Azure Cloud Architect

Dhaka Technologies Limited Company•Washington, DC

22h•$70 - $80•Onsite

About The Position

Dhaka Technologies Limited Company (DTLC) is hiring an Azure Cloud Architect on behalf of the District of Columbia Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO). This hands-on senior-level technical lead will guide the continued build-out of OCTO’s multi-cloud environment, centered on Microsoft Azure with supporting AWS workloads. The architect serves as OCTO’s cloud architecture subject matter expert and designs secure, well-governed environments for OCTO and partner agencies, delivers infrastructure as code, leads workload migrations, and provides architectural oversight for Azure Virtual Desktop deployments. The role works closely with agency IT leaders, OCTO security, vendor partners, and the on-premises virtualization team. It provides technical direction to an Azure Cloud Engineer and supports existing AWS workloads operationally. The position is onsite at OCTO, 200 I Street SE, Washington, DC 20003. The engagement is a contract, with W2 or 1099 arrangements accepted (no C2C); the client interview is online. The architect owns and matures the Azure landing zone, establishes cloud standards and governance, and ensures production changes are delivered through code and pull requests rather than manual portal changes. The role also defines monitoring, backup, and disaster recovery standards, tracks and optimizes cloud spending for agency chargeback reporting, and maintains architecture diagrams, design decisions, and runbooks as reviewed deliverables. Work and incidents are tracked in Azure DevOps and ServiceNow, respectively.

Requirements

At least 8 years of infrastructure engineering experience, including at least 5 years designing and building in Microsoft Azure.
Demonstrated design and delivery of an enterprise Azure landing zone, including management groups, Azure Policy, RBAC, and hub-and-spoke networking.
At least 5 years of hands-on production Terraform experience, including reusable modules and remote state management.
At least 3 years of experience building infrastructure CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions with transferable skills.
Strong knowledge of Microsoft Entra ID, conditional access, and identity governance.
At least 3 years of experience planning or leading migrations of on-premises virtualized workloads, such as VMware, to Azure.
Working knowledge of AWS sufficient to operate and troubleshoot existing EC2, VPC, IAM, and S3 workloads.
At least 3 years of experience leading or mentoring engineers, including code review.
Strong written communication and a track record of clear architecture documentation and runbooks; complex technical documentation experience is listed as required for 8 years.
Experience conveying technical and functional concepts for a specific technical specialty is listed as required for 8 years.
Bachelor’s degree in IT or a related field, or equivalent experience.
Candidate must meet the requirements for a Senior Level position; 11 years is listed in the required skills.
Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305), or ability to obtain it within 6 months of start.

Nice To Haves

Experience in state, local, or federal government IT environments.
Hands-on experience with Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) and/or Nerdio Manager for Enterprise.
Familiarity with compliance frameworks such as NIST 800-53, CJIS, or FedRAMP.
Experience with Azure cost management, reservations, and chargeback models.
Familiarity with ServiceNow for incident and change management.
AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate or higher.
HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate.
Microsoft Certified Azure certification(s).
Experience supporting AWS workloads at an operational level.

Responsibilities

Translate agency business requirements into cloud solution designs; explain options, costs, and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical audiences.
Improve project standards for infrastructure as code, change management, and cloud documentation.
Establish Microsoft Azure best practices and standards, including use of the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework and Well-Architected Framework, landing zone design, naming and tagging, Azure Policy, and role-based access control (RBAC).
Design and support cloud integrations with on-premises systems and networks, including hybrid connectivity to OCTO data centers, hub-and-spoke networking, private endpoints, firewall integration, and Microsoft Entra ID identity integration.
Work with agency CIOs, OCTO leadership and security, technical experts, and vendor partners to scope requirements, communicate status, and support decisions.
Provide authoritative cloud architecture guidance to OCTO on Azure services, security baselines, cost management, and AWS operations.
Lead complex cloud implementations and migrations of on-premises virtualized workloads to Azure, from discovery and dependency mapping through target design, sizing, cost modeling, and migration waves.
Design, mature, and own the Azure landing zone, including management groups, subscriptions, policy, RBAC, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud security baselines.
Ensure production changes are delivered through code and pull requests rather than manual portal changes.
Provide architectural oversight of Azure Virtual Desktop environments, including the boundary between Terraform-managed infrastructure and the Nerdio management platform.
Define monitoring, backup, and disaster recovery standards for Azure workloads; track and optimize cloud spending to support agency chargeback reporting.
Support existing AWS workloads operationally.
Provide technical direction, code review, and mentoring to the Azure Cloud Engineer, and ensure each critical system has a primary and backup owner.
Maintain current architecture diagrams, design decisions, and runbooks; deliver documentation as a reviewed deliverable.
Track work in Azure DevOps boards and track incidents and changes in ServiceNow.