Senior Azure Cloud Engineer
Location: Bethesda, MD
Schedule: Hybrid — 3 days per week onsite
Employment Type: Full-Time
Base Salary: $165,000–$195,000 + annual bonus
About the Role
We are seeking a Senior Azure Cloud Engineer to own the design and evolution of a modern Microsoft Azure environment while working closely with a managed services partner.
This is a hands-on senior engineering role, not a management position or a purely architectural role. You will serve as the technical authority for the Azure platform—setting standards and architecture while personally building and troubleshooting critical components.
The position is approximately 50% hands-on engineering and 50% architecture, technical oversight, partner collaboration, and escalation.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, build, and evolve the Azure landing zone, including management groups, subscriptions, governance, and platform standards.
- Architect and engineer complex Azure networking, including hub-and-spoke environments, routing, firewalls, Private Endpoints, NSGs, private connectivity, and hybrid DNS.
- Write and maintain Terraform, including reusable modules, state management, pipelines, code reviews, and drift management.
- Establish Infrastructure as Code standards and review Terraform contributions from partner engineers.
- Build and oversee shared Azure platform services supporting compute, non-production environments, data gateways, certificates, secrets, and other foundational services.
- Partner with managed services and network engineers, providing technical direction and reviewing infrastructure and firewall changes before production deployment.
- Develop automation using PowerShell, Azure CLI, and Microsoft Graph.
- Establish monitoring, alerting, capacity planning, and cloud cost-management standards.
- Design infrastructure foundations supporting Azure integration services, including API Management, Service Bus, private connectivity, identity, and certificates.
- Support backup and disaster recovery initiatives, including test restores and resiliency validation.
- Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex issues involving Azure, networking, DNS, and partner-managed services.
- Create and maintain architecture decisions, technical standards, operational documentation, and runbooks.
- Support infrastructure controls and documentation required for audits and internal risk reviews.
- Participate in an on-call rotation for major platform incidents.
Required Qualifications
- 8+ years of infrastructure or cloud engineering experience.
- 5+ years designing and supporting production Microsoft Azure environments across multiple subscriptions.
- Recent hands-on Azure engineering experience, including personally working with Terraform and Azure networking within the last 12 months.
- 3+ years of strong Terraform experience, including reusable modules, state management, pipelines, code review, and drift management.
- Deep knowledge of Azure networking, including hub-and-spoke architecture, Private Endpoints, hybrid DNS, routing, firewalls, NSGs, WAN connectivity, and Zero Trust networking concepts.
- Experience designing and supporting Azure landing zones and multi-subscription environments.
- Experience working alongside a managed services provider (MSP) or external engineering partner while maintaining ownership of architecture and technical standards.
- Working knowledge of Azure integration services such as API Management and Service Bus, particularly the networking, identity, and certificate infrastructure supporting them.
- Strong automation skills with PowerShell, Azure CLI, and Microsoft Graph.
- Strong troubleshooting skills and the ability to take ownership of complex Azure infrastructure and networking issues.
- Strong technical documentation skills, including architecture decisions, runbooks, and operational standards.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience within financial services or another regulated/audited environment.
- Experience supporting infrastructure audits and producing technical control evidence.
- Azure certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) or Azure Network Engineer Associate (AZ-700).
- HashiCorp Terraform Associate certification.
- Experience with Microsoft Fabric capacity management, on-premises data gateways, or Azure cost management.
- Knowledge of Windows infrastructure dependencies, including Active Directory, AD-integrated DNS, Group Policy, DFS, and PKI.
Compensation & Benefits
- $165,000–$195,000 base salary, depending on experience
- Annual bonus eligibility
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Life insurance
- Paid time off and holidays
- 401(k) retirement plan
This is a hybrid position requiring 3 days per week onsite in Bethesda, Maryland. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States and successfully complete a background check.
