Remote Azure Infrastructure Automation Lead

Cognizant; Carson City (NV); Remote; USD 100,000 - 115,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical/Dental/Vision/Life Insurance

Paid holidays plus Paid Time Off

401(k) plan and contributions

Long-term/Short-term Disability

Paid Parental Leave

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Job summary

Cognizant is seeking a Senior Azure Infrastructure Automation Engineer to design, implement, and optimize automated Azure infrastructure and Windows endpoint solutions.

You will lead enterprise image engineering, automation, vulnerability remediation, and Windows 11 migration programs while collaborating with infrastructure, security, operations, and application teams to deliver secure, scalable, and highly automated solutions.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of Azure infrastructure engineering experience.
• Expert-level experience in Azure VM Engineering and image engineering for enterprise Windows environments.
• Experience building and supporting automated image pipelines using Azure Image Builder and Azure Managed Images.
• 6+ years of hands-on experience with Ansible, PowerShell, PSADT, Jinja2, and YAML for infrastructure automation.
• Strong experience building and maintaining GitLab CI/CD pipelines, including merge requests, branching strategies, and artifact management.
• Proven experience supporting Windows 10/11 engineering, Sysprep, image creation, deployment, endpoint hardening, Registry Management, and Windows Update Services.
• Hands-on experience with vulnerability management, security scans, Microsoft Defender, Tanium, Nessus, Wiz, Zscaler, CyberArk, patching, remediation, and compliance initiatives.
• Experience with Active Directory, Group Policy, Microsoft 365 Apps, and Oracle Client deployments.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain automated Windows image deployment pipelines.
• Lead Azure VM and Image Engineering activities, including image creation, testing, optimization, maintenance, and lifecycle management for enterprise Windows environments.
• Engineer and support enterprise Windows 10/11 environments, including image creation, customization, Sysprep, hardening, patching, Windows Update Services, and lifecycle management.
• Develop and maintain infrastructure automation solutions utilizing Ansible, PowerShell, PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit (PSADT), ARM Templates, Jinja2, and YAML.
• Administer and optimize Azure infrastructure components including Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Portal, Azure CLI, Managed Images, and related cloud services.
• Build and support GitLab CI/CD pipelines utilizing merge requests, branching strategies, source control governance, and artifact management best practices.
• Conduct security scans, vulnerability assessments, image hardening, patch management, and remediation activities using Tanium, Microsoft Defender, Nessus, Wiz, Zscaler, and CyberArk.
• Administer Active Directory, Group Policy, Registry Management, Microsoft 365 applications, and enterprise application deployments, including Oracle Client installations.
• Monitor platform health, availability, and performance utilizing Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Splunk Forwarder, Event Viewer, and Performance Monitor.
• Support large-scale Windows 11 migration projects and ensure adherence to security, compliance, and operational standards.

Skills

Azure infrastructure

Automation engineering

Security and compliance

Windows image deployment

Cloud DevOps

Tools

Azure Image Builder

Azure Managed Images

Ansible

PowerShell

PSADT

ARM Templates

Jinja2

YAML

GitLab CI/CD

Azure CLI

Azure Portal

Tanium

Microsoft Defender

Nessus

Wiz

Zscaler

CyberArk

Active Directory

Group Policy

Microsoft 365 Apps

Oracle Client

Job description

Cognizant is seeking a Senior Azure Infrastructure Automation Engineer to design, implement, and optimize automated Azure infrastructure and Windows endpoint solutions.

You will lead enterprise image engineering, automation, vulnerability remediation, and Windows 11 migration programs while collaborating with infrastructure, security, operations, and application teams to deliver secure, scalable, and highly automated solutions.