Senior Officer, AI Platform Engineering

IFRC; Switzerland; Remote; CHF 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) invites applications for the Senior Officer, AI Platform Engineering. The role builds and runs IFRC’s shared AI platform on Microsoft technologies, provisioning Azure AI services, and supporting Copilot Studio and 365 Copilot integrations.

You will work with security and governance standards across the Secretariat. Responsibilities include maintaining CI/CD pipelines, operating Azure-based AI services, cost management,

Qualifications

• Degree in computer science, information security, data science, or related field.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in cloud operations, DevOps, platform engineering or a related technical field.
• Hands-on experience operating and maintaining applications and services in Microsoft Azure environments.
• Experience developing and maintaining infrastructure-as-code (e.g. Bicep, Terraform) and automating environment provisioning.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g. Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions) and managing deployment and release processes in production environments.
• Experience with scripting and automation using Python and/or PowerShell.
• Experience with cloud monitoring, logging and troubleshooting tools (e.g. Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights).
• Languages: fluent English; additional IFRC official languages preferred.

Responsibilities

• Operate and maintain IFRC's Microsoft-based AI platforms and services across development, testing and production environments.
• Configure and maintain platform components and integrations to support deployment and operation of AI applications and services.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure-as-code templates and automate environment provisioning.
• Manage model deployments, quotas and capacity, and track model retirements for stable applications.
• Ensure life-cycle management and security configurations for AI workloads.
• Monitor platform availability, performance, and costs; optimize where possible.
• Maintain tagging and budgeting; coordinate removal/resize of unused resources.
• Operate AI gateway in Azure API Management with authentication and logging.
• Troubleshoot platform and deployment issues and implement corrective actions.

Skills

Cloud operations

DevOps

Platform engineering

CI/CD

Python

PowerShell

Azure monitoring

Cloud security

Cost management

Team collaboration

Education

Degree in computer science or related field

Tools

Azure AI Foundry

Azure OpenAI

Copilot Studio

Power Platform

Azure API Management

Azure DevOps

GitHub Actions

Terraform

Bicep

SharePoint

Dataverse

Microsoft Fabric

Job description

Vacancy No. S17115 Category of Contract National Position Type National Application Deadline 23/12/2026 Job Posted On 12/11/2026 Duty Station The duty station for this role is to be confirmed. The position may be based in any country where IFRC has a legal status agreement. Country GLOBAL Different Locations Grade National Staff Duration 12 months

Organizational Context

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is the world’s largest humanitarian network, with 191 member National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. IFRC uses the Triple R – response, resilience and respect – to deliver on Strategy 2030. IFRC responds to disasters and crises, ensuring timely, coordinated and locally led humanitarian action. IFRC supports its members in building community resilience in the areas of climate and environment, health and wellbeing, and migration and displacement. IFRC promotes respect for our fundamental principles of humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality, including in our work on values, power and inclusion. The IFRC focuses throughout on our core mandate – our raison d’être – of strategic and operational coordination, humanitarian diplomacy, National Society development, and accountability.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General and has its Headquarters in Geneva and five regional offices in Africa (Nairobi); the Americas (Panama); Asia Pacific (Kuala Lumpur); Europe (Budapest); and MENA (Beirut) as well as representation offices, service centres and delegations across the globe.

IFRC is led by its Secretary General, and has its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. IFRC has five regional offices in Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, Europe, and the Americas. IFRC also has country cluster delegations and country delegations throughout the world. Together, the Geneva Headquarters and the field structure (regional, cluster and country) comprise the IFRC Secretariat.

IFRC has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment and other forms of harassment, abuse of authority, discrimination, and lack of integrity (including but not limited to financial misconduct). IFRC also adheres to strict child safeguarding principles.

Background to the position

In virtually all countries, people increasingly rely on and expect a diverse range of digital services (e.g., through their mobile devices) to interact with local government, companies, and community organizations and services. This disruption is already happening to humanitarian assistance. Yet, the Digital Divide remains a persistent and significant challenge at both national and local levels.

The need for a successful and large‑scale digital transformation is urgent. And Digitally Transforming the IFRC and its 191 members is a complex process which requires collaborative action and support across the membership. Therefore, the IFRC recently developed a Digital Transformation Strategy which was approved by the IFRC Governing Board in May 2021.

The Digital Transformation Department (DTD) has full leadership responsibility for the implementation of the digital transformation strategy and the positive impact it will have on the 191 National Society members of the IFRC. The DTD provides strategic leadership and guides the IFRC Secretariat as well as the members network to adapt and innovate humanitarian services, drawing on digital services, data‑enabled decision‑making, and other opportunities for digital transformation in support of the IFRC’s Strategy 2030. In addition, the DTD is responsible for the development and implementation of business transformation, information technology and digitalization services throughout the IFRC Secretariat, thereby supporting the same transformation in 191 NSs, setting the vision, and drawing stakeholders together on this digital journey.

Job Purpose

The incumbent reports to the AI and Data management unit (“AI & Data unit”), that is accountable to the Director of the DTD. The other units and teams reporting to the DT Director include the Enterprise Architecture, Strategy & Planning unit, the Digital development and management unit, the Infrastructure & Security Team and the Global Service Desk and Endpoint Management team. Under the leadership of the Director, these units and teams serve as members of the global DTD management team, along with the CISO and Regional DT managers.

The AI & Data unit is responsible to deliver greater value from IFRC’s data, and ensures the development and implementation of IFRCs data and AI governance and strategy, in close collaboration with the IFRC’s Data Protection Office and through indirect management of data professionals in other departments. The unit oversees all data operations, data product lifecycles and manages the organisation’s data platform, as well as the coordination and support to AI initiatives.

The Senior Officer, AI Platform Engineering will also interact with internal and external AI and data experts, private sector, academia, external suppliers, vendors and consultants who are sourced to deliver AI‑related activities.

Job Purpose

The Senior Officer, AI Platform Engineering builds and runs the shared platform that IFRC teams use to create AI solutions on Microsoft technologies. The role provisions and operates Azure AI services, supports colleagues who build agents in Copilot Studio and Microsoft 365 Copilot, and makes it easy for teams to build AI that is secure, compliant and affordable.

The role puts into practice the IFRC security and governance standards, and works closely with developers, data protection colleagues and IT operations across the Secretariat.

Job Duties and Responsibilities

• Operate and maintain IFRC's Microsoft‑based AI platforms and services (e.g. Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI and related Azure services, Copilot Studio and Power Platform) across development, testing and production environments.
• Configure and maintain platform components and integrations to support the deployment and operation of AI applications and services.
• Develop and maintain version‑controlled infrastructure‑as‑code templates for AI platform resources, automate environment provisioning and identify and remediate configuration drift against approved baselines.
• Manage model deployments, quotas and capacity, and track model retirements so that applications keep working when models are updated or withdrawn.
• Ensure proper life‑cycle management of AI related services.
• Monitor platform availability, performance, resource utilization and operational costs, identifying opportunities for optimization.
• Maintain resource tagging and usage attribution by team or solution, configure budget and abnormal‑consumption alerts, provide cost and capacity forecasts, and coordinate the removal or resizing of unused resources with their owners.
• Operate the AI gateway in Azure API Management, including authentication, rate limits per team, load balancing, and usage logging.
• Troubleshoot platform and deployment issues, investigate incidents and implement corrective actions within the scope of the role.

2. Support for developers and makers

• Build and maintain reusable templates, reference architectures and code samples for common patterns, such as retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) and agents built with Foundry Agent Service or the Microsoft Agent Framework.
• Support colleagues building AI applications and agents in Azure AI Foundry, building agents in Copilot Studio and extending Microsoft 365 Copilot, including environment setup, connectors and publishing.
• Build and maintain the pipelines that connect AI services to IFRC data in SharePoint, Microsoft Fabric, Dataverse and other sources.
• Onboard new teams to the platform, answer their technical questions and keep its documentation clear and current.
• Collaborates with the team in developing and providing to the organization trainings and learning materials related to AI with a focus on platform and security.

Job Duties and Responsibilities (continued)

3. AI Workload Operations and Security

• Build, maintain and improve CI/CD pipelines for AI applications and related platform components, including version control, automated testing, deployment and release management.
• Develop and apply established operational practices for managing AI workloads, including appropriate resource allocation and environment configuration.
• Implement established security configurations and operational procedures for AI workloads.
• Implement and maintain approved Azure Policy and network security guardrails for AI services, including permitted deployment regions, private connectivity, restrictions on public access and approved authentication methods; monitor compliance and track exceptions through the agreed review process.
• Monitor relevant Azure security alerts and recommendations affecting AI workloads (e.g. Defender for Cloud) and coordinate follow‑up actions.
• Apply established identity and access management practices for applications and workloads, including secure credential and secrets management using Azure Key Vault and Microsoft Entra ID.
• Prepare the technical evidence needed for the release review of AI agents and services, and put agreed controls in place before go‑live.
• Support the implementation of data protection and security controls for AI solutions, including relevant Microsoft Purview configurations.
• Contribute to technical security assessments and incident investigations related to AI workloads.
• Configure Power Platform environments and data loss prevention (DLP) policies for Copilot Studio.

4. Documentation and Collaboration

• Maintain technical documentation of Azure AI platforms and solutions, including deployment configurations, integrations, dependencies, operational procedures, data sources and data flows.
• Collaborate with AI developers, data professionals and other technical stakeholders to ensure the reliable deployment and operation of AI solutions.
• Ensure that AI platforms and workloads align with IFRC's infrastructure, security and operational standards.
• Act as the first technical point of contact for operational questions and issues related to Azure AI platforms and deployed solutions.
• Stay up to date with developments in Azure cloud technologies, platform engineering, DevOps and AI operations, and identify opportunities to improve platform reliability, automation, performance, cost efficiency and existing processes.

Duties applicable to all staff

• Work actively towards the achievement of IFRC’s goals.
• Abide by and work in accordance with the Red Cross and Red Crescent principles.
• Perform any other work‑related duties and responsibilities that may be assigned by the line manager.

Education

Required

• Degree in in computer science, information security, data science, or related field.

Preferred

• Relevant Microsoft certifications, such as Azure Administrator Associate (AZ‑104), Azure AI App and Agent Developer Associate (AI‑103) or the earlier Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI‑102), DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ‑400) or Cloud and AI Security Engineer Associate (SC‑500).

Experience

Required

• Minimum 5 years of experience in cloud operations, DevOps, platform engineering or a related technical field.
• Hands‑on experience operating and maintaining applications and services in Microsoft Azure environments.
• Experience developing and maintaining infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g. Bicep, Terraform) and automating environment provisioning.
• Experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (e.g. Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions) and managing deployment and release processes in production environments.
• Experience with scripting and automation using Python and/or PowerShell
• Experience with cloud monitoring, logging and troubleshooting tools (e.g. Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights).

Preferred

• Experience operating or supporting AI/ML or generative AI applications in production environments.
• Experience with Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry) and Azure OpenAI, including managing model deployments, quotas and version upgrades
  Experience building or supporting retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) solutions or AI agents (e.g. Foundry Agent Service, Microsoft Agent Framework, Azure AI Search).
• Experience configuring and operating Azure API Management, including authentication, rate limiting and usage logging.
• Experience administering Copilot Studio and Power Platform environments, including data loss prevention (DLP) policies.
• Experience building data integrations with SharePoint, Microsoft Fabric, Dataverse or Microsoft Graph.
• Experience managing cloud costs, including resource tagging, budgets and alerts, usage reporting and forecasting.
• Experience with Azure security services and tools (e.g. Microsoft Entra ID, Defender for Cloud, Key Vault, Azure Policy).
  Familiarity with Microsoft Purview and data protection practices.
• Experience preparing technical evidence for release, change or security reviews before go‑live.
• Experience onboarding teams to a technical platform, or developing training and learning materials.
• Experience in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, as staff or volunteer, or in another humanitarian or non‑profit organization.

Knowledge, Skills and Languages

Required

• Practical understanding of cloud infrastructure and platform operations in Microsoft Azure.
• Understanding of DevOps principles and CI/CD practices, including deployment automation and release management.
• Knowledge of cloud monitoring, logging, troubleshooting and incident management practices.
• Understanding of cloud security fundamentals, including identity and access management, secrets management and secure configuration.
• Understanding of cloud networking and governance controls, including virtual networks, private endpoints, regional restrictions and Azure Policy.
• Understanding of cloud cost management practices, including tagging, usage attribution, budgets and forecasting.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Foundry (formerly Azure AI Foundry) and related Azure AI services (e.g. Azure OpenAI, Azure AI Search, Azure Machine Learning).
• Familiarity with Copilot Studio and Microsoft 365 Copilot extensibility, including agents and connectors.
• Understanding of common generative AI patterns, such as retrieval‑augmented generation (RAG) and agents, and what they need to run reliably.
• Understanding of AI‑specific operational and security risks, such as data leakage and prompt injection.
• Understanding of data protection principles and data residency considerations for cloud‑hosted AI services.
• Problem‑solving: Ability to break down complex technical challenges into solvable problems.
• Communication: Ability to translate technical findings into clear information for non‑technical stakeholders, and to write clear documentation for developers and makers.
• Collaboration: Ability to work effectively across engineering, data, security and business teams.
• Continuous learning: Motivation to stay current with developments in cloud technologies, platform engineering and AI operations.
• Resilience: Ability to stay constructive and keep perspective under pressure and during incidents.

Preferred

• Understanding of the operational lifecycle of AI applications and basic MLOps principles, including evaluating and monitoring model output quality.
• Understanding of responsible AI principles and how they translate into technical controls (e.g. content filtering, logging, human review).
• Understanding of the humanitarian context, operational challenges and impact measurement.
• Familiarity with agile development practices.

Languages

Required

• Fluent spoken and written English.

Preferred

• Good command of another IFRC official language (French, Spanish or Arabic).

Competencies, Values and Comments

Values: Respect for diversity; Integrity; Professionalism; Accountability.

Core competencies: Communication; Collaboration and teamwork; Judgement and decision making; National society and customer relations; Creativity and innovation; Building trust.