Cloud & FinOps – Azure Architect

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Oversee the architecture, governance, and strategic vision of the Microsoft Azure environment

• Develop scalable, secure, resilient, and cost-effective cloud solutions

• Create and uphold Azure governance standards, policies, and best practices

• Evaluate and endorse technical designs for architectural coherence, security, and cost-effectiveness

• Define and execute an enterprise-wide Azure FinOps framework

• Promote cloud cost transparency, budgeting, forecasting, and financial accountability through showback and chargeback models

• Set up cost guardrails, budgets, and anomaly detection processes

• Enhance Azure spending across storage tiers, computing resources, backup and disaster recovery, licensing, and reserved capacity

• Formulate and enforce a data lifecycle strategy for over 20 years of historical data

• Define data classification policies and tiered Azure storage strategies

• Lead initiatives for data rationalization of redundant, obsolete, trivial, and duplicate data

• Refine backup strategies based on recovery objectives and business criticality

• Implement compression, partitioning, pruning, and lifecycle policies to decrease storage costs

• Oversee the architecture of enterprise Azure data platforms, inclusive of Azure Data Lake, Azure Databricks, customer data platforms, and iPaaS

• Design effective and scalable data pipelines

• Optimize batch and real-time processing workloads

• Reduce unnecessary data movement between platforms

• Establish reusable data product architectures

• Ensure the separation of compute and storage for enhanced performance and cost efficiency

• Lead organization-wide Azure data cost reduction initiatives

• Evaluate Azure infrastructure and storage utilization

• Identify high-cost storage accounts, redundant backups, and unused datasets

• Implement storage lifecycle management policies

• Archive cold data and refine backup strategies

• Redesign cloud architecture for long-term effectiveness

• Develop real-time cost dashboards and continuous optimization processes

• Collaborate with Microsoft and cloud partners for cost optimization

• Assess licensing, reserved capacity, and commercial optimization strategies

• Partner with Engineering, Data, Security, and Finance teams to align cloud investments with business priorities

⛳️ Requirements

• Extensive experience in designing and managing enterprise Microsoft Azure environments

• Proven track record in leading Azure FinOps or large-scale cloud cost optimization initiatives

• Strong expertise in Microsoft Azure, Azure Governance, Azure Storage and Lifecycle Management, Azure Data Lake, Azure Databricks, Enterprise Cloud Architecture, and Cloud Security

• Experience managing extensive historical data estates with over 10 years of enterprise data

• In-depth understanding of cloud financial management, budgeting, forecasting, and cost optimization

• Experience in designing scalable and cost-efficient enterprise data platforms

• Excellent skills in stakeholder management and communication

• FinOps Foundation Certification or equivalent preferred

• Experience with Customer Data Platforms, such as Amperity, is preferred

• Knowledge of Master Data Management and data governance frameworks is preferred

• Experience with enterprise analytics and large-scale data ecosystems is preferred

• Required skills include Azure and Azure OpenAI

🏝️ Benefits

• Responsibilities for cost optimization and cloud financial management

• Opportunity for collaboration with Microsoft and cloud partners

• Full-time employment