Cloud Architect

Cloud Architect (GCP, Azure OCI)

Location: Plano, TX

The Cloud Architect Subject Matter Expert (SME) is a critical senior technical leader responsible for overseeing and governing the design, operational stability, and modernization of our hybrid and multi-cloud environments (GCP, Azure, OCI). This role ensures 24x7 operational excellence for critical healthcare services, drives proactive Level 2 and Level 3 Incident/Problem Management, and guarantees strict adherence to cost optimization, automation, and stringent compliance standards like HIPAA and SOC2. The Architect Lead serves as the highest-level technical escalation point and provides essential mentorship to the Cloud Operations engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Serve as the L3/L4 technical escalation point for complex, high-severity (P1/P2) incidents impacting cloud infrastructure and critical healthcare applications.
• Lead Deep Dive Root Cause Analysis (RCA) for major recurring incidents, implementing strategic preventative measures to eliminate repeat failures.
• Directly manage the cloud operations team's day-to-day activities for Incident, Problem, and Change Management, ensuring strict adherence to ITIL processes, SLAs.
• Define, document, and govern the cloud operations architecture for high availability (HA), disaster recovery (DR), performance, and security across all cloud tenants (GCP, Azure, OCI).
• Specifically design and manage the operational lifecycle of container orchestration platforms, including Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters.
• Ensure all cloud deployments and operational practices are rigorously aligned with HIPAA, and SOC2 compliance and security policies.
• Oversee and drive vulnerability management, security patching, and compliance audit readiness (including vendor coordination).
• Establish and maintain comprehensive operational standards, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), runbooks, and robust governance models for the Cloud Operations team.
• Accelerate automation initiatives using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and configuration management (Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell) to reduce manual toil and improve operational consistency.
• Implement and mature observability and monitoring strategies using relevant tooling to ensure proactive identification of performance degradation and capacity issues.
• Develop and govern the architecture for scalable, secure multi-cloud landing zones and policy frameworks (e.g., Azure Policy, GCP Organization Policy).
• Define and champion FinOps strategies and cost optimization best practices across all cloud resources, driving transparency and accountability for cloud spending.
• Act as the SME and key liaison for resolving complex cross-functional issues with DB, Application, Security, and Network teams.
• Guide and mentor Cloud Administrators and platform SMEs, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous improvement.

Qualifications:

Technical Skills:

• Experience: 10–15 years of progressive experience in infrastructure architecture, engineering, and high-volume, critical cloud operations support.
• Multi-Cloud Platforms: Deep and proven expertise in designing, implementing, and operating solutions within Google Cloud Platform (GCP) (preferred), Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) ecosystems.
• Containerization: Expert knowledge of container technologies, including deployment, networking, security, and operational management of Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and related services (e.g., Anthos, Cloud Run).
• Healthcare Compliance: Demonstrated expertise in maintaining HIPAA compliance and security within a public multi-cloud environment.
• Operational Frameworks: Advanced understanding and application of ITIL v4 principles, FinOps, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) concepts.
• Automation/IaC: Strong practical experience with: IaC: Terraform, GCP instance Templates, Azure ARM/Bicep, CloudFormation. Configuration Management/Scripting: Ansible, PowerShell, Python scripting, YAML. CI/CD: GitHub, Azure DevOps, or similar.
• Networking Security: Advanced knowledge of cloud networking (VNet/VPC, ExpressRoute/Direct Connect, and VPNs) and cloud-native security services.
• Storage Backup : Knowledge of cloud storage tiers, snapshots, and backup solutions (Cohesity, Commvault, GCP Backup, Azure Backup)
• Leadership: Strong leadership, incident command, and mentoring experience in managing and growing high-performing technical teams.