Senior Cloud Platform Engineering Lead

Worky; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 195,000 - 234,000; Full time

Job summary

Sidley Austin LLP is seeking a Software Engineering Senior Manager to architect, build and operate a cloud‑native automation platform on Azure. This role emphasizes technical leadership with a strong background in cloud and distributed systems, and people management is a secondary focus.

The candidate will drive architecture for Azure services, containers, and pipelines, mentor engineers, and ensure scalable, secure deployment patterns across multi‑stage DevOps pipelines.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or related field; or equivalent professional experience with cloud architecture expertise
• Minimum 6 years of hands‑on software engineering experience building cloud‑native applications on Azure
• Minimum 3 years of experience with Azure Container Apps, AKS, or equivalent container orchestration platforms
• Minimum 2 years of people management experience leading software engineering teams
• Proven track record delivering distributed systems in production using microservices and event‑driven patterns
• Hands‑on experience with Azure Service Bus, Azure database services including Azure SQL Database with Elastic Pools, Azure PostgreSQL Flexible Server, managed identity authentication, connection pooling, and private endpoint configuration
• Deep understanding of microservices communication patterns
• Proficiency in C# and .NET including NET Core Web API, Async/await, LINQ, DI, EF Core
• Proficiency in TypeScript/JavaScript including JS development, npm/pnpm, module systems, Bash/PowerShell
• Container image build and deployment workflows including Dockerfile optimization and ACR integration
• Mentoring software engineers on cloud‑native development patterns and Azure architecture
• Strong code review skills for backend APIs and infrastructure code
• Systematic troubleshooting for distributed systems
• Analytical skills for capacity planning, performance optimization, and cost analysis

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve the distributed system architecture for the cloud-native automation platform, including Azure Container Apps, Service Bus, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Blob Storage
• Design event-driven architectures using Azure Service Bus for high-volume asynchronous processing
• Optimize platform performance, cost, and operational complexity through architectural improvements
• Lead .NET backend development including ASP.NET Core APIs, CQRS with MediatR, Entity Framework Core, and FluentValidation
• Conduct code reviews ensuring adherence to SOLID principles, async programming best practices, and distributed systems patterns
• Own and evolve multi-stage Azure DevOps YAML pipelines including multi-phase infrastructure deployment, container image builds, and environment-specific deployments
• Manage and mentor software engineers, focusing on cloud engineering skill development

Skills

Cloud architecture

Distributed systems

People management

Azure

C#/.NET

Event-driven

Code reviews

SOLID principles

CQRS/MediatR

Performance tuning

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/SE or related

Azure cloud architecture certifications (AZ-400/305/204/104)

Tools

Azure DevOps

AKS

Azure Container Apps

Azure Service Bus

Azure SQL Database

Azure PostgreSQL

Redis

Entity Framework Core

Docker

Bicep/Terraform

Job description

Sidley Austin LLP is seeking a Software Engineering Senior Manager to architect, build and operate a cloud‑native automation platform on Azure. This role emphasizes technical leadership with a strong background in cloud and distributed systems, and people management is a secondary focus.

The candidate will drive architecture for Azure services, containers, and pipelines, mentor engineers, and ensure scalable, secure deployment patterns across multi‑stage DevOps pipelines.