Cloud Consultant

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.