Senior Azure Infrastructure Engineer

Job Description:

JOB SUMMARY:

The Azure Systems Engineer will play a key role in designing, implementing, and maintaining Vertex’s cloud infrastructure, with a strong emphasis on deploying cloud-native solutions and governance controls within the Microsoft Azure platform. This position requires a candidate with proven experience in project delivery and operational support for automation platforms, ideally within a collaborative Agile environment.

The successful candidate will be responsible for developing and delivering production-grade tooling that prioritizes performance, reliability, and scalability, while ensuring the security and stability of the cloud operating environment.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Provide architecture, design, and implementation guidance for Azure base infrastructure and systems – Authentication, Networking, Permissions, Cost Management, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), etc.

• Efficient implementation of base Azure infrastructure across Development, Stage, and Production accounts

• Collaborate with the Development, Cloud Engineering, and Architecture teams to design and implement the Cloud Engineering team’s Azure roadmap

• Have a strong understanding of Azure AI services, including but not limited to Azure Machine Learning, Cognitive Services, Azure OpenAI, and Bot Services, and be able to integrate these services into cloud solutions.

• Partner with Enterprise Architecture to understand context of Outer Architecture vision at Vertex and represent these as requirements within the Cloud Engineering team.

• Represent the needs of the Vertex Platform within the Cloud Engineering team as Vertex migrates applications and system to Azure

• Expertly advise on processes and solutions regarding Azure cloud automation and deployment strategies, container-based strategies, and automation technologies specifically, but not limited to Azure and AKS.

• Implement automation, processes, and tooling required to enable the Vertex Platform development teams to take advantage of the Azure cloud platform

• Educate and guide other Vertex personnel as they become more familiar with Azure

• Be a consistent teacher of Azure best practices to elevate engineers inside and outside your team.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

• Proven track record of implementing large scale cloud native applications on Azure.

• Strong experience designing and deploying Azure, AWS, and other cloud services with an Infrastructure as Code (IaC) mindset.

• Strong experience using IaC to manage an AKS development and production environment.

• Strong experience with Docker based designs, deployments, and managing containers.

• Strong experience within the Linux OS ecosystem

• Strong experience with Kubernetes deployment, high availability operations, and security.

• Strong experience designing and implementing infrastructure automation and configuration management tools and techniques.

• Strong experience with at least one automation/scripting/deployment language such as Python, Ruby, Go, Node.js, PowerShell, Cloud Formation, Terraform, AWS CDK, Azure DevOps etc.

• Experience with IaC abstraction code libraries such as CDK, SAM, or Serverless

• Strong communication skills - verbal and written - with the ability to collaborate well within a team and across organizations.

• Strong experience designing and implementing the infrastructure and pipelines for Software as a Service (SaaS) products.

• Ability to design, deploy, and manage operating systems, and/or applications on Azure.  AWS experience is a plus.

• Knowledge of systems administration in a variety of environments - Linux, Windows, virtualized, and Azure.  AWS experience a plus

• Automated build and integration experience with tools like Jenkins, Ant, QuickBuild, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Helm, CodeFresh, etc.

• Experience with Software as a Service (SaaS) environments including architecture and management.

EDUCATION, TRAINING:

• Undergraduate degree preferably in Computer Science or a similar technical degree.

• 12+ years of experience in technology related roles.

• 7+ years of experience in technical leadership or operational roles.

• 4+ years of experience in a DevOps culture or production SaaS environment.