* Microsoft Azure or Azure DevOps certifications
* 10 years of IT or software engineering experience, including significant DevOps, cloud, or platform engineering experience
* 5 years of deep, hands-on Azure DevOps experience
* Proven success leading a transition from manual software delivery to automated CI/CD
* Advanced experience with Azure Pipelines, YAML, Azure Boards, Azure Repos, Git, and release automation
* Experience with Azure cloud environments and scripting tools such as PowerShell, Bash, Azure CLI, or Python
* Experience with Azure Key Vault, GitOps, or modern platform-engineering practices
* Previous experience leading a large-scale enterprise or public-sector DevOps transformation
* Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, or other Infrastructure as Code experience
* Docker, Kubernetes, or Azure Kubernetes Service experience
* Strong knowledge of reusable pipeline frameworks, automated testing, security controls, and deployment governance
* Strong leadership, documentation, troubleshooting, and mentoring skills
* Familiarity with code-quality and security tools such as SonarQube, Snyk, Checkmarx, or Veracode
* Ability to communicate architecture and strategy clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders