NO SPONSORSHIP - NO OPT
Software Engineering Senior Manager - Azure Cloud
SALARY: $195k - $235k plus discretionary bonus
LOCATION: hybrid 3 days onsite if in Chicago
Remote if in TX, MA, NY, DC, FL, CA.
Target Salary Range : $195,000 - $234,400 Seeking a hands-on engineering leader with deep Azure expertise to lead a team of 5 7 engineers while driving cloud-native architecture, platform engineering, and modern software development within the Data & AI organization. Senior Engineering Manager who has experience as a Principal Engineer, Cloud Architect, or Platform Engineering Leader with strong Azure and .NET/React stack expertise who is still hands-on technically.
Must-Have Experience
-6+ years building cloud-native applications on Azure
-3+ years with AKS, Azure Container Apps, Kubernetes, or similar container platforms
-2+ years leading software engineering teams as a formal people leader
-Strong .NET/C# development background
Experience with:
-Microservices & distributed systems
-CI/CD & DevOps ownership
-Infrastructure as Code
-Azure architecture & platform engineering
Travel
-Quarterly travel to Chicago (expenses reimbursed) -Opportunity to build new platforms, not maintain legacy systems
-High visibility within the firm's Data & AI organization
-Significant influence on architecture and technical direction
-Modern Azure-first technology stack
-Opportunity to shape AI-enabled products and platforms
-Startup-style innovation backed by a globally recognized Am Law 100 firm
-Direct collaboration with senior leadership and fast decision-making environment The Software Engineering Senior Manager is a senior technical leader responsible for architecting, building, and operating the firm's cloud-native automation platform. This role requires deep expertise in Azure cloud architecture, distributed systems, and software engineering.
The ideal candidate comes from a cloud engineering, platform engineering, or full-stack development background with DevOps expertise.
Duties and 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 pattern with MediatR, Entity Framework Core, and FluentValidation
- Conduct code reviews ensuring adherence to SOLID principles, async programming best practices, and distributed systems patterns
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or related technical field; or equivalent professional experience with demonstrable 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, Azure Kubernetes Service (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 architecture 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 including synchronous HTTP, asynchronous messaging, event-driven architecture, and service discovery
- Proficiency in C# and .NET (minimum .NET 6, preferably .NET 8+) including NET Core Web API with Controllers, Async/await patterns and Task-based asynchronous programming, LINQ and lambda expressions, Dependency injection and Options pattern and Entity Framework Core
- Proficiency in TypeScript/JavaScript including js development, Async patterns (Promises, async/await), npm/pnpm package management, Module systems (CommonJS, ES modules) and scripting proficiency in Bash or PowerShell for deployment automation and troubleshooting
- Container image build and deployment workflows including Dockerfile optimization, multi-stage builds, and Azure Container Registry integration
- Proven ability to mentor software engineers on cloud-native development patterns, distributed systems concepts, and Azure architecture
- Strong code review skills with ability to provide constructive feedback on backend APIs, infrastructure code, and integration logic
- Systematic troubleshooting approach for complex distributed systems issues
- Strong analytical skills for capacity planning, performance optimization, and cost analysis