Cloud Engineering Manager

Cloud Engineering Manager

Position Summary

The Cloud Engineering Manager leads the team responsible for the reliability, scalability, security, and financial governance of the organization’s Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

This role manages a team of Cloud Engineers and Site Reliability Engineers responsible for building and operating the Azure platform that supports critical enterprise and product workloads.

The Manager focuses on engineering leadership, platform ownership, operational excellence, and team development, ensuring the team consistently delivers secure, resilient, and cost‑optimized cloud services.

While the team performs the hands-on engineering work, the Manager brings prior hands-on Azure engineering experience to guide architectural decisions, mentor engineers, and ensure engineering standards are upheld.

This role serves as the L3 Cloud Engineering leadership function within the ITIL-aligned support model and acts as the incident leader for Azure-related major incidents affecting production services.

Team Leadership & Development

Lead, mentor, and develop a team of cloud engineers responsible for Azure platform engineering and reliability.

Responsibilities include:

• Recruiting and developing high-performing cloud engineers

• Establishing engineering standards and best practices

• Coaching engineers on architecture, reliability engineering, and operational excellence

• Conducting performance management and career development planning

• Creating a culture of ownership, accountability, and engineering excellence

Platform Ownership

The Cloud Engineering Manager is accountable for the engineering and operational health of the Azure platform, including:

• Azure infrastructure architecture

• Cloud networking

• Identity platform engineering (Microsoft Entra ID)

• CIAM engineering

• Azure disaster recovery architecture

• Reliability engineering and observability

Reliability & Production Operations

Lead Site Reliability Engineering practices for production cloud services.

Responsibilities include:

• Managing reliability standards and SLO/SLA objectives

• Leading root cause analysis for major incidents

• Driving reliability improvements and automation

• Ensuring monitoring and observability coverage

• Managing on‑call escalation processes

Cloud Financial Governance (FinOps)

Ensure responsible and efficient use of cloud resources.

Responsibilities include:

• Monitoring Azure consumption and cost trends

• Driving engineering accountability for cost efficiency

• Establishing cost governance guardrails

• Supporting forecasting and budget planning

Architecture & Engineering Governance

Ensure the Azure platform is engineered using scalable, secure, and standardized architecture patterns.

Responsibilities include:

• Reviewing architecture designs and engineering proposals

• Driving reusable infrastructure patterns

• Promoting automation and infrastructure-as-code (IaC)

• Ensuring security and reliability are built into platform designs

Cross-Team Collaboration

Partner closely with Product Development, Infrastructure Engineering & Operations, Security, and the Service Desk.

Ensure effective collaboration across engineering teams responsible for DEV/QA/UAT and STG/PROD/TRN environments supporting the organization’s product-oriented delivery model.

Manager Accountability Model

The Cloud Engineering Manager is accountable for five key outcomes:

1. Platform Reliability

Ensure Azure platform availability targets are met and drive continuous reliability improvements.

2. Engineering Team Effectiveness

Develop and lead a high‑performing cloud engineering team with clear ownership and accountability.

3. Platform Architecture Quality

Maintain scalable and consistent architecture patterns that reduce operational complexity.

4. Cloud Financial Governance

Ensure cloud spending is visible, predictable, and optimized through strong FinOps discipline.

5. Cross‑Team Platform Collaboration

Enable effective collaboration between platform engineering and product development teams.

What This Manager Does NOT Do

The Cloud Engineering Manager leads through systems, standards, and people rather than serving as the primary individual contributor.

This role does not:

• Serve as the primary hands-on engineer building most infrastructure

• Act as a bottleneck for technical decisions

• Replace engineers during operational incidents

• Personally maintain every platform component

• Operate primarily as an individual contributor

First 90 Days in This Role

First 30 Days

• Learn the Azure platform architecture and key workloads

• Build relationships with engineers and partner teams

• Review monitoring, incident history, and FinOps practices

First 60 Days

• Clarify platform ownership across engineers

• Reinforce engineering standards and operational practices

• Identify reliability and cost optimization opportunities

First 90 Days

• Launch reliability and automation improvements

• Strengthen incident review processes

• Establish engineering and operational review rhythms