Cloud Infrastructure Architect

Zachary Daniels; Liverpool; On-site; GBP 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

Zachary Daniels is seeking a Senior/Lead Cloud Infrastructure Architect in the United Kingdom to shape and govern cloud architecture across compute, storage, networking and automation. The role emphasizes moving beyond pure delivery to defining strategic design and patterns.

Candidates should bring hands-on experience with Azure, AWS or GCP, plus strong IaC, cloud networking, identity management, automation and security controls.

Qualifications

• Strong cloud architecture experience across multiple cloud platforms.
• Hands-on with IaC, automation and design patterns.
• Experience designing secure, scalable, highly available cloud environments.
• Familiarity with Terraform, Kubernetes, and serverless where applicable.

Responsibilities

• Design scalable, secure cloud infrastructure across cloud providers.
• Create reference architectures, standards and design patterns.
• Define cloud architecture and technical direction with stakeholders.
• Mentor engineers and advance the Cloud/Platform Engineering capability.
• Evaluate new technologies and optimise cost and performance.

Skills

Azure

AWS

GCP

Terraform

Kubernetes

Infrastructure as Code

Zero Trust

IAM

RBAC

Security

Job description

Are you a Senior or Lead Cloud Engineer who's gradually found yourself doing more architecture, designing solutions, making technical decisions and becoming the person others turn to when something needs to be built properly?

You might not have the Architect title yet, but you're already starting to operate at that level.

We're working with a growing UK organisation that's investing heavily in its cloud and technology capability and is looking for a Cloud Infrastructure Architect to help shape the next stage of its infrastructure journey.

This isn't a role where you need to arrive having spent the last five years as an Architect. They're equally interested in someone coming from a Senior Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, Azure Cloud Engineer, Cloud Solutions Engineer, Lead Cloud Platform Engineer or Senior Cloud Platform Engineer background who is ready to take that next step.

You'll still need to have strong hands-on technical foundations, but the opportunity is to move beyond purely delivering solutions and start having greater ownership over how they're designed.

You'll work closely with the Head of Platform Engineering, helping define the organisation's cloud architecture, technical standards and longer-term direction.

What you'll be getting involved in

You’ll take ownership of cloud architecture across compute, storage, networking, identity and automation, while helping the business continue modernising its wider infrastructure environment.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Designing scalable, secure and highly available cloud infrastructure
• Creating reference architectures, technical standards and design patterns
• Designing solutions across Azure, AWS or GCP environments
• Supporting migrations from on-premise infrastructure into the cloud
• Defining Infrastructure-as-Code approaches using Terraform, Bicep, ARM or similar
• Designing cloud networking across VNETs/VPCs, routing, DNS, load balancing and firewalls
• Building security into cloud architecture through Zero Trust, IAM, RBAC, encryption and network segmentation
• Designing resilience, disaster recovery and backup strategies
• Working across Kubernetes, containers and serverless technologies
• Driving automation and improving the performance and cost efficiency of the cloud estate
• Evaluating new technologies and helping shape future technical direction
• Mentoring engineers and helping develop the wider Cloud and Platform Engineering capability

What we're looking for

The sweet spot is someone with several years of strong Cloud and Infrastructure Engineering experience who is now taking on more responsibility for technical design and architecture.

You could already be a Cloud Architect, or you could be the Senior/Lead Engineer who's designing solutions, challenging technical decisions, mentoring others and thinking about the wider platform rather than simply delivering individual pieces of work.

You’ll ideally have strong experience with Azure, AWS or GCP alongside infrastructure-as-code, cloud networking, identity and access management, automation and cloud security.

Experience with Terraform, Bicep, Kubernetes, serverless architecture, hybrid environments and FinOps would all be valuable.

Ultimately, they're looking for someone with the technical foundations to understand how the environment works today and the architectural mindset to help decide what it should look like tomorrow.

If you're currently operating at Senior or Lead Cloud Engineering level and feel like Architecture is the natural next step in your career, this could be a really interesting opportunity to make that move.