Principal Cloud Engineer (Azure) - Inside IR35 - Insurance
Location: Hybrid - 3 days per week in London
Duration: 6 months
Day Rate: £650-£750 per day (Inside IR35)
We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Cloud Engineer to drive a major cloud transformation programme for a leading specialty insurer. This role blends hands-on Azure engineering (60%) with cloud architecture, strategy, & design (40%), playing a key part in shaping the organisation's long?term cloud vision.
As the technical authority on Azure, you will lead the design of cloud architectures, guide strategic decision?making, & steer the delivery of robust, secure, & scalable cloud platforms. While you will collaborate closely with the DevOps team, this role is not focused on CI/CD delivery, instead, you will concentrate on designing the solution, defining the cloud approach, & engineering the core Azure infrastructure.
Key Responsibilities
1. Define, shape, & implement the organisation's Azure cloud strategy & cloud adoption roadmap.
2. Lead & contribute to the engineering & build-out of Azure infrastructure & cloud-native services.
3. Drive the migration from on?premises to Azure, ensuring secure & scalable architecture.
4. Design high-level & low-level cloud architectures, ensuring alignment with business & technical needs.
5. Act as a key authority on Azure platform design, infrastructure patterns, governance, & best practice.
6. Work across senior business & technical stakeholders to translate requirements into cloud solutions.
7. Guide & advise the DevOps team on cloud standards & architecture where required - but not delivering CI/CD pipelines directly.
8. Provide technical leadership & mentorship to engineering teams, uplifting cloud capability across the organisation.
9. Engineer solutions using Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) & relevant automation tooling.
Essential Skills & Experience
10. Extensive hands-on experience in Azure cloud engineering, infrastructure build, & cloud solution delivery.
11. Strong design experience across Azure services including Virtual Networks, Landing Zones, Identity, PaaS, Serverless, IaaS, Storage, Security, & Governance.
12. Proven capability in cloud architecture, including designing scalable & secure multi?tier systems.
13. Experience leading cloud transformation programmes or large-scale migrations.
14. Solid understanding of Kubernetes & containerisation within Azure ecosystems (AKS).
15. Strong experience with Infrastructure as Code, particularly Terraform.
16. Ability to translate complex technical concepts for senior business stakeholders.
17. Azure cloud certifications (e.g., AZ?305, AZ?700, AZ?104).
18. Broader architecture certifications (e.g., TOGAF) desirable.
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