Podman, container image creation, registries, image scanning, vulnerability management, container security and secure software supply chain practices.

• Experience in Linux administration, networking and storage, including DNS, TLS, proxies, load balancing, ingress, firewall concepts, certificates, scripting and connectivity between on-premises and cloud environments.

• Experience in DevOps, CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code, including Git, GitLab/GitHub/Azure DevOps, Tekton, GitOps/Argo CD, Terraform and/or Ansible, and automated build, test and deployment pipelines.

• Experience in Python and scripting for automation, AI/ML integration, APIs, platform tooling and operational support.

• Experience in AI/ML engineering and MLOps, including model lifecycle management, training, inference, evaluation, registration, deployment, monitoring, model optimisation and automated model build-and-release processes.

• Experience in LLM and Generative AI tooling, including vLLM/TGI or equivalent, Hugging Face, LLM APIs, embeddings, Retrieval-Augmented Generation, vector databases, prompt/evaluation tooling, AI agents and foundation models.

• Experience in APIs and enterprise integration, including REST APIs, authentication, OAuth/OIDC, API gateways, service-to-service integration, streaming platforms, data lakes and feature stores.

• Experience in cloud platforms and cloud AI services, including practical experience in at least one of AWS, or Azure, and preferably two, with exposure to SageMaker or Azure AI/ML.

• Experience in object storage and data management for pipelines, models and datasets.

• Experience in observability and operational monitoring, including AWS CloudWatch or Azure Application Insights, logs, metrics, tracing and model/application monitoring.

• Experience in security, governance and compliance, including RBAC, secrets, certificates, network policies, vulnerability scanning, DevSecOps, data sovereignty, security classifications, privacy obligations and Australian Government regulatory requirements.

• Experience applying FinOps practices, including cost transparency, usage optimisation and financial governance for cloud and AI workloads.

• Experience applying architecture principles and enterprise technologies to translate complex technical requirements into scalable, sustainable and supportable solutions.

• Proven ability to articulate complex technical concepts clearly, facilitate stakeholder discussions and drive consensus on alignment with project and organisational goals.

NOTE- Qualifications in AI, Information Technology, Computer Science or other relevant disciplines would be highly regarded.