Lead Cloud Architect

Requirements

• Experience : 8+ years in cloud engineering (5+ in Azure architecture/SRE); hands-on in production-scale environments, high-availability, and root-cause analysis. Background in Cloud Development and Architecture; experience managing projects of varying scale.
• Technical Expertise :
• Proficient in Azure essentials: Landing Zones, AKS, VMs, Container Instances, Blob Storage, VNet, Entra ID, Policy/Blueprints. Design/manage IaaS/PaaS/SaaS (Load Balancers, App Gateways, DNS, Front Door, Storage, Monitor, Security Center, Log Analytics).
• IaC/CI/CD mastery (Bicep/ARM/Terraform, Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions, PowerShell/CLI); 2+ years in automation for CI/CD.
• SRE core: SLOs/SLIs, error budgets, observability (Azure Monitor/Prometheus/Grafana), automation (Logic Apps/Functions).
• Security: Defender, Sentinel, Key Vault; IAM depth (Entra ID, AD, Azure AD DS/Connect/B2C, MFA). Enterprise account/security models; Azure Policy implementation; Key Vault/encryption.
• 2+ years O365 and Azure AD B2C; 2+ years Kubernetes/Docker/Containers; 3+ years Azure (Functions, API Mgmt, Blobs, VMs, SQL, Event Grid), Microservices, .NET Core, PowerApps.
• Large-scale distributed systems, OSes, secure configs; deep Azure/cloud knowledge.
• Skills : Complex system problem-solving; container/microservices; requirements-to-architecture translation.
• Soft Skills : Collaborative communicator for partnerships/influence; agile/blameless culture; change/incident management. Mentor juniors; plan/manage technical implementations.
• Certifications: AZ-305, AZ-500, AZ-400, CKAD/CKA; AZ-300 A plus. Industry certs encouraged.
• Advanced Azure: Arc, AI/ML (e.g., ML on AKS), databases (Cosmos/SQL). Compute/Storage/Networking automation (Azure Automation/CLI/PowerShell).
• Chaos tools (Gremlin/Litmus), GitOps (Flux/ArgoCD), Ansible; regulated envs (HIPAA/GDPR/SOX).
• Open-source/internal tooling contributions.
• Bachelor's in CS/Engineering (or equivalent) strongly preferred

Additional Information

The work we do has an impact on millions of lives, and you can be a part of it. We help protect our customers against life's uncertainties. Regardless of where you work within the company, you'll be helping provide protection and peace of mind when our customers need it most. Join our cloud infrastructure team, the driving force behind our organization's cloud transformation. We architect, standardize, and engineer resilient Azure environments that fuel enterprise-wide innovation, ensuring scalability, security, and reliability as the "Secure Sandbox" for all cloud activities. Building on our established Azure presence and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) practices, we partner with Networking, Security, Enterprise Architecture, Operations, and various domain teams (e.g., Data & AI) to create "Paved Roads" for seamless cloud consumption and advanced platforms like Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). As a peer among technical experts, you'll collaborate on collective decisions and innovations that mature our cloud ecosystem. We're looking for a Lead Cloud Architect to evolve our Azure cloud platform in partnership with a team of peer engineers. In this hands-on individual contributor role, you'll leverage your expertise to strengthen resilient infrastructure, refine IaC and CI/CD artifacts, and elevate SRE practices-building on our solid foundation for even greater reliability. Reporting to the Senior Director of Cloud Infrastructure, you'll contribute to platform strategy through shared insights, joint problem-solving, and targeted improvements that advance our cloud maturity. Ideal for a seasoned Azure specialist excited by cloud-native SRE at scale; your work will emphasize enhancements and new solutions atop what we've already established, not starting from zero. Collaborating with Enterprise Architecture and Application Development teams, you'll support the design, implementation, and refinement of Azure and O365 services, delivering innovative IaC, orchestration, and automation while prioritizing top-tier Information Security. Employee Benefits: We aim to protect the wellbeing of our employees and their families with a broad benefits offering. In addition to offering comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance, we support emotional wellbeing through mental health benefits and an employee assistance program. Work/life balance is important and Protective offers a variety of paid time away benefits (e.g., paid time off, paid parental leave, short-term disability, and a cultural observance day). The financial health of our employees is just as important as physical and emotional health. Some of the financial wellbeing benefits include contributions to healthcare accounts, a pension plan, and a 401(k) plan with Company matching. All employees are encouraged to protect their overall wellbeing by engaging in ProHealth Rewards, Protective's platform to improve wellbeing while earning cash rewards. Eligibility for certain benefits may vary by position in accordance with the terms of the Company's benefit plans. Accommodations for Applicants with a Disability: If you require an accommodation to complete the application and recruitment process due to a disability, please email eric.hess@protective.com. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application and recruitment process. Please note that the above email is solely for individuals with disabilities requesting an accommodation. General employment questions should not be sent through this process. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to being inclusive and attracting, retaining, and growing an inclusive workforce.

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