Lead Cloud Infrastructure Engineer (Azure+AWS)

Creative Chaos; United States; Remote; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Creative Chaos is seeking a Lead Infrastructure & Cloud Engineer to define and drive modern cloud standards across Azure (primary) and AWS, bridging on-prem expertise with scalable cloud architectures. You will lead design, governance, security, and FinOps, mentor teams, and collaborate with DevOps to elevate reliability, performance, and cost discipline in a hybrid cloud environment.

This role demands architecture artefacts, guardrails, and hands-on leadership to deliver reference designs and

Qualifications

• Strong enterprise infrastructure background with a Wintel core and operational discipline.
• Hands-on Azure production experience including identity integration, VNets/VPNs, ExpressRoute, and monitoring.
• Working knowledge of AWS production environments (accounts, VPC, IAM, CloudWatch).
• Strong troubleshooting and incident leadership across OS/network layers.
• Scripting/automation mindset (PowerShell; Bash/Python).
• Ability to create architecture artefacts: reference designs, diagrams, ADRs.

Responsibilities

• Own the target-state hybrid cloud architecture and roadmap (12–24 months).
• Define reference architectures, guardrails, and environment separation.
• Lead design and secure cloud networking (VNets/VPCs, VPN, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute).
• Govern cloud foundations: subscriptions, RBAC, tagging, logging, budgets, policy guardrails.
• Maintain platform observability and reliability; drive FinOps and cost discipline.
• Mentor engineers, codify standards, and lead architectural discussions with DevOps.
• Drive incident readiness and post-incident reviews with preventative controls.

Skills

Wintel core

Azure

AWS

Cloud architecture

Governance

FinOps

Security leadership

Incident leadership

Scripting (PowerShell)

Bash

Python

ADR documentation

Terraform

Bicep

CI/CD collaboration

Mentoring

Tools

Terraform

Bicep

Job description

Job Summary:

We are hiring a Lead Infrastructure & Cloud Engineer with a strong Wintel infrastructure foundation and current, hands-on capability in modern cloud infrastructure across Azure (primary) and AWS. This role exists to close a capability gap: we have deep on-prem expertise, and we need a leader who can define and drive modern cloud standards, guide technical direction, and uplift the team.

You’ll operate as a technical lead with an architecture mindset: creating reference designs, setting guardrails, making pragmatic trade-offs (security, resilience, cost), and leading delivery across infrastructure and hybrid cloud. This is not a DevOps role, you will collaborate with DevOps and engineers, but your focus is infrastructure/platform, governance, reliability, and technical leadership.

Cloud & Hybrid Architecture (Azure & AWS)

• Own the target-state hybrid cloud architecture and roadmap (12-24 months), aligning security, resilience, and cost requirements.
• Define reference architectures and standards: landing zones, network patterns, identity patterns, logging/monitoring, backup/DR, and environment separation.
• Lead design and implementation of secure cloud networking: VNets/VPCs, routing, VPN, ExpressRoute/Direct Connect, Private Link/Endpoints, load balancers, WAF where needed.
• Own cloud governance foundations: subscriptions/accounts, management groups, RBAC, naming/tagging, logging, budgets and policy guardrails.

Modern Cloud Operations (Hands-on Leadership)

• Ensure cloud platforms, services, and workloads remain on supported, secure versions; implement drift detection and lifecycle management.
• Establish platform observability: Azure Monitor/Log Analytics/App Insights, CloudWatch, OpenTelemetry where used; improve alert quality and operational readiness.
• Build and maintain backup/DR posture with tested RTO/RPO, runbooks, and regular restore/DR exercises.
• Drive FinOps discipline: cost allocation, tagging compliance, rightsizing, reservations/savings plans, and cost anomaly detection.

Security, Governance & Incident Readiness

• Ensure security controls are in place and effective (least privilege, secure baselines, encryption, key management, vulnerability/patch posture).
• Log & telemetry onboarding: own onboarding of data/log sources and integration with the SIEM (e.g., Microsoft Sentinel/Splunk) in partnership with Security.
• Lead incident response for infrastructure/cloud events: triage, investigation, reporting, RCA, and implementation of preventative controls and guardrails.
• Manage, document, and audit configuration changes; champion "repeatable by design" changes and reduce configuration drift.

Wintel & Core Infrastructure Leadership

• Provide technical leadership across core infrastructure services: Windows Server, AD DS, DNS/DHCP, certificates/PKI, and integration with Entra ID.
• Guide virtualisation/storage teams (VMware/Hyper-V, SAN/storage) towards cloud-aligned standards for resilience, security, and lifecycle.

Leadership and Uplift

• Act as the technical authority for infrastructure and hybrid cloud lead technical decisions and drive outcomes.
• Mentor and upskill engineers on modern cloud infrastructure practices; run knowledge sessions and codify standards into reusable patterns.
• Provide input during design and architectural discussions with DevOps and software teams; unblock delivery with clear, pragmatic guidance.

Requirements

• Strong enterprise infrastructure background with a Wintel core (Windows Server, AD, DNS/DHCP, certificates) and operational discipline.
• Demonstrable, hands-on Azure production experience including:
  • Identity/RBAC/Entra integration
  • VNets, VPN/ExpressRoute, Private Link/Endpoints
  • Azure Monitor/Log Analytics, backup/DR patterns, policy/guardrails
• Working knowledge of AWS production environments (accounts/VPC, security groups, IAM basics, CloudWatch).
• Strong troubleshooting and incident leadership across OS/network layers; confident with vendors/escalations.
• Scripting/automation mindset (strong PowerShell; Bash/Python beneficial).
• Ability to create architecture artefacts: reference designs, diagrams, standards, and decision records (ADRs).

Preferred Certifications

AZ-104 , AZ-305 or AZ-500

Desirable

• Conditional Access and privileged access controls (PIM), break-glass patterns, Zero Trust principles.
• Azure Policy/AWS Config, Defender for Cloud/Security Hub, GuardDuty; landing zone governance tooling.
• AWS Control Tower, IAM Identity Center, CloudFormation (read/maintain).
• Infrastructure-as-Code familiarity (Terraform/Bicep) preferred, but not essential.
• Exposure to containers/AKS/EKS and CI/CD concepts (as an enabling partner).
• Experience supporting web hosting environments (CDN/WAF, TLS/PKI, caching/performance).