Senior Cloud Operations Engineer

Senior Cloud Operations Engineer

We are seeking an experienced Cloud Operations Engineer (Azure) to design, implement, and operate secure, scalable, and highly available cloud infrastructure within Microsoft Azure. This is a hands-on role focused on operational excellence—driving stability, performance, automation, cost optimization, security hardening, and resilient recovery strategies across a modern cloud platform.

In this role, you will be responsible for maintaining and continuously improving cloud environments that support enterprise applications, ensuring alignment with security, compliance, and operational best practices. You will collaborate closely with engineering, security, and DevOps teams to ensure cloud services are deployed safely, monitored effectively, and enhanced continuously.

The ideal candidate brings a strong combination of Azure administration, architectural awareness, and DevOps integration, with deep expertise in identity, security, and automation. You will play a key role in enabling rapid and reliable delivery through Azure DevOps and robust CI/CD pipelines while advancing the maturity and efficiency of the organization's cloud operations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Administer and optimize Azure environments across IaaS and PaaS services, ensuring scalability, reliability, and performance.
• Deploy and manage Azure services including computer, networking, storage, and platform services.
• Monitor system health, availability, and performance using Azure-native and third party tools.
• Provide support for production systems, including incident response and root cause analysis.
• Maintain SLAs and ensure systems meet uptime and resiliency requirements.
• Own operational lifecycle management for Azure app registrations, enterprise applications, service principals, client secrets, certificates, Key Vault integrations, and related monitoring/alerting to prevent expiration-related outages.
• Support Azure networking resources including VNets, peering, private endpoints, private DNS zones, VPN connectivity, NSGs, routing, and firewall/security integration.
• Deploy and operate Azure SQL Database / Azure SQL Managed Instance services, including secure connectivity, backups, performance monitoring, availability options, and recovery validation.
• Create and maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, operational runbooks, and support handoff materials for Azure, identity, automation, and application platform services.

Required Qualifications:

• 4–7+ years of experience in IT infrastructure, cloud administration, or systems engineering.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure (IaaS, PaaS, networking, identity).
• Experience with Azure DevOps and CI/CD pipelines.
• Strong knowledge of identity management (Entra ID / Okta integration).
• Experience with scripting/automation (PowerShell, Python, or similar).
• Solid understanding of networking concepts (DNS, TCP/IP, firewalls, VPNs).

Preferred Qualifications:

• Azure certifications (Administrator, Security Engineer, or DevOps Engineer).
• Experience implementing Zero Trust architecture.
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code.
• Experience supporting regulated environments (financial services, healthcare, etc.).
• Knowledge of monitoring and observability tools (Azure Monitor, LogicMonitor).
• Bachelor's degree in information technology related field.

Key Competencies:

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Effective cross-functional collaboration and communication.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Detail-oriented with a focus on security and compliance.
• Continuous improvement mindset with a focus on automation and efficiency.

What Success Looks Like:

• Secure, stable, and highly available Azure environment.
• Efficient, automated deployment pipelines.
• Well-governed identity and access management.
• Optimized cloud spending aligned with business needs.
• Strong alignment between infrastructure, security, and application teams.

Pay Transparency: Pathstone's expected starting base compensation range for the position as of the time of this posting is $120,000 - $140,000 per year. The actual base compensation selected for this role will be set based on a variety of factors, including (but not limited to) experience, education, specialty and training. The successful candidate(s) may also be eligible for a discretionary bonus award.

Visa Sponsorship: Please note, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for the position offered. Accordingly, we are unable to hire individuals who require, or will require, employment visa sponsorship either now or in the future.

Pathstone is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.