Cloud Architect - Azure

Overview At YNV Group, we are building an AI-Native Engineering organisation and are looking for a hands-on Cloud Architect who designs and delivers on Microsoft Azure rather than only drawing it. You will lead cloud migration programmes end to end: assessing existing application estates, understanding how they are built and how they behave, and designing the target Azure solution that makes them cheaper, safer and faster to run. You will also own the design and build of Azure landing zones for AI and data workloads, giving our engineering and product teams a secure, governed platform on which to ship AI-powered products at pace. The ideal candidate is as comfortable in the Azure portal, Terraform and a pipeline as they are presenting a target-state architecture and an investment roadmap to executive stakeholders. If this describes you, we would like to hear from you. Helping people thrive and grow in the modern digital world. YNV Group has been building successful businesses that deliver long-term value since 2010. As a privately owned holding company, we excel at identifying and addressing unmet market needs. With a global workforce of over 6,000 employees across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia, our portfolio spans technology, real estate, and financial services. Led by industry experts committed to sustainable growth and innovation, we prioritize building lasting relationships with our clients and partners, ensuring their needs remain central to our approach. The brands in our portfolio include TeKnowledge, Everty, Sandglass, Monifai and Smart Factoring. Responsibilities Take ownership of end-to-end Azure solution architecture, from discovery and design through build, migration and operational handover Assess existing applications (architecture, dependencies, data, integration, non-functional requirements) and determine the right migration path: rehost, replatform, refactor, replace or retire Design Azure solutions that meet security, compliance, availability, performance and cost targets, and document them in clear architecture artefacts and decision records Create and maintain the cloud architecture roadmap and ensure it aligns with the organisation's strategic goals and target operating model Work closely with the CTO, Group Chief Architect, DevOps team, engineering leads and business stakeholders to ensure business strategy is supported by a robust cloud strategy Present gap analyses and cloud investment roadmaps that reflect the current estate and its ability to support future-state business capabilities Identify inefficiencies in current platforms and processes and propose improvements that enhance productivity, resilience and cost efficiency Provide architecture guidance, advice and oversight in project and product governance forums; review designs produced by delivery teams and vendors Establish and enforce cloud standards, reference architectures and reusable patterns across products, services and projects Apply Zero Trust and secure-by-design principles throughout the cloud lifecycle (identity, network segmentation, secrets management, encryption, vulnerability remediation) Collaborate with internal teams and vendors to remediate issues and continuously improve platforms Contribute to maturing the architecture practice into a centre of excellence Cloud Migration & Solution Design Lead application and infrastructure discovery using Azure Migrate and complementary tooling to build a prioritised migration wave plan Design target-state solutions across compute (App Service, AKS, Container Apps, Functions, VMs), data (Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, PostgreSQL, Storage), integration (API Management, Service Bus, Event Grid) and networking (Virtual WAN, Private Link, Azure Firewall) Define migration runbooks, cut-over plans, rollback strategies and success criteria for each wave Design for resilience: availability zones, multi-region patterns, backup and disaster recovery aligned to agreed RTO/RPO Own cost architecture: right-sizing, reservations, savings plans, autoscaling and FinOps practices, with clear cost models for each solution Design identity and access using Microsoft Entra ID, managed identities, RBAC and Privileged Identity Management Ensure observability is built in from the start using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics and Application Insights Landing Zones for AI Workloads Design and build Azure landing zones aligned to the Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Framework, including management group hierarchy, subscription vending, policy, networking and identity Extend the landing zone for AI and data workloads: Azure OpenAI and Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Search, Azure Machine Learning, Databricks and Fabric, with private networking, content safety and data residency controls Define guardrails for AI platforms: model and endpoint governance, quota and cost controls, prompt and data logging, and responsible AI policies Design secure patterns for RAG and agentic workloads: vector stores, embedding pipelines, private endpoints, key and secret management, and identity propagation Implement everything as code (Terraform) delivered through Azure DevOps or GitHub pipelines, with policy-as-code and automated compliance checks Partner with engineering teams to onboard AI products onto the platform quickly and safely, and evolve the platform based on their needs AI-Native Ways of Working Leverage AI tools (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor) to accelerate architecture documentation, infrastructure code, migration scripting and test generation Critically evaluate AI-generated designs and code and ensure production-quality standards Build and optimise workflows that integrate AI into the cloud engineering lifecycle Continuously evaluate and adopt emerging AI development tools and Azure AI platform capabilities Qualifications Experience Minimum 10 years in software or infrastructure engineering, including at least 5 years designing and delivering solutions on Microsoft Azure Proven track record of leading at least two large-scale cloud migration programmes end to end, including application assessment and target-state design Hands-on experience building enterprise-scale Azure landing zones and platform foundations Demonstrated ability to work independently with minimal supervision and to lead cross-functional engineering teams BSc/BA in Computer Science, Engineering or a related degree Technical Skills Deep, current knowledge of Azure compute, storage, data, networking, identity and security services Strong infrastructure-as-code skills in Bicep and/or Terraform, and CI/CD in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions Strong understanding of application architecture: microservices, APIs, event-driven systems, containers and Kubernetes (AKS) Solid understanding of hybrid connectivity, DNS, private networking and Zero Trust security models Working knowledge of relational and NoSQL data platforms (Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Cosmos DB) and data migration approaches Scripting proficiency in PowerShell, Python or Bash Familiarity with Windows and Linux operating systems AI & Automation Skills Hands-on experience with Azure OpenAI / Azure AI Foundry and securing AI workloads on Azure Understanding of RAG architectures, vector databases and embedding pipelines Hands-on experience using AI-assisted engineering tools (Claude, Copilot, Cursor) Experience automating platform operations and governance through policy-as-code and scripting Preferred Certifications/Platforms Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305); Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102) or Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500) Experience with Azure Arc, multi-cloud or hybrid estates, and migration from On Prem, AWS or GCP Experience with Databricks, Microsoft Fabric or Azure Machine Learning platforms Experience operating in regulated environments (financial services, healthcare) with ISO 27001, SOC 2 or PCI DSS controls TOGAF or equivalent architecture framework certification Excellent organisational and leadership skills with an analytical, problem-solving mindset