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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Azure Cloud Specialist

💰 $ - $

CloudAzureDevOpsInfrastructureSRE

🎯 Role Definition

The Azure Cloud Specialist is an experienced cloud engineer focused on designing, deploying, securing, operating, and optimizing Microsoft Azure-based solutions. This role combines infrastructure-as-code, platform services (PaaS/IaaS), automation and CI/CD pipelines with strong governance, security and cost-management practices. The specialist partners with development, security, and operations teams to deliver scalable, highly available, compliant cloud platforms, migrations, and modern application hosting (containers, serverless, data services).

Key keywords: Azure Cloud Specialist, Azure Engineer, Azure Architect, Infrastructure as Code, AKS, Azure DevOps, Terraform, ARM/Bicep, cloud migration, hybrid connectivity, Azure governance.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Cloud Engineer / Cloud Operations Engineer (Azure-focused)
  • Systems Administrator or Windows/Linux Server Engineer transitioning to cloud
  • DevOps Engineer with Azure CI/CD experience

Advancement To:

  • Senior Azure Cloud Specialist / Lead Cloud Engineer
  • Cloud Architect / Azure Solutions Architect
  • Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) Lead or Platform Engineering Manager
  • Cloud Security Architect or Cloud Infrastructure Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • DevOps Engineer (broadening CI/CD and automation scope)
  • Kubernetes Platform Engineer / AKS Specialist
  • Cloud Migration Consultant or Cloud Cost Optimization Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, implement, and operate secure, highly available, and scalable Azure infrastructure and platform solutions (IaaS and PaaS), including compute, storage, networking, identity, and platform services, aligned to architecture principles and business goals.
  • Lead cloud migration projects by assessing on-premises workloads, creating migration plans (lift-and-shift, replatform, refactor), coordinating cutovers, and validating post-migration stability and performance in Azure.
  • Build and maintain infrastructure-as-code (IaC) using Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep to provision and manage Azure resources reproducibly, with modular design and version control.
  • Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure and application deployments using Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or other pipeline tools, ensuring automated, repeatable, and auditable releases.
  • Design and configure secure networking topologies in Azure including VNets, subnets, NSGs, Azure Firewall, Application Gateway, load balancers, ExpressRoute, and VPN gateways to meet performance and security requirements.
  • Manage identity and access using Azure Active Directory (Azure AD), RBAC, Privileged Identity Management (PIM), Conditional Access policies, service principals, and managed identities to ensure least-privilege access across subscriptions and resources.
  • Architect and operate container platforms with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Container Registry (ACR), including cluster provisioning, observability, autoscaling, ingress configuration, and security hardening.
  • Secure cloud workloads by implementing Azure-native security controls: Azure Policy, Blueprints, Azure Security Center / Defender, Key Vault for secrets and certificate management, and encryption at rest/in transit.
  • Implement observability and monitoring using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, and custom telemetry to provide actionable alerts, dashboards, runbooks, and SLO/SLI tracking.
  • Establish governance and multi-subscription management patterns (management groups, subscription boundaries, tagging strategy, cost center mapping) to enforce compliance, lifecycle management, and cost allocation.
  • Optimize cloud costs through rightsizing, reserved instances, spot VMs, autoscaling policies, and continuous cost reporting and remediation playbooks.
  • Design and validate backup, retention, and disaster recovery strategies using Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, and cross-region replication to meet RTO/RPO targets.
  • Implement platform automation using PowerShell, Azure CLI, and Azure Automation / Logic Apps to reduce manual toil, accelerate deployments, and enable self-service capabilities for teams.
  • Harden operating systems and platform services to meet security baselines and compliance requirements (CIS, NIST, ISO), including patching strategy, vulnerability scanning, and configuration drift detection.
  • Provide hands-on troubleshooting and root cause analysis for infrastructure and platform incidents, coordinating remediation and documenting runbooks and post-incident reviews.
  • Support database platform services (Azure SQL, Managed Instances, Cosmos DB) lifecycle activities: provisioning, performance tuning, high availability, backups, and security controls.
  • Design and implement serverless patterns using Azure Functions, Event Grid, and Logic Apps to build event-driven, cost-effective integrations and microservices.
  • Drive proof-of-concept (POC) workstreams to evaluate new Azure services and third-party integrations, producing architecture recommendations and migration guidance.
  • Collaborate closely with development teams to define platform APIs, developer onboarding, CI/CD patterns, and infrastructure standards that accelerate time-to-market.
  • Evaluate, select, and integrate cloud-native and third-party tooling for observability, security posture, cost management, and platform automation, providing vendor-agnostic recommendations.
  • Maintain thorough platform documentation, runbooks, architecture diagrams, and standard operating procedures to support onboarding, audits, and knowledge transfer.
  • Mentor and train IT and development teams on Azure best practices, security hygiene, and IaC principles to elevate cloud maturity across the organization.
  • Participate in capacity planning and performance benchmarking to ensure the platform meets throughput, latency, and scalability requirements for production workloads.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Assist compliance and audit teams with evidence collection for cloud controls and remediation of findings.
  • Provide pre-sales and architecture support for customer engagements and RFP responses when required.
  • Help define tagging standards, subscription naming conventions, and onboarding checklists for new cloud projects.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Deep practical experience with Microsoft Azure core services: Virtual Machines, VNets, Azure Storage, Azure Load Balancer, Application Gateway, Azure Firewall.
  • Proficiency in Infrastructure as Code: Terraform (preferred), ARM templates, or Bicep with modular, reusable module patterns.
  • Strong experience with Azure DevOps and/or GitHub Actions for CI/CD, including pipeline templates, release gates, and deployment strategies (blue/green, canary).
  • Container and orchestration expertise: deploying, scaling and securing AKS clusters, Helm charts, ingress controllers, and ACR integration.
  • Hands-on scripting and automation using PowerShell, Azure CLI, and familiarity with SDKs (Python, .NET) to automate operational tasks.
  • Azure identity and security: Azure AD, RBAC, Conditional Access, PIM, Key Vault, Managed Identities, and experience implementing secure authentication flows.
  • Networking knowledge: VNet peering, ExpressRoute, VPN Gateway, routing, NSGs, service endpoints, private endpoint configuration and hybrid connectivity patterns.
  • Observability and monitoring tools: Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, Prometheus/Grafana integrations for metric and log collection.
  • Security and compliance tools: Azure Policy, Azure Blueprints, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, vulnerability scanning and remediation workflows.
  • Backup, DR and business continuity experience: Azure Backup, Site Recovery, replication, cross-region failover testing, and RTO/RPO planning.
  • Cost management and optimization: Azure Cost Management, reservation planning, tagging, and chargeback/reporting strategies.
  • Databases and storage services experience: Azure SQL, Managed Instances, Cosmos DB, Blob Storage lifecycle and performance tuning.
  • Knowledge of serverless services: Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Event Grid, and messageing services like Service Bus.
  • Familiarity with hybrid architectures: on-prem connectivity, identity federation, and migration tools (Azure Migrate, Database Migration Service).
  • CI/CD release patterns and secrets management integration in pipelines (Key Vault, secure variables, service connections).

Soft Skills

  • Strong communication and stakeholder management; ability to explain technical trade-offs to non-technical audiences.
  • Problem-solving and analytical mindset with experience performing RCA and driving long-term fixes.
  • Team collaboration and cross-functional leadership; able to work with dev, security, network and product teams.
  • Customer-focused approach with service orientation and strong sense of ownership for platform reliability.
  • Adaptability to rapidly changing cloud services and a continuous learning attitude to stay current with Azure innovations.
  • Organizational skills for prioritizing backlog items, managing multiple migrations/requests, and delivering on time.
  • Mentoring and enablement skills to uplift junior engineers and develop internal training materials.
  • Attention to security and compliance detail while balancing agility and delivery speed.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Computer Science, Cloud Computing, Cybersecurity, or related technical discipline.
  • Relevant Microsoft certifications (AZ-104, AZ-305, AZ-400) or HashiCorp Terraform Associate certification.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science or Software Engineering
  • Information Technology / Systems Engineering
  • Network Engineering / Cybersecurity

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–7+ years of hands-on cloud engineering experience with at least 2+ years focused on Microsoft Azure platform services.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years enterprise-level Azure experience with proven delivery of migrations, production AKS clusters, IaC pipelines, and cloud governance programs.
  • Demonstrated track record of designing and operating secure, large-scale, multi-subscription Azure environments and leading cross-functional teams.
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