Hello;
Job Title: Senior Azure Architect
Duration: Long Term
Location: Remote
Experience Required: 12-16 years (8+ years of hands-on Azure architecture, with at least 3 years in
energy, oil and gas, or other asset-heavy industries)
Architecture and Strategy
Define and own the Azure reference architecture and multi-year cloud roadmap, aligned to
the company's operational and digital transformation goals.
Design enterprise landing zones using the Cloud Adoption Framework, with management
group and subscription strategy, hub-and-spoke or Virtual WAN networking, and policy
baselines. Include separate zones for IT, OT-adjacent and regulated workloads.
Lead architecture reviews and give formal sign-off on major workloads and changes.
Evaluate new Azure services and third-party tools and make build-vs-buy recommendations.
Oil and Gas Platforms and Data
Architect subsurface and E&P data platforms, including OSDU-based environments and
Microsoft Energy Data Services, for seismic, well and reservoir data.
Design high-performance compute and storage for seismic processing and reservoir
simulation, including burst-to-cloud patterns and tiered storage for multi-petabyte datasets.
Architect SAP landscapes on Azure (S/4HANA and related systems) with the HA/DR designs
these workloads need.
Build data platforms for production, asset and operations analytics using Data Factory,
Databricks, Synapse or Fabric, and integrate with historian systems such as AVEVA PI.
Enable predictive maintenance, production optimisation, digital twin and emissions/ESG
reporting use cases with the data and AI teams.
IT/OT Convergence and Edge
Design secure IT/OT connectivity between operational sites (wells, platforms, pipelines,
terminals, refineries) and Azure, following Purdue-model segmentation and DMZ patterns.
Architect edge and hybrid solutions for remote and offshore locations using Azure IoT Hub,
Azure IoT Operations, Azure Arc and Azure Stack, designed to keep operating when
connectivity drops.
Design for constrained links (satellite, microwave, low bandwidth), with local buffering and
store-and-forward.
Work with OT engineering and control-systems teams so cloud changes never put safety or
process control at risk.
Security, Identity and Compliance
Architect identity and access with Microsoft Entra ID, conditional access, privileged identity
management and strict RBAC, including third-party and contractor access models common in
the industry.
Embed security by design: Defender for Cloud (including Defender for IoT/OT), Key Vault,
private endpoints, segmentation, encryption and Zero Trust.
Align designs to relevant frameworks and regulations, such as IEC 62443, NIST CSF, ISO 27001
and applicable pipeline and critical-infrastructure cyber regulations, as well as data residency
and export-control requirements.
Reliability, Operations and Cost
Design HA and DR for business-critical and operations-adjacent systems, with defined
RTO/RPO targets and tested failover.
Set observability standards using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and Grafana, integrated with
the operations centre.
Own FinOps practices, including cost governance, tagging, reservations, and storage and
compute optimisation for data-heavy workloads.
Provide architectural escalation support on Sev1/Sev2 incidents and drive design fixes after
major events.
Automation and DevOps
Set standards for Infrastructure as Code (Terraform and/or Bicep), CI/CD (Azure DevOps or
GitHub Actions) and policy-as-code.
Define reusable modules and secure deployment patterns for engineering and application
teams.
Leadership and Collaboration
Mentor cloud engineers and junior architects, and partner with Security, Network, OT, Data,
Application and Finance stakeholders.
Present architecture decisions and trade-offs to senior leadership, and to business owners in
exploration, production, supply and trading, or refining.
Maintain architecture documentation, decision records and diagrams.
Required Qualifications
12-16 years in IT infrastructure or cloud engineering, with 8+ years of hands-on Azure
architecture experience.
Proven delivery of enterprise Azure environments: multi-subscription landing zones, hybrid
connectivity (ExpressRoute, VPN) and large migrations.
Experience in oil and gas, energy, utilities, mining or other asset-heavy industry, with
understanding of how OT and IT differ in risk, change control and availability expectations.
Deep expertise across Azure compute, networking, storage, identity and security services.
Strong Infrastructure as Code skills (Terraform and/or Bicep) and CI/CD experience.
Experience designing for large-scale data platforms and for HA/DR of mission-critical systems.
Working knowledge of OT security principles (Purdue model, network segmentation, IEC
62443 concepts).
Excellent communication, ability to work credibly with both IT and operations stakeholders.
Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) or equivalent hands-on credibility.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience with OSDU, Microsoft Energy Data Services, or subsurface/seismic data platforms.
SAP on Azure experience, ideally with an Azure for SAP Workloads specialty certification.
Experience with historian and industrial data platforms (AVEVA PI, Aspen, or similar), SCADA
integration, and Azure IoT or Azure Arc edge deployments.
Familiarity with HPC on Azure (CycleCloud, Batch, or similar) and high-performance storage.
DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400) and Azure Security Engineer (AZ-500).
Exposure to digital twins, predictive maintenance, emissions monitoring, or Azure OpenAI/AI
platforms in an industrial setting.
Multi-cloud exposure (AWS or Google Cloud Platform) and TOGAF or equivalent architecture certification.
Experience supporting remote, offshore or international operations across multiple
jurisdictions.
