Principal Cloud Architect - Cloud Finops

Title – Principal Cloud Architect

Company Summary :

As the recognized global standard for project-based businesses, Deltek delivers software and information solutions to help organizations achieve their purpose. Our market leadership stems from the work of our diverse employees who are united by a passion for learning, growing and making a difference. At Deltek, we take immense pride in creating a balanced, values-driven environment, where every employee feels included and empowered to do their best work. Our employees put our core values into action daily, creating a one-of-a-kind culture that has been recognized globally. Thanks to our incredible team, Deltek has been named one of America's Best Midsize Employers by Forbes, a Best Place to Work by Glassdoor, a Top Workplace by The Washington Post and a Best Place to Work in Asia by World HRD Congress. www.deltek.com

Business Summary :

The Deltek Global Cloud team focuses on the delivery of first-class services and solutions for our customers. We are an innovative and dynamic team that is passionate about transforming the Deltek cloud services that power our customers' project success. Our diverse, global team works cross-functionally to make an impact on the business. If you want to work in a transformational environment, where education and training are encouraged, consider Deltek as the next step in your career!

External Job Title :

Principal Cloud Cost Optimization Engineer

Position Responsibilities :

The Cloud Cost Optimization Engineer plays a key role in supporting the full lifecycle of cloud financial management (FinOps) at Deltek—driving visibility, accountability, and efficiency across our cloud investments. This role is responsible for managing cloud spend, forecasting, and identifying optimization opportunities that support Deltek's cloud expansion and financial performance goals.

We are seeking a candidate with hands-on experience in Cloud FinOps practices, software development capabilities, AI/automation expertise, strong analytical skills, and a passion for driving financial insights that enable smarter business decisions. The ideal candidate is a self-starter with excellent cross-team collaboration abilities and a proven track record of delivering results in a fast-paced environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Prepare and deliver monthly reports and presentations on cloud spend performance versus plan and forecast for Finance, IT, and business leaders.
• Support the evaluation, implementation, and ongoing management of cloud consumption and financial management tools.
• Apply financial and vendor management principles to support contract optimization, cost modeling, and spend management.
• Clearly communicate technical and financial insights, presenting complex topics in a simple, actionable manner to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Partner with engineering, product, and infrastructure teams to identify cost drivers, promote best practices for efficient cloud consumption, and implement savings opportunities.
• Lead cost optimization initiatives, including analyzing and recommending savings plans, reserved instances, and right-sizing opportunities across AWS, Azure, and OCI.
• Collaborate with the Cloud Governance team to ensure effective tagging strategies and alerting frameworks are deployed and maintained at scale.
• Support forecasting by partnering with infrastructure and engineering teams to understand demand plans and proactively manage capacity and spend.
• Build and maintain financial models and forecasting tools that provide actionable insights into current and future cloud expenditures.
• Develop and maintain automated FinOps solutions using Python, SQL, and cloud-native services (Lambda, Azure Functions) to streamline cost analysis, anomaly detection, and reporting workflows.
• Design and implement AI-powered cost optimization tools leveraging GenAI APIs (OpenAI, Claude, Bedrock) to automate spend analysis, generate natural language insights, and provide intelligent recommendations to stakeholders.
• Build custom integrations and data pipelines connecting cloud billing APIs, FinOps platforms, and internal systems to enable real-time cost visibility and automated alerting.
• Develop and sustain relationships with internal stakeholders, onboarding them to FinOps tools, processes, and continuous cost optimization practices.
• Create and maintain KPIs, scorecards, and financial dashboards to monitor cloud spend and optimization progress.
• Drive a culture of optimization by translating financial insights into actionable engineering recommendations, promoting cost-conscious architecture, and leveraging automation for resource optimization.
• Use FinOps tools and services to analyze cloud usage patterns and provide technical cost-saving recommendations to application teams.
• Develop self-service FinOps portals and chatbots using GenAI to enable teams to query cost data, receive optimization recommendations, and understand cloud spending through natural language interfaces.
• Leverage Generative AI tools to enhance FinOps automation, streamline reporting, and improve team productivity across forecasting, optimization, and anomaly detection.

Qualifications :

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field.
• 4+ years of professional experience in Cloud FinOps, IT Financial Management, or Cloud Cost Governance within an IT organization.
• 6-8 years of overall experience in Cloud Infrastructure Management, DevOps, Software Development, or related technical roles with hands-on cloud platform expertise
• Hands-on experience with native cloud cost management tools (e.g., AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, OCI Cost Analysis) and/or third-party FinOps platforms (e.g., Cloudability, CloudHealth, Apptio).
• Proven experience working within the FinOps domain in a large enterprise environment.
• Strong background in building and managing custom reports, dashboards, and financial insights.
• Deep understanding of cloud financial management practices, including chargeback/showback models, cost savings and avoidance tracking, variance analysis, and financial forecasting.
• Solid knowledge of cloud provider pricing models, billing structures, and optimization strategies.
• Practical experience with cloud optimization and governance practices such as anomaly detection, capacity planning, rightsizing, tagging strategies, and storage lifecycle policies.
• Skilled in leveraging automation to drive operational efficiency in cloud cost management processes.
• Strong analytical and data storytelling skills, with the ability to collect, interpret, and present complex financial and technical data to diverse audiences.
• Experience developing KPIs, scorecards, and metrics aligned with business goals and industry benchmarks.
• Ability to influence and drive change management initiatives that increase adoption and maturity of FinOps practices.
• Highly results-driven, detail-oriented, and goal-focused, with a passion for continuous improvement.
• Strong communicator and collaborative team player with a passion for mentoring and educating others.
• Strong proficiency in Python and SQL for data analysis, automation, and tool development, with demonstrated experience building production-grade scripts and applications.
• Hands-on development experience building automation solutions, APIs, or internal tools for cloud management or financial operations.
• Practical experience with GenAI technologies including prompt engineering, and integrating LLM APIs (OpenAI, Claude, Bedrock) into business workflows.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform etc.) and CI/CD pipelines for deploying FinOps automation and tooling.
• Familiarity with data visualization libraries (e.g. PowerBI ) and building interactive dashboards programmatically.
• Knowledge of ML/AI frameworks is a plus.
• Experience building chatbots or conversational AI interfaces for internal tooling is a plus.
• FinOps Certified Practitioner.
• AWS, Azure, or OCI cloud certifications are preferred.