Research Engineer (AWS Optimization) in Boston

CloudZero is on a mission to help engineering teams build cost-efficient, scalable systems in the cloud. We’re the industry’s leading cloud cost intelligence platform, and we’re expanding our efforts to bring advanced AWS optimization to the heart of our platform and services.

We’re looking for a Research Engineer with deep AWS expertise to help discover and develop cost-saving strategies, automation logic, and insights that directly shape our product and guide our customers toward better cloud economics.

What You will do:

• Investigate and analyze real-world AWS environments to surface inefficient configurations, underutilized resources, and design patterns with high cost-to-value ratios.
• Develop and validate cost optimization strategies across AWS services like EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, EKS, and more.
• Prototype optimization logic and models in Python (or equivalent) and SQL, integrating with CloudZero’s data pipeline.
• Write scalable, reusable scripts for simulation, modeling, and recommendation generation.
• Collaborate closely with Data Science, Engineering, and Product teams to convert research into customer-facing intelligence.
• Stay on top of AWS pricing changes, savings plans, reserved instance models, and service evolution to inform internal logic and customer guidance.
• Support the integration of ML-based techniques into optimization workflows (e.g., workload classification, anomaly detection).
• Work with platform APIs and metadata to detect signals and patterns that drive actionable recommendations.

What We’re Looking For:

• Strong analytical skills and experience modeling savings strategies in AWS environments.
• Strong knowledge of AWS services and pricing models — especially EC2, S3, RDS, Lambda, and autoscaling strategies.
• Have hands-on software development experience and experience using APIs and working with cloud infrastructure metadata.
• Familiarity with DevOps, Infrastructure-as-Code, and CI/CD tools.
• Comfort with documenting and communicating technical ideas clearly, especially when turning research into product features or internal tools.
• A collaborative mindset — you’ll be working across Product, Engineering, and Customer Success to land meaningful results.

Please note: CloudZero is unable to sponsor employment visas or provide immigration-related support now or in the future. All candidates must have current, unrestricted authorization to work in the United States permanently.

About CloudZero: Cloud cost management is one of the biggest challenges organizations face today. As cloud adoption continues to accelerate, so do the complexities and costs associated with it — and macroeconomic conditions only increase pressure to prove cloud efficiency. That’s why we built CloudZero: a SaaS platform at the intersection of next-generation cloud cost management and FinOps. CloudZero ingests billing and usage data from all cloud, SaaS, and PaaS providers, organizes it in real time according to our customers’ business structures, lets customers view it at any level of time or resource granularity, and ultimately empowers them to make more informed business decisions.

Since our founding in 2016, our mission has been to make efficient innovation a reality for every cloud-driven organization. At CloudZero, we believe every engineering decision is a buying decision, yet the cost conversation often bypasses the engineers who drive those determinations. To solve this, we’ve built a dynamic, single-page application that answers the complex, data-heavy questions every cloud-based organization needs to ask if they want to grow their company profitably.

To date, we've raised over $119 million, including a $56 million Series C round backed by leading venture capital firms from across the country. We're tackling challenges of massive scale, strategic business importance, and technical complexity in a space that needs innovation more than ever. We're growing rapidly—and we'd love for you to join us.