Azure Cloud Architect

Job Summary

We are looking for an experienced Azure Cloud Architect with 10+ years of overall IT experience and strong expertise in Microsoft Azure cloud architecture, enterprise infrastructure, and platform engineering.

The ideal candidate should combine architecture leadership with hands-on implementation experience in Azure Landing Zones, networking, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), cloud security, identity management, high availability, disaster recovery, and Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

Strong practical experience with Azure Bicep, ARM templates, and Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines is mandatory. The candidate should also possess excellent client-facing communication skills and the ability to lead architecture workshops, present technical solutions, and guide engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and implement enterprise Azure architectures aligned with Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework and Azure Well-Architected Framework.
• Design Azure Landing Zones, management groups, subscriptions, governance, RBAC, Azure Policy, and resource tagging standards.
• Architect Azure networking, including Virtual WAN, Hub-Spoke, VNets, NSGs, Private Link, Private DNS, ExpressRoute, VPN, BGP, and NAT Gateway.
• Design and implement secure, scalable AKS environments, including private clusters, node pools, autoscaling, workload identity, ingress, and multi-region deployment patterns.
• Develop high-availability and disaster recovery solutions across Azure regions and availability zones, including backup, replication, failover, RTO, and RPO planning.
• Design cloud security solutions using Microsoft Entra ID, Managed Identity, Workload Identity, PIM, Conditional Access, Key Vault, Defender for Cloud, and zero-trust principles.
• Design secure application ingress and egress using Application Gateway, API Management, WAF, DDoS protection, and private networking.
• Architect Azure data and storage services, including Azure Database for PostgreSQL Flexible Server, Blob Storage, and Azure Container Registry.
• Implement monitoring and observability using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights.
• Drive FinOps practices, including cost optimization, resource sizing, tagging, chargeback/showback, and AKS workload-level cost allocation.
• Review infrastructure implementations against approved architecture, security, networking, and governance standards.
• Collaborate with DevOps, security, networking, application, and engineering teams to translate architecture designs into deployable solutions.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and DevOps

• Develop, maintain, and deploy reusable and modular Azure infrastructure using Azure Bicep and ARM templates.
• Create parameterized templates and standardized infrastructure deployment patterns across multiple environments.
• Implement Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure provisioning and application deployment.
• Configure secure pipeline authentication using Workload Identity Federation and Managed Identities.
• Implement deployment validation, parameter management, environment promotion, and governance controls.
• Apply DevSecOps practices to improve infrastructure security, consistency, and deployment reliability.
• Terraform experience is an added advantage; however, candidates must have hands-on Bicep and ARM template experience.

Client Communication and Architecture Documentation

• Lead client workshops to gather business, technical, security, networking, and operational requirements.
• Present architecture designs and technical recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Explain architecture decisions, design trade-offs, assumptions, risks, dependencies, and implementation approaches.
• Prepare High-Level Designs (HLDs), Low-Level Designs (LLDs), architecture diagrams, migration plans, and technical decision records.
• Lead architecture reviews and provide practical implementation guidance to engineering teams.
• Coordinate effectively with onshore and offshore stakeholders.

Required Technical Skills

• 10+ years of overall IT infrastructure, cloud engineering, solution architecture, or cloud architecture experience.
• At least 5 years of hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure enterprise environments.
• Strong expertise in Azure infrastructure design and implementation.
• Hands-on experience with Azure Landing Zones, governance, and enterprise networking.
• Strong Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) architecture and implement…