Azure Cloud Architect (DevOps focus)

**This is an opportunity to join and a collaborative team of cloud and DevOps professionals delivering impactful projects and managing complex client environments. This role is fully remote, indefinitely.**
The Azure Cloud Architect is responsible for designing, guiding, and improving cloud and DevOps architectures that support secure, scalable, and reliable software delivery. This role focuses on Azure platform architecture, CI/CD strategy, infrastructure as code, security, and operational excellence. You will work closely with client stakeholders, engineering teams, and delivery leaders to define standards, lead technical direction, and translate business goals into practical Azure DevOps solutions.

Highlights & Benefits of working at Emergent Software

• Work closely with other talented cloud engineers. Our vetting process means you can count on your team members to know what they are talking about.

• Work from home or work remotely from anywhere you want

• Flexible work schedule meaning you can work regular hours or choose weekends and evenings

• Work-life balance is essential and highly valued at Emergent Software. If you choose to work more than 40 hours, you’ll be compensated for the extra work!

• Work on interesting projects solving complex business problems with custom software.

• 100 hours per year to focus on your professional development. We invest in your growth!

• Grow your career without leaving the tech track. At Emergent Software, you can advance and be recognized as a technical expert without transitioning into people management. We value deep technical expertise as much as leadership and have established clear career paths for those who want to stay hands-on. Profit sharing bonus means as we’re successful, you’re successful

• Excellent benefits package including medical insurance, dental, vision, 401(k) matching, FSA, disability, life insurance, and paid parental leave

Responsibilities

• Design end-to-end Azure DevOps architectures that support scalable, secure, and cost-effective solutions

• Define and evolve CI/CD strategies, platform standards, and infrastructure patterns across client environments

• Architect infrastructure as code solutions that promote reuse, consistency, and safe change management

• Lead technical discovery with clients to understand business goals, constraints, and risk tolerance

• Evaluate existing Azure and DevOps implementations and recommend architectural improvements

• Guide teams on cloud architecture decisions related to networking, identity, security, monitoring, and resiliency

• Partner with engineering teams to support containerized and orchestrated workloads

• Establish observability, reliability, and security practices aligned with DevSecOps principles

• Serve as a technical escalation point for complex and ambiguous platform challenges

• Mentor engineers and influence best practices across projects and engagements

• Communicate architectural tradeoffs and recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Accurately track time and work performed to support client delivery, planning, and billing

Consulting and Client Engagement Context

This role operates within a consulting environment, supporting multiple client engagements that vary widely in technical maturity, documentation quality, and constraints. Success in this role requires strong technical judgment, adaptability, and the ability to build trust with clients while driving meaningful technical outcomes.

• Engage directly with clients to understand business goals, technical constraints, and risk tolerance

• Diagnose and improve existing systems that may be partially implemented or inconsistently managed

• Communicate technical concepts, tradeoffs, and recommendations clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Balance pragmatic delivery with long-term maintainability and best practices

• Operate effectively in situations with incomplete information and evolving requirements

• Accurately track time and work performed to support client billing, project planning, and overall project health within a professional services delivery model

Qualifications

• Deep experience in DevOps, cloud engineering, or platform architecture roles

• Deep expertise designing and supporting Azure cloud environments

• Proven experience defining CI/CD strategies and platform standards

• Strong background in infrastructure as code and cloud architecture patterns

• Experience advising clients or stakeholders on architectural decisions

• Ability to lead technical direction without direct authority

• Strong communication skills and comfort working in client-facing environments

Technical Skills

The Azure Cloud Architect brings a strong blend of technical and operational skills to streamline software delivery and infrastructure management. You should be comfortable working end‑to‑end across modern DevOps tooling while collaborating closely with cross‑functional teams.

Azure Cloud

• Deep experience designing, implementing, and managing Azure infrastructure and Azure services networking, storage, and cost optimization.

• Familiarity with a broad range of Azure services and established cloud patterns (e.g., networking, identity, monitoring, and scalability)

Infrastructure as Code (IaC)

• Familiarity with IaC principles (idempotency, modular design, reuse, environment parity, and safe change management)

• Automating provisioning and configuration of infrastructure across environments.

• Tools: Terraform, Ansible, Chef, CloudFormation, Pulumi.

CI/CD Tools & Pipelines

• Designing, managing, and optimizing automated build, test, and deployment pipelines.

• Tools: Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, and Travis CI.

Networking Fundamentals

• Understanding Networking in Azure and other clouds

• Tools: Virtual Networks, Express Route, VPN Gateways, ZTNA, Global Secure Access

Version Control Systems

• Proficiency in Git, SVN, GitOps, and Trunk based workflows.

• Managing code changes, branching strategies, and rollback mechanisms.

• Tools: Git, Github, Azure DevOps

Scripting & Programming

• Build and maintain automation (scripts/tools) to streamline deployments and reduce manual toil.

• Familiarity with the .NET ecosystem is highly desired

• Languages: Bash, PowerShell, Python, C#, JavaScript, Ruby, Go

Monitoring & Logging

• Setting up observability, alerts, and performance dashboards.

• Tools: Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, New Relic, Datadog.

Security & Compliance

• Implementing secure DevOps practices (DevSecOps) while managing secrets, access controls and compliance audits.

• Tools: Azure Policy, Azure Management Groups, Defender, SonarQube, Trivy, Open Policy Agent

System Administration

• Strong knowledge of Windows and Linux/Unix systems.

• Managing servers, networking, and performance tuning.

• Tools: Azure Monitor, Azure Bastion, Azure Backup

Disaster Recovery & High Availability

• Designing and Implementing Disaster Recovery Plans that ensure High Availability, system resiliency, and minimal downtime

• Tools: Azure Site Recovery, Availability Zones, Azure Front Door, NGINX

Preferred Skills

• Consulting or professional services experience

• Experience defining reusable platform or reference architectures

• Familiarity with the .NET ecosystem

• Exposure to FinOps practices and cloud cost governance

• Experience mentoring senior engineers or leading architectural reviews

Certifications (Nice to Have)

• DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400)

• Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305)

• GitHub Administration (GH-100)

• GitHub Actions (GH-200)

• GitHub Copilot (GH-300)

• Certified Docker Associate

• Linux foundation Certified IT Associate

• Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)

• Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD)

• Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)

• FinOps Foundation certifications

• Terraform Associate

• Terraform Authoring & Operations Professional

• Cloudflare Accredited Configuration Engineer

• Cloudflare Accredited Services Architect

Our Vetting Process

At Emergent Software, we work hard to find the best people capable of delivering high quality services to our clients. If you think you’re one of those, please understand that the effort put into this by people like yourself helps us be successful in surrounding you with other top-notch people. Here are the steps of our vetting process for this position:

1. Application (5 minutes)

2. Online Assessment (40-50 minutes)

3. Initial Phone Interview (45-60 minutes)

4. Hiring Manager Interview (30 minutes)

5. Take Home Challenge

6. Technical Interview (60 minutes)

7. Job Offer

Benefits Package Details

• Medical Insurance: up to 84% of your monthly medical premium (HSA options available)

• HSA Contribution: up to $200/month

• Dental & Vision Insurance: up to 50% of your monthly dental and vision premium costs

• 401(k) plan: company match up to 4% of salary

• Profit sharing bonus: up to 15% of salary paid quarterly

• Extra compensation: get paid extra for work over 40 hours/week

• Employee referral & customer referral bonuses

• Flex Spending Account (FSA) for Dependent Care & Healthcare Costs

• Short Term Disability: $500/week for 12 weeks

• Long Term Disability: up to $6,000/month

• Group term life and AD&D insurance: $50k

• PTO, standard holidays, 2 floating holidays

• Paid parental leave

• Staff development program: 100 hours/year plus training costs

About Emergent Software

Emergent Software is a fast-growing software development, cloud consulting, and data engineering company serving clients across the country. We are regularly adding to our team of talented software engineers, cloud architects, data engineers, UX designers, technical product owners and more who can help us deliver high quality services for our clients.

We are a remote-first company

Since our inception, we've embraced a remote-friendly culture, promoting work flexibility beyond the norm. When the pandemic struck in 2020, our transition to fully remote work was seamless—just a matter of cleaning out the fridge. Recognizing an opportunity, we adopted a remote-first approach and began hiring talent from anywhere. We continue to offer our signature Minnesota-nice, Midwest-friendly attitude, ensuring everyone feels valued, whether or not they're familiar with the skyway system.

Your career grows with us

Working with talented people on interesting projects creates an engaging environment for software development enthusiasts. By working directly with our experienced team, participating in our staff development program, and solving complex problems across a variety of projects, you’ll find numerous opportunities for long-term career growth.

At Emergent Software, your ideas will be heard, you will grow exponentially as a master of your craft, and you will enjoy working other dedicated team members to deliver software solutions for our clients.

Check out what others say

Visit our Glassdoor page to discover how employees enjoy our remote working structure, flexible hours, profit sharing program, and more!

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