Lead Cloud Operations Engineer – Azure & Kubernetes

Lead Cloud Operations Engineer – Azure & Kubernetes

Overview

Our client is seeking a Lead Cloud Operations Engineer to provide technical leadership while remaining hands-on in the design, implementation, and support of enterprise-scale cloud infrastructure within Microsoft Azure. This role is ideal for a senior cloud professional who enjoys solving complex infrastructure challenges, mentoring engineering teams, and driving automation, scalability, security, and operational excellence.

The successful candidate will play a key role in building and maintaining highly available, secure, and scalable cloud environments while partnering closely with engineering, DevOps, and customer-facing teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead technical direction and best practices for Azure cloud infrastructure and Kubernetes (AKS) environments.
• Design, implement, and maintain Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform.
• Build, deploy, and support Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) production environments.
• Implement GitOps deployment strategies utilizing ArgoCD, Helm, and Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines.
• Design and administer Azure Application Gateway, Load Balancers, WAF, SSL termination, and ingress controllers.
• Manage Azure Key Vault, certificates, secrets management, and cloud security best practices.
• Build and maintain Azure Container Registry (ACR) repositories, image lifecycle management, and security scanning.
• Develop automation using Python, Bash, or Shell scripting to improve operational efficiency.
• Monitor infrastructure health, performance, availability, and security across cloud environments.
• Lead incident response, root cause analysis (RCA), problem resolution, and post-incident reviews.
• Optimize Azure infrastructure for performance, scalability, reliability, and cost efficiency (FinOps).
• Troubleshoot Kubernetes clusters, networking, storage, identity, and authentication issues.
• Establish infrastructure standards, governance, compliance, and operational procedures.
• Mentor junior engineers through technical leadership, architecture guidance, and code reviews.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, stakeholders, and customers to support cloud operations and platform initiatives.
• Support high availability, disaster recovery, backup strategies, and multi-region cloud deployments.
• Participate in on-call support and collaborate across multiple time zones when required.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of Cloud Infrastructure or Cloud Operations Engineering experience.
• 5+ years of hands-on Microsoft Azure experience within enterprise production environments.
• 5+ years supporting and administering Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Expert-level experience with Terraform and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC).
• Strong experience with Azure DevOps or comparable CI/CD platforms.
• Hands-on experience with ArgoCD, GitOps deployment methodologies, and Helm.
• Experience managing Azure Application Gateway, WAF, load balancing, SSL certificates, and ingress.
• Strong knowledge of Azure Key Vault, secrets management, and identity/security best practices.
• Experience supporting Azure Container Registry (ACR) and container image lifecycle management.
• Strong Linux administration and troubleshooting experience.
• Proficiency with automation scripting using Python, Bash, or Shell.
• Solid understanding of networking concepts including TCP/IP, DNS, routing, firewalls, VPNs, load balancing, and network troubleshooting.
• Proven experience leading technical initiatives while mentoring engineering teams.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Microsoft Azure Certifications (AZ-104, AZ-305, AZ-700, or equivalent).
• Kubernetes certifications (CKA, CKAD).
• Experience with cloud security platforms such as Microsoft Defender or Wiz.
• Azure API Management (APIM) experience.
• Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity planning (Azure Backup, Site Recovery).
• FinOps and cloud cost optimization experience.
• Experience working within regulated enterprise environments (financial services, banking, healthcare, insurance, etc.).
• Knowledge of compliance frameworks including SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, or similar.
• Experience with Prometheus, Grafana, Azure Monitor, Azure Log Analytics, and Application Insights.

Technical Environment

• Microsoft Azure
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
• Terraform
• Azure DevOps
• ArgoCD
• Helm
• GitOps
• Azure Application Gateway
• Azure Key Vault
• Azure Container Registry (ACR)
• Linux
• Python
• Bash / Shell
• Docker
• Kubernetes
• Azure Monitor
• Azure Log Analytics
• Application Insights
• Prometheus
• Grafana