Cloud Architect

Job Description

The Cloud Architect is accountable for establishing and evolving core cloud platform foundations on Microsoft Azure. This role focuses on building secure, scalable, and repeatable cloud capabilities - so product and data teams can move fast without breaking things. This is a hands-on architecture role with clear ownership of cloud landing zones, identity and access management, secure connectivity, observability, and shared data platform resources.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Cloud Platform Foundations

• Design, implement, and maintain an Azure application landing zone, including subscription strategy, network topology, security baselines, policies, and cost controls.
• Define and operate cloud architecture guardrails and “golden paths” that enable team autonomy while maintaining platform consistency.
• Own and evolve reference architectures for cloud-native workloads and shared platform services.

Secure Connectivity & Networking

• Design and implement secure network connectivity patterns between Azure and external environments, including Mendix Cloud, private datacenters, and third-party service providers.
• Define standards for network segmentation, private connectivity, ingress/egress control, and traffic inspection.
• Ensure connectivity solutions are resilient, observable, and aligned with security and regulatory requirements.
• Partner with vendors and internal teams to establish clear ownership and operational models for cross-boundary connectivity.

Identity, Security, and Access

• Establish platform-level identity and access management as a shared service, including Azure Entra External ID and brokering with external identity providers.
• Define access models, role-based access control, and trust boundaries across internal and external workloads.
• Work closely with security and governance stakeholders to embed security controls into platform foundations.

Observability & Operational Excellence

• Define and implement platform-wide observability standards (logging, metrics, tracing, alerting) across internal and connected external services.
• Embed observability into CI/CD pipelines and engineering workflows to support incident response and operational learning.
• Collaborate with DevOps and platform teams to enable resilience, automated recovery, and operational readiness.

Data Platform Enablement

• Co-own the cloud foundations for the company's data platform, including secure data services, access patterns, and operational guardrails.
• Support high-throughput, reliable, and secure data exchange between internal platforms and external systems.

Architecture Leadership

• Conduct architecture reviews focused on enabling delivery, managing risk, and making clear, timely decisions.
• Produce clear, pragmatic documentation that teams actually use.
• Mentor engineers through hands-on collaboration and by delivering concrete reference implementations.
• Stay current on cloud and platform technologies, evaluating new capabilities where they create real operational or business value.

Skills and Qualifications

• 5+ years’ experience in cloud architecture or senior cloud engineering roles.
• Deep, hands-on expertise with Microsoft Azure (networking, identity, security, IaaS, PaaS).
• Proven experience designing and implementing cloud landing zones and secure network architectures.
• Practical experience with hybrid and multi-environment connectivity (e.g. cloud-to-cloud, cloud-to-datacenter, third-party integrations).
• Strong experience with cloud identity and access management, including federation with external identity providers.
• Practical experience implementing platform-wide observability.
• Solid understanding of DevOps practices, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code.
• Experience with container platforms (e.g. Kubernetes / AKS) and cloud-native architecture patterns.
• Ability to balance architectural rigor with delivery pragmatism.
• Strong communication and stakeholder-management skills.