Azure Platform Architect

Four Hands•Austin, TX

19h

About The Position

Four Hands is seeking an Azure Platform Architect to establish and maintain enterprise standards, reference architectures, and Infrastructure as Code foundations for secure, consistent, and cost-effective Microsoft Azure deployments. This is a hands-on, senior-level individual contributor role responsible for creating reference implementations, publishing reusable templates, and advising teams on Azure workloads. The architect will lead the transition from portal-based provisioning to a codified, template-driven delivery model, ensuring minimal friction for development teams. Additionally, this role will provide operational depth in Azure administration, serving as a peer and backup to the existing Azure Administrator for service continuity and incident response.

Requirements

7+ years of enterprise IT experience
4+ years in hands-on Azure architecture and administration roles
Deep production experience with Azure infrastructure services: compute, networking, storage, identity, and governance
Demonstrated production use of Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, Terraform, or ARM) at enterprise scale, including module design and CI/CD integration
Proven track record of establishing standards, reference patterns, and reusable templates in an environment maturing from ad hoc to codified delivery
Working knowledge of Microsoft Entra ID architecture, Azure RBAC, Azure Policy, and management group hierarchies
Ability to serve as an operational Azure administrator without a ramp period — comfortable executing day-to-day administrative tasks under time pressure
Strong written communication skills for producing standards documents, reference architectures, and decision records
Demonstrated ability to influence and drive adoption without formal authority

Nice To Haves

AZ-305 (Solutions Architect Expert), AZ-400 (DevOps Engineer Expert), or AZ-104 (Administrator Associate) Certifications

Responsibilities

Establish and maintain the Azure landing zone architecture, including subscriptions, management groups, network topology, and Microsoft Entra ID integration.
Define and publish enterprise standards for resource naming, tagging, subscription organization, and workload lifecycle.
Own the Architecture Decision Record (ADR) process for platform-level decisions and maintain the decision history.
Chair the periodic architecture review forum and set the agenda for platform standards evolution.
Select and maintain the enterprise Infrastructure as Code standard (Bicep, Terraform, or hybrid), including the rationale for the choice.
Build and maintain a reusable module library for common Azure workload patterns.
Establish CI/CD patterns for infrastructure delivery, including linting, policy-as-code, drift detection, and secure secrets handling.
Lead the practical migration from portal-based provisioning to codified delivery, prioritizing workloads with the highest return.
Publish reference architectures for common workload archetypes (e.g., web application with SQL, containerized workload, data pipeline, integration service, static site).
Maintain a template library for consumption by delivery teams with minimal customization.
Document opinionated patterns for cross-cutting needs such as secrets management, private networking, hybrid connectivity, monitoring, and backup.
Serve as the primary technical advisor for teams designing new Azure workloads, engaging during the design phase.
Operate in an advisory capacity, with formal approval reserved for high-impact decisions (new subscription creation, PCI-scoped data, cross-tenant integration, deployments exceeding cost thresholds).
Partner with the Security and Compliance team on identity, network, and data control architecture within Azure workloads.
Escalate policy exceptions and cross-team architectural conflicts to the VP of Infrastructure.
Provide backup coverage for the Azure Administrator during planned time off, holidays, and incident response.
Maintain day-to-day working knowledge of Azure administrative tasks, including subscription management, RBAC assignments, resource provisioning, cost review, and platform-level break-fix support.
Cross-train continuously with the Azure Administrator to ensure operational knowledge continuity and keep documentation current.
Participate in the platform on-call rotation as needed for cloud-level incidents.
Partner with the Enterprise Data and Governance team on Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform architecture.
Collaborate with the Identity and Access Management function on Entra ID architecture as it applies to Azure resource access.
Contribute to FinOps standards, tagging discipline, resource optimization patterns, and budget guardrails.
Perform other duties as assigned, in accordance with training and qualifications.
Uphold the Core Values and be a valuable member of the Four Hands team.