Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, Principal (Contractor)

hpinc; Tulsa (OK); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Helmerich and Payne is seeking a Principal Cloud Engineer Contractor to act as the technical authority for cloud architecture and engineering standards across Azure, GCP, and related hybrid infrastructure. You will shape patterns, guardrails, and operational readiness while guiding migrations and automation initiatives.

As a senior contractor, you will partner with cybersecurity and governance teams to ensure secure, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud platforms supporting drilling operations and

Qualifications

• Senior IT cloud engineering experience
• Ability to translate business needs into cloud platform designs
• Experience leading cloud migrations and automation initiatives

Responsibilities

• Serve as enterprise-level technical authority for cloud engineering, architecture, and hybrid design across Azure, GCP, and related infrastructure services.
• Define and maintain cloud architecture patterns, landing-zone standards, platform guardrails, network integration models, identity dependencies, monitoring standards, tagging standards, and operational readiness expectations.
• Design and guide implementation of highly available, resilient, secure, and recoverable cloud solutions supporting critical applications, real-time rig data, global integration, automation, analytics, and continuity.
• Lead IaC and automation using Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, PowerShell, Python, YAML, Azure DevOps, GitHub, and CI/CD pipelines to improve repeatability.
• Partner with IT and functional teams to translate requirements into cloud designs balancing speed, cost, security, reliability, and maintainability.
• Provide hands-on leadership for cloud migrations, modernization, platform integration, disaster recovery, backup readiness, observability, secrets management, and cloud-native service adoption.
• Establish and improve cloud operations practices including monitoring, alerting, logging, performance management, capacity planning, incident triage, root cause analysis, and runbooks.
• Lead troubleshooting for major cloud incidents and communicate outage impact and risk to stakeholders and executives.
• Guide engineers through reviews, change planning, testing, knowledge transfer, and technical coaching.
• Evaluate new cloud services and architectural options; recommend solutions aligning with strategy, security, and cost expectations.

Skills

Cloud engineering

Cloud architecture

IaC (Infrastructure as Code)

Terraform

Bicep

ARM templates

PowerShell

Python

YAML

CI/CD pipelines

Azure DevOps

GitHub

Observability

Security posture

Disaster recovery

Tools

Azure

GCP

Kubernetes

PowerShell

Python

Job description

At H&P, our people are our strength.

Since 1920, Helmerich and Payne has been the industry's most trusted partner in drilling productivity and reliability. As the world changes, so does our approach. We are changing the landscape of drilling by using cutting-edge rig technologies and drilling solutions to build upon a century of success, all while continuing to deliver better outcomes for our customers.

At H&P, our people are our strength. We strive to continually lead with our Core Values that enable employees to develop on their H&P Journey. We believe that doing the right thing means creating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace that empowers our people to bring their authentic selves to work every day.

Some companies offer career paths. We offer a Journey of a Lifetime. Let's go far, together.

Hear directly from our employees, and leaders about their unique journeys at Helmerich and Payne.

Location: Tulsa, OK

Work Type: Onsite or Hybrid

#LI-Onsite #LI-Hybrid

This is a contract position providing services to Helmerich & Payne (H&P) through a third-party staffing agency. If you are selected for this role, you will be an employee of the agency and not H&P.

Duration: Contract minimum of 6 months with potential for extension to full time hire

At a Glance:

The Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, Principal (Contractor) is the most senior IT cloud engineering role globally within H&P. This role serves as the technical authority for H&P cloud architecture, engineering standards, automation, resiliency, and platform reliability across Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and related hybrid infrastructure services. The role translates business, rig technology, application, cybersecurity, data, and infrastructure requirements into secure, reliable, cost-efficient, and scalable cloud solutions. The Principal Cloud Engineer Contractor leads technical direction without direct people-management accountability, sets engineering standards for internal teams and partners, and ensures cloud platforms support uninterrupted drilling operations, real-time rig data flow, global integration, employee productivity, and H&P growth.

What you will do:

• Serve as H&P's enterprise-level technical authority for cloud engineering, cloud architecture, and hybrid cloud platform design across Azure, GCP, and related infrastructure services.
• Define and maintain cloud architecture patterns, landing-zone standards, platform guardrails, network integration models, identity dependencies, monitoring standards, tagging standards, and operational readiness expectations.
• Design and guide implementation of highly available, resilient, secure, and recoverable cloud solutions that support critical business applications, real-time rig data, global integration, automation, analytics, and operational continuity.
• Lead Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automation practices using technologies such as Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, PowerShell, Python, YAML, Azure DevOps, GitHub, and CI/CD pipelines to reduce manual work and improve repeatability.
• Partner with IT and functional teams to translate requirements into cloud platform designs that balance speed, cost, security, reliability, and maintainability.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for cloud migrations, modernization, platform integration, disaster recovery, backup readiness, observability, secrets management, and cloud-native service adoption.
• Establish and improve cloud operations practices, including monitoring, alerting, logging, performance management, capacity planning, incident triage, root cause analysis, and operational runbooks.
• Lead technical troubleshooting for cloud related major incidents (P1/P2 incidents) and make critical technical decisions to restore service quickly and safely.
• Translate outage impact, reliability risk, capacity constraints, and technical debt into clear business language for IT leadership, business stakeholders, and executive audiences when needed.
• Guide junior, senior, contractor, and managed-service engineers through cloud design reviews, implementation reviews, change planning, testing, knowledge transfer, and technical coaching.
• Evaluate new cloud services, vendor capabilities, automation opportunities, and architectural alternatives; recommend solutions that align to H&P strategy, security posture, operational needs, and cost expectations.
• Partner with Cybersecurity and Governance, Risk & Compliance on cloud security posture, identity and access controls, ne