Cloud Architect

APN Consulting, Inc. is a progressive IT staffing and services company offering innovative business solutions to improve client business outcomes. We focus on high impact technology solutions in ServiceNow, Fullstack, Cloud & Data, and AI / ML. Due to our globally expanding service offerings we are seeking top talent to join our teams and grow with us.


Direct Client Requirement
Job Title: Cloud Architect
Location: Remote
Job Type: Contract
No preference on city. Time zone can be any of ET/CT/MT/PT.

Your responsibilities span four core pillars:

• Patterns & Practices - Define and maintain the approved Azure service configurations, baseline architectures, and governance standards that application teams rely on.
• Cost Management - Own cloud cost forecasting, savings initiatives, anomaly detection, and cost allocation reporting.
• Application Infrastructure Advisory - Partner with application architects, developers, and DevOps engineers to design infrastructure solutions that are secure, cost-efficient, scalable, and performant.
• Escalation Support - Act as the final escalation point for complex infrastructure issues that cannot be resolved at the application or operations layer.

Responsibilities:
Patterns & Practices

• Define, maintain, and govern approved Azure service baselines - including SKU configurations, approved networking topologies, authentication standards, DR design patterns, and globalization patterns.
• Onboard new Azure services by evaluating feasibility, documenting approved configurations, and publishing guidance and guardrails to application teams.
• Review and update existing patterns to reflect service evolution, cost changes, new security requirements, and platform retirements.
• Partner closely with Cyber and Security teams to embed security controls within all approved patterns and infrastructure designs.
• Take ownership of designing security at both the network and identity levels - ensuring secure access controls, authentication frameworks, network segmentation, and identity management are integral to all approved standards.
• Maintain pattern and architecture documentation in the team's central knowledge base.

Cost Management & Savings

• Manage and forecast cloud infrastructure budgets across supported workloads.
• Identify and drive cost savings opportunities through reserved instances planning, right-sizing, and architecture optimization.
• Monitor for cost anomalies; establish automated detection, alerting, and response processes.
• Provide cost allocation reporting to project teams and business stakeholders, supporting chargeback.
• Drive recommendations for business prioritization and roadmaps based on cost and infrastructure data.

Application Infrastructure Advisory

• Partner with application architects, developers, and DevOps engineers to design infrastructure solutions that are secure, cost-efficient, scalable, and performant.
• Lead the definition and design of robust infrastructure solutions that prioritize scalability, high performance, and secure network architecture.
• Design efficient, secure, adaptable, and reliable cloud solutions spanning Azure infrastructure and platform services (data, networking, application).
• Provide technical guidance for analysis of business requirements and their applicability to current or planned platform, enabler, or API capabilities.
• Participate in end-to-end functionality assessments during validation testing phases (SIT, UAT).
• Support environment lifecycle management including provisioning, configuration, scaling, and decommissioning.
• Guide performance tuning and optimization efforts for cloud-hosted applications.
• Contribute to Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan (DR/BCP) design for critical applications.
• Develop proof-of-concepts to showcase the feasibility of innovative ideas, infrastructure advancements, and adoption of new services.
• Guide the DevOps way of working within continuous delivery and self-healing systems.
• Lead project deliverables across multiple workstreams with high quality and engineering discipline.

Governance & Cloud Operations

• Manage subscription creation and lifecycle governance, including network IP space allocation and routing design.
• Define and enforce cloud governance policies (Azure Policy, Management Group hierarchy, tagging standards, compliance baselines).
• Lead resource tagging governance to ensure accurate cost allocation, operational visibility, and compliance reporting.
• Manage service and feature retirements in coordination with application teams, ensuring controlled and documented decommissioning.
• Coordinate Cloud Architect resource allocation across supported application teams.
• Apply sound judgment to balance infrastructure constraints with business drivers.

Application Support

• Act as the escalation point for complex infrastructure issues that cannot be resolved by application or operations teams.
• Triage production incidents related to Azure infrastructure, networking, identity, or platform services.
• Provide root cause analysis and remediation guidance; feed findings back into patterns and practices to prevent recurrence.
• Maintain working knowledge of supported application architectures to accelerate triage efficiency.

Leadership & Culture

• Practice and encourage Agile methodologies in architecture and governance processes.
• Demonstrate the courage to advocate for what is best for the product, team, department, and company.
• Motivate and mentor others through technical and professional growth.
• Maintain a positive and resilient attitude in an environment where infrastructure decisions impact hundreds of thousands of users daily.

Qualification:

• Minimum of 6 years of cloud arch experience.
• Creativity and ability to think outside-the-box while defining sound and practical solutions.
• Desire to take the initiative, moving projects/ideas forward with clarity.
• Adept negotiation skills in high-pressure situations.
• Leadership skills to indirectly lead cross-functional teams towards common solutions.
• Excellent communication, presentation, influencing, and reasoning skills to earn support of business leaders, technology leaders, colleagues, and vendor representatives.

We are committed to fostering a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace where individuals from all backgrounds feel valued and empowered to contribute their unique perspectives. We strongly encourage applications from candidates of all genders, races, ethnicities, abilities, and experiences to join our team and help us build a culture of belonging.