Cloud Solution Architect - Smart Solutions Onboarding

Job Purpose:

Supports the onboarding of Smart Solutions onto the Platform by providing technical architecture assurance, Azure advisory, and compliance validation throughout the solution lifecycle. The role works closely with solution vendors, platform teams, cybersecurity, operations, and business stakeholders to ensure each onboarded solution aligns with the standards for cloud architecture, security, integration, cost efficiency, observability, and operational readiness. The architect performs design reviews, policy and compliance checks, performance and sizing assessments, and best-practice guidance to help vendors onboard successfully into managed environments while minimizing risk, avoiding unnecessary cloud lock-in, and ensuring long-term supportability.

Qualifications & Experience:

• 7+ years in cloud solution architecture, cloud engineering, or platform onboarding roles in enterprise environments.
• Hands-on experience with Azure enterprise environments, landing zones, hub-and-spoke networking, and subscription governance.
• Experience reviewing or implementing solutions using Kubernetes, VMs, PaaS services, storage, monitoring, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with architecture assurance, cloud governance, or compliance validation in government, telecom, or regulated environments.
• Familiarity with FinOps, Well-Architected best practices, and non-functional requirements such as scalability, DR, and observability.
• Azure certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Azure Administrator are strongly preferred.

Skills & Abilities:

• Strong Azure cloud architecture expertise across networking, compute, storage, identity, security, and monitoring.
• Ability to perform structured technical reviews and identify architecture, compliance, performance, and supportability risks.
• Good understanding of cloud governance, landing zones, RBAC, policy enforcement, and enterprise onboarding processes.
• Ability to balance architectural best practice with practical vendor enablement and delivery constraints.
• Strong analytical skills for cost optimization, performance assessment, and infrastructure sizing recommendations.
• Clear technical communication and documentation skills, including the ability to explain findings and remediation actions to vendors and stakeholders.

Tools:

• Azure architecture and governance: Azure Portal, Azure Policy, Azure Monitor, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Microsoft Sentinel
• Infrastructure & deployment: Terraform, Bicep, ARM, Azure DevOps / GitHub, CI/CD pipelines
• Architecture & review artefacts: Visio / Draw.io / Lucidchart, Excel / Power BI for cost and sizing analysis
• Containers & observability: AKS, Helm, Log Analytics, OpenTelemetry-based monitoring tools