Azure Cloud Architect

In This Role, You Will

• Conduct design reviews of new and existing architectures.
• Create reference architectures and standards to enable effective solution delivery.
• Design solutions for performance and cost optimization.
• Design automation solutions for reusability and consistency.

Key Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Enterprise and Solution Architect Teams to review and create solution designs of new implementations or the introduction of new cloud technologies to ensure compliance with Client standards.
• Mentor technical teams to ensure that cloud-based solutions are implemented effectively and efficiently.
• Create detailed architectural specifications to document the architecture decisions; communicate the architectural specifications to designers, developers, contractors, and business sponsors in a directly actionable, clear, and unambiguous manner.
• Identify technical risks upfront and bring them to the attention of management.
• Establish and enforce cloud policies, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, defining and monitoring governance frameworks for cloud operations, and managing risks associated with cloud adoption.
• Ensure alignment with business goals and objectives and facilitate communication between technical and non-technical stakeholders to ensure clear understanding and adherence to established standards.
• Stay current on cloud technology trends both in the industry and within the Clientlandscape, including researching and implementing new and/or alternate technologies that will further business goals and provide competitive advantages.
• Develop cloud migration strategies to help organizations transition from on-premises infrastructure to cloud-based solutions.
• Drive efficient cloud automation methodology for full infrastructure-as-code development and deployment.
• Provide technical leadership throughout the project lifecycle.
• Provide technical support to the IT team and stakeholders to ensure that cloud-based solutions are functioning effectively and efficiently.

Knowledge, Skills, Abilities

• Experience architecting and developing scalable, distributed, or web-based applications.
• Architecture experience with some or all of these cloud concepts: Infrastructure as a Service, Serverless Architecture, Container Architecture, Platform as a Service, Storage, Infrastructure as Code, and Identity and Access Management.
• Experience designing solutions using the Azure suite of PaaS offerings such as Application Gateway, APIM, Azure AKS, Azure AD B2C, Azure Cosmos, Azure SQL, Azure DevOps, etc.
• Experience provisioning and managing Azure Infrastructure using automation.
• Experience migrating applications to the Azure cloud.
• Strong problem-solving characteristics with the ability to think out of the box.
• Excellent interpersonal, written, and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate with internal team members as well as business stakeholders and enjoy working with others in a collaborative fashion.
• Experience using Terraform to perform infrastructure as code preferred

Skills Required for Azure Cloud Architect/Engineer Role

Cloud Environment Expertise

• Experience working with various cloud environments (e.g., public, private, hybrid) and in-depth knowledge of Azure.
• Demonstrated expertise in architecting and implementing cloud solutions tailored to specific business needs.

Cloud Architecture and Project Management

• Proven ability to design and lead cloud projects, with hands-on experience in architecting solutions and managing end-to-end project lifecycle.
• Ability to clearly articulate the scope, challenges, and outcomes of past cloud implementations.

Azure Identity and Access Management (IAM)

• Strong understanding of Azure IAM principles and practices.
• Experience managing access control, including role-based access control (RBAC) and Privileged Identity Management (PIM).

Azure Services Proficiency

• Hands-on experience with core Azure services, such as:

• Compute (e.g., Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Functions)
• Storage (e.g., Azure Blob Storage, Azure Files)
• Databases (e.g., Azure SQL Database, Cosmos DB)
• Familiarity with additional services based on project requirements.

Cost Management in Cloud Environments

• Ability to monitor, optimize, and manage costs in cloud infrastructure.
• Knowledge of Azure Cost Management tools and strategies for budgeting and reducing cloud expenses.

High Availability and Reliability

• Understanding of high availability concepts and disaster recovery strategies.
• Experience with Azure services such as Load Balancers, Availability Sets, and Azure Site Recovery to ensure system reliability.

Azure Networking

• Proficiency with Azure networking components, including:
• Virtual Networks (VNets)
• Network Security Groups (NSGs)
• Azure Firewall
• Azure Front Door

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

• Familiarity with IaC tools such as Terraform, Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates, or Bicep.
• Ability to automate infrastructure provisioning, deployment, and configuration.

Cloud Security

• Knowledge of Azure security services and best practices, including:

• Azure Security Center
• Azure Key Vault
• Azure DDoS Protection
• Implementation of security measures across cloud environments.

Azure Governance

• Experience in implementing governance controls, including:
• Azure Policies for compliance and resource management.
• Management Groups for hierarchical organization of resources.
• Azure Blueprints for standardized deployments and configurations.