Senior Azure Cloud Engineer

Career Techniques; Dallas (TX); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Career Techniques is seeking a Senior Azure Cloud Engineer to manage critical cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure. You will lead architecture design, enforce security standards, and optimize cloud environments through Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Ideal candidates have over 8 years of Azure experience, expert skills in Terraform, and a strong grasp of cloud networking. This position offers opportunities for leadership and collaboration across teams.

Qualifications

• Proven experience designing and building Azure Landing Zones.
• Expert-level Terraform experience and knowledge of the Microsoft Fabric platform.
• Familiarity with cloud financial management practices.

Responsibilities

• Own Azure Landing Zone design and DevOps pipelines.
• Architect scalable cloud solutions with governance and security standards.
• Lead incident response and post-incident reviews.

Skills

Azure Cloud Engineering

Terraform

Networking Fundamentals

CI/CD Automation

PowerShell

Python

Education

8+ years of hands-on Azure cloud engineering

Tools

Azure DevOps

GitHub Actions

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Azure Cloud Engineer to own mission‑critical cloud infrastructure on Microsoft Azure. You will drive architecture decisions, enforce governance and security standards, lead Azure Landing Zone design, and own the Microsoft Fabric platform — all codified through IaC. This role requires deep hands‑on platform engineering expertise combined with strong cross‑functional collaboration to align cloud capabilities with business objectives.

Key Responsibilities

Landing Zone & Platform Engineering

• Azure Landing Zone: management group hierarchy, subscription design, hub‑and‑spoke networking, and policy guardrails.
• Codify all infrastructure in Terraform; build reusable, versioned modules and templates — zero manual Azure setup.
• Automate environment promotion (NProd → Prod) with approval gates, rollback controls, and deployment stage validation.
• Enforce naming conventions, tagging standards, and resource group structure at scale via Azure Policy.
• Provision and govern Fabric platform components via IaC: workspaces, capacities (F SKUs), OneLake, RBAC, Git integration, and deployment pipelines.

Infrastructure, Network, & Security

• Architect scalable compute using VMs, VMSS, Availability Zones, App Service, AKS, Azure Functions, and Container Apps.
• Design and maintain networking topologies: VNets, peering, hub‑and‑spoke, NSGs, UDRs, Bastion, Private Endpoints, Azure Firewall, Front Door, and DDoS Protection.
• Support hybrid connectivity via ExpressRoute, Site‑to‑Site VPN, and Azure Virtual WAN; design Fabric Private Link and Managed VNet configurations.
• Manage secrets and encryption through Azure Key Vault; conduct security posture reviews via Defender for Cloud and remediate findings.

Governance, Cost & Reliability

• Own Azure Policy, Management Groups, subscription governance, tagging, and naming conventions.
• Drive cost optimization through Reserved Instances, right‑sizing, auto‑scaling, and Cost Management dashboards; administer Fabric F SKU capacity and workload optimization.
• Define SLOs/SLAs; implement chaos engineering, backup, and DR solutions with defined RPO/RTO targets.
• Administer the Fabric admin portal and tenant settings to enforce governance, workspace isolation, and usage controls.

Automation, CI/CD & DevOps

• Build and maintain IaC pipelines using Terraform (primary) and ARM in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, with deployment stages, approvals, and Key Vault secrets integration.
• Develop operational automation using PowerShell, Azure CLI, Python, and the Fabric PowerShell SDK.
• Automate Fabric operations — workspace lifecycle, capacity scaling, deployment pipelines, and REST API workflows — through scripted and pipeline‑driven tooling.

Microsoft Fabric Platform

• Provision and manage Fabric workspaces, capacities, Lakehouses, and OneLake via the Fabric Terraform provider and REST API.
• Design and maintain OneLake medallion architecture (Bronze / Silver / Gold) and enforce data tier governance.
• Manage Fabric Git integration, Deployment Pipelines (Dev → Test → Prod), workspace RBAC, and tenant governance.
• Configure Fabric monitoring and integrate telemetry into the broader observability platform; maintain F SKU awareness and capacity cost optimization.

Monitoring, Observability & Incident Response

• Implement monitoring, alerting, and dashboards using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, and Microsoft Sentinel (SIEM).
• Lead incident response for platform issues; conduct post‑incident reviews and drive permanent remediation.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Translate business requirements into scalable, secure cloud architectures; engage and advise stakeholders at all levels.
• Maintain technical documentation: runbooks, architecture diagrams, Landing Zone blueprints, and operational procedures.
• Mentor junior engineers; evaluate emerging Azure and Fabric services and recommend adoption roadmaps.

Required Qualifications

Experience & Platform

• 8+ years of hands‑on Azure cloud engineering across identity, networking, compute, storage, monitoring, and automation.
• Proven experience designing and building Azure Landing Zones in production; demonstrable record of full IaC adoption eliminating manual setup.
• Strong networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, DNS, BGP, TLS applied to cloud environments.

Terraform (Mandatory)

• Expert‑level Terraform: modules, variables, remote state, workspaces/environments, and Policy deployment, reusable architecture patterns.
• Production experience with the Microsoft Fabric Terraform provider: workspace, capacity, Lakehouse, RBAC, and Git integration provisioning via IaC.

CI/CD

• Strong experience with Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions: pipeline automation, deployment stages, approval workflows, and secrets integration.
• Hands‑on experience with NProd → Prod environment promotion and automated validation.

Operation Automation

• Proficiency in PowerShell, Azure CLI, Python, and the Fabric PowerShell SDK for automation and operational tasks.

Microsoft Fabric

• Working knowledge of the Fabric Terraform provider, REST API, Deployment Pipelines, OneLake, medallion architecture, and capacity administration.
• Familiarity with Fabric admin portal, tenant settings, workspace governance, monitoring, Private Link, Managed VNets, and F SKU cost implications.

Preferred Qualifications

• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert or DevOps Engineer Expert.
• Experience in regulated industries (healthcare, finance, government) with ISO 27001, SOC 2, HIPAA, or FedRAMP compliance frameworks.
• FinOps practices and tooling for cloud financial management.
• Multi‑cloud exposure (AWS, GCP) and cross‑cloud networking strategies.
• Experience with Microsoft Sentinel, Defender for Cloud, and the broader Microsoft security portfolio.
• Microsoft 365 administration (Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Entra ID, Intune) and endpoint management via Autopilot.
• IaC automation testing experience.