Principal Cloud Engineer - Azure

As the technical authority on Azure, you will lead the design of cloud architectures, guide strategic decision-making, and steer the delivery of robust, secure, and scalable cloud platforms. While you will collaborate closely with the DevOps team, this role is not focused on CI/CD delivery, instead, you will concentrate on designing the solution, defining the cloud approach, and engineering the core Azure infrastructure., * Define, shape, and implement the organisation's Azure cloud strategy and cloud adoption roadmap.

• Lead and contribute to the engineering and build-out of Azure infrastructure and cloud-native services.
• Drive the migration from on-premises to Azure, ensuring secure and scalable architecture.
• Design high-level and low-level cloud architectures, ensuring alignment with business and technical needs.
• Act as a key authority on Azure platform design, infrastructure patterns, governance, and best practice.
• Work across senior business and technical stakeholders to translate requirements into cloud solutions.
• Guide and advise the DevOps team on cloud standards and architecture where required - but not delivering CI/CD pipelines directly.
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineering teams, uplifting cloud capability across the organisation.
• Engineer solutions using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and relevant automation tooling.

We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Cloud Engineer to drive a major cloud transformation programme for a leading specialty insurer. This role blends hands-on Azure engineering (60%) with cloud architecture, strategy, and design (40%), playing a key part in shaping the organisation's long-term cloud vision., * Extensive hands-on experience in Azure cloud engineering, infrastructure build, and cloud solution delivery.

• Strong design experience across Azure services including Virtual Networks, Landing Zones, Identity, PaaS, Serverless, IaaS, Storage, Security, and Governance.
• Proven capability in cloud architecture, including designing scalable and secure multi-tier systems.
• Experience leading cloud transformation programmes or large-scale migrations.
• Solid understanding of Kubernetes and containerisation within Azure ecosystems (AKS).
• Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code, particularly Terraform.
• Ability to translate complex technical concepts for senior business stakeholders.
• Azure cloud certifications (eg, AZ-305, AZ-700, AZ-104).
• Broader architecture certifications (eg, TOGAF) desirable.