Trying to send data to the server and AT+CIPSEND not working correctly
Your code looks like you connected the ESP to the hardware serial port, but your comment says otherwise so:

Your sketch isnt working because you're writing to the wrong serial port half the time, and even when you do use the right serial port (softSerial) you're sending garbage along with it.

Serial.println(stringLength); and Serial.find("OK") should be softSerial.println(stringLength); and softSerial.find("OK").

Serial.find( "&gt;" ) should be softSerial.find( "&gt;" ). You should look for '>' in the buffer between the Arduino and the ESP8266 and not the one between the Arduino and the PC.

softSerial.print("&gt;");, softSerial.println("RECEIVED: OK"); and similar statements should not be there at all. They are not commands or arguments to a command so why are you printing them to the ESP? Whenever you write to softSerial, make sure its a command. Dont send your debug messages to softSerial; use Serial instead.

There's no variable called cmds and yet you're printing it to the serial port. Assuming this code compiled, its probably a typo in your question?

Finally, your code structure is unreliable at best, what with all the delays in it and not a single Serial.available() or softSerial.available(), not to mention the abundant usage of Arduino Strings. I suggest you first learn how to read from a serial port and build C strings from the results and then re-design your code again. Majenko's blog is as good a tutorial as any. Or you could download a library like this one that provides an easy API to the ESP8266, shielding you from the mess of AT commands, while providing you with example sketches that already do what you want. Of course, you could choose to go through their library (.cpp and .h files are the place to be) and figure out how they used AT commands with the ESP and then write your own sketch, library or whatever. Good luck.