Lead - Azure DevOps & Infrastructure Engineer

Job Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead Azure DevOps & Infrastructure Engineer to join our engineering organization. This role requires deep expertise in designing, building, and operating production-grade cloud infrastructure with a strong emphasis on Microsoft Azure, DevOps automation, and platform reliability. The ideal candidate brings a systems-thinking mindset, combining architecture, automation, security, and operational excellence. You will own infrastructure design decisions, lead complex implementations, ensure high availability and cost efficiency. This role also includes mentoring engineers, collaborating with delivery and client stakeholders, and contributing to pre-sales and solution design when required.

Key Responsibilities:
• Design, architect, and implement scalable, highly available, secure, and cost-optimized infrastructure on Microsoft Azure.
• Define reference architectures for enterprise workloads, including networking, identity, security, and platform services.
• Architect infrastructure to support high-performance, resilient, and mission-critical production systems.
• Plan and execute zero- or near-zero-downtime migrations from on-prem or other clouds to Azure.
• Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform for enterprise-scale environments.
• Enforce modular, reusable, and policy-driven IaC patterns aligned with Azure Landing Zone principles.
• Implement automated validation, security scanning, and drift detection for infrastructure changes.
• Design and operate Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) clusters for multi-environment workloads.
• Manage Kubernetes deployments using Helm and/or Kustomize, following GitOps best practices.
• Implement and operate GitOps workflows using Argo CD or equivalent tools.
• Define platform standards for networking, ingress, secrets management, observability, and scaling.
• Design and implement robust CI/CD pipelines using tools such as GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, GitLab, Harness, or similar.
• Implement advanced deployment strategies including rolling updates, canary releases, and blue/green deployments.
• Ensure pipeline auditability, traceability, and observability, including approvals, artifact promotion, and rollback mechanisms.
• Embed security-by-design principles across infrastructure and pipelines (IAM, RBAC, secrets, network security).
• Implement Azure-native security controls (e.g., Defender for Cloud, Policy, Key Vault).
• Support audit, compliance, and regulatory requirements through automation and evidence generation.
• Drive reliability engineering practices, including monitoring, alerting, SLOs, and incident response.
• Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and coaching to infrastructure and DevOps engineers.
• Collaborate with Service Delivery Leads to support agile planning, backlog creation, and delivery execution when required.
• Lead troubleshooting and resolution of complex, cross-layer infrastructure and platform issues.
• Drive root cause analysis and continuous improvement across environments and processes.

Required Qualifications:
• 10+ years of experience in Infrastructure Engineering, DevOps, or Platform Engineering roles.
• Strong hands-on expertise with Microsoft Azure, including networking, compute, storage, identity, and security services.
• Proven experience architecting highly available, scalable, and secure cloud platforms.
• Deep expertise in Terraform for large-scale infrastructure automation.
• Strong experience with Kubernetes (AKS) and ecosystem tools (Helm, Kustomize, Argo CD).
• Solid understanding of Git-based workflows, branching strategies, and CI/CD best practices.
• Demonstrated experience with deployment strategies and production-grade release management.
• Strong background in security, auditability, and compliance in cloud environments.
• Excellent analytical, troubleshooting, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to engage both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Proven experience in technical leadership, mentoring, and building high-performing teams.
• Experience working in client-facing environments and managing technical expectations.

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Experience:
• Multi-cloud exposure (AWS and/or GCP) in addition to Azure.
• Software development or scripting experience (Terraform, Python, Bash, PowerShell).
• Experience with machine learning or data platform infrastructure.
• Familiarity with Azure Landing Zones, CAF, and enterprise governance models.
• Experience with cost optimization (FinOps) practices.

Certifications (Preferred):
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert
• Microsoft Certified: Azure DevOps Engineer Expert
• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• Other relevant cloud security, networking, or platform certifications

Education:
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.