Senior Azure Cloud Architect

Job Title: Senior Azure Cloud Architect

Location: Washington, DC (Hybrid 1 day/week onsite)
Duration: 2+ Years (Possible Extension)
Interview: MS Teams
Start Date: Immediate

Responsibilities

• Design enterprise-scale Microsoft Azure cloud solutions.
• Architect Azure Landing Zones using Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF).
• Design Azure infrastructure for high availability, scalability, disaster recovery, and security.
• Lead cloud migration assessments using Azure Migrate.
• Define Azure governance using:
• Azure Policy
• Management Groups
• Blueprints
• Design Azure networking including:
• Hub & Spoke
• ExpressRoute
• VPN Gateway
• Azure Firewall
• Private Endpoints
• Application Gateway
• Front Door
• Design Microsoft Entra ID architecture including:
• Conditional Access
• PIM
• RBAC
• Managed Identities
• Federation
• B2B/B2C
• Build enterprise Infrastructure as Code standards using Terraform or Bicep.
• Review Terraform/Bicep code developed by engineering teams.
• Build CI/CD pipelines using Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
• Architect and support production AKS environments.
• Implement Kubernetes deployments using:
• Helm
• Flux
• ArgoCD
• Implement Azure security using:
• Microsoft Defender for Cloud
• Microsoft Sentinel
• Azure Key Vault
• Configure Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, and KQL dashboards.
• Drive FinOps initiatives using Azure Cost Management and Reserved Instances.
• Produce architecture diagrams, technical documentation, and Architecture Decision Records (ADR).
• Lead architecture review boards and mentor cloud engineers.

Required Skills

Azure Architecture

• Azure Landing Zones
• Azure Well-Architected Framework
• Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework
• Enterprise Azure Architecture

Azure Compute

• Azure Virtual Machines
• VM Scale Sets
• Azure App Services
• Azure Functions
• Azure Container Apps
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Azure Batch

Azure Networking

• Virtual Networks (VNet)
• Hub & Spoke Architecture
• NSG
• UDR
• Azure Firewall
• Front Door
• ExpressRoute
• VPN Gateway
• Private Endpoints
• Application Gateway
• Enterprise DNS

Identity & Security

• Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD)
• Conditional Access
• Privileged Identity Management (PIM)
• RBAC
• Managed Identity
• Azure Defender
• Microsoft Sentinel
• Azure Key Vault

Infrastructure as Code

• Terraform (Highly Preferred)
  OR
• Bicep

Knowledge of ARM Templates is a plus.

DevOps

• Azure DevOps
  OR
• GitHub Actions

CI/CD Pipeline experience required.

Kubernetes

• AKS
• Helm
• Flux
• ArgoCD
• Azure CNI
• Calico

Monitoring

• Azure Monitor
• Log Analytics
• Application Insights
• KQL

Azure Data Services

• Azure SQL
• Cosmos DB
• PostgreSQL Flexible Server
• Synapse Analytics
• Microsoft Fabric
• Azure Data Lake

Integration Services

• API Management
• Service Bus
• Event Grid
• Event Hubs
• Logic Apps

Automation

• PowerShell
• Python
• Bash

Required Experience

• 9 15 years IT experience
• 5 7+ years hands-on Azure Engineering
• 2 4+ years Azure Cloud Architecture
• Experience designing enterprise Azure environments
• Experience leading Azure cloud migration projects
• Strong stakeholder management
• Experience mentoring cloud engineers

Preferred Experience

• Federal Government
• Healthcare
• Banking
• Financial Services
• FedRAMP
• NIST
• HIPAA
• Azure Arc
• Azure Stack
• VMware
• Windows/Linux Administration
• Application Modernization
• Microservices
• Serverless

Required Certifications

Must Have:

• AZ-305 (Azure Solutions Architect Expert)
• AZ-104 (Azure Administrator Associate)
• AZ-500 (Azure Security Engineer Associate)

Preferred:

• AZ-700
• SC-100
• CKA