Cloud Computing Engineer Principal
About The Position
Syms Strategic Group (SSG) is hiring a Cloud Computing Engineer Principal to support the Veterans Affairs (VA) department. This is a 100% U.S.-based remote, full-time W-2 position supporting VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) Azure GovCloud environments. The role provides cloud architecture, engineering, operations, security, automation, monitoring, and customer-focused support for VA products, services, systems, and applications. Candidates must be U.S. citizens and must possess or qualify for a Public Trust (MBI). Candidates located in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, or Washington will not be considered. The engineer will design and operate secure, scalable, highly available Azure cloud solutions; create architecture and data-flow diagrams; deploy CI/CD automation; manage cloud permissions; and implement monitoring in accordance with VA and federal policies. The role includes provisioning and supporting VAEC environments, providing cloud security documentation, addressing cloud-readiness gaps, and helping ensure compliance with VIP development, release, and documentation requirements. It also involves technical leadership, mentoring, cloud modernization and migration initiatives, operational response, and maintaining comprehensive technical documentation. The posting specifies 20+ years of professional experience. Formal education requirements are a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or a related technical discipline with 20 years of experience, or a master's degree in those fields with 10 years of experience. Deep hands-on Edifecs and EDI X.12 experience and advanced Azure certifications are desired.
Requirements
- 20+ years of professional experience.
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Systems Engineering, Cloud Engineering, or a related technical discipline and 20 years of experience, or a master's degree in the same fields and 10 years of experience.
- U.S. citizenship is required.
- Must possess or qualify for a Public Trust (MBI).
- Proven experience designing, deploying, and managing Azure infrastructure and services.
- Experience with large-scale, highly available, scalable cloud architecture.
- Expertise in Azure Virtual Machines, Azure Blob Storage, Azure SQL Database, Azure Virtual Network (VNet), Azure Functions, Microsoft Entra ID, Azure Resource Manager (ARM), Azure Monitor, and Azure DNS.
- Experience with Azure security practices and services, including Microsoft Entra ID, Azure RBAC, Azure DDoS Protection, and Azure Web Application Firewall.
- Proficiency with Azure networking components, including VNet Peering, ExpressRoute, VPN Gateway, Private Endpoints, and Azure Load Balancer.
- Ability to design, deploy, and manage scalable, secure, highly available Azure cloud infrastructures.
- Experience establishing and governing multi-subscription Azure environments using Management Groups, Azure Policy, and Azure Landing Zones.
- Knowledge of cloud cost management, FinOps, budgeting, tagging, and resource optimization using Azure Cost Management.
- Proficiency in scripting languages such as Python, PowerShell, Bash, or JavaScript/NodeJS for automation and cloud operations.
- Experience with IaC tools and methods such as ARM Templates, Ansible, and GitOps.
- Proficiency with monitoring, logging, and observability tools, including Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, Azure Activity Log, and tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and New Relic.
- Experience optimizing performance, availability, and resiliency of Azure resources and services.
- Strong understanding of Azure security best practices and compliance frameworks, including HIPAA, FedRAMP, NIST, GDPR, and PCI DSS.
- Experience implementing encryption, key management, secrets management, and identity solutions using Azure Key Vault, customer-managed keys, and Microsoft Entra ID.
- Knowledge of Azure SQL Database, Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Cosmos DB, Azure Database for PostgreSQL, and Azure Database for MySQL.
- Experience with database performance tuning, backup and recovery, high availability, and disaster recovery strategies.
- Familiarity with CI/CD tools and practices, including Azure DevOps Pipelines, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, and GitLab CI.
- Experience with Docker, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Azure Container Apps, and Kubernetes.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving abilities, including troubleshooting complex cloud issues and explaining technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to prioritize tasks, manage competing priorities and time, and meet project deadlines.
- Strong attention to detail to ensure system stability, security, operational excellence, and data integrity.
- Ability to mentor engineers and provide technical leadership and guidance.
- Ability to lead technical projects and collaborate across cross-functional teams.
- Willingness to provide on-call support and emergency maintenance when required.
- Strong documentation skills.
- Ability to manage and contribute to multiple projects while ensuring timely, high-quality deliverables.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
Nice To Haves
- Deep hands-on Edifecs experience with Electronic Data Interchange X.12 standards and workflows.
- Experience with X.12 medical claims transactions, including 837, 834, 835, and 277.
- Experience with 270/271, 278, and 999 transactions.
- Experience with Edifecs.
- Microsoft Certified: DevOps Engineer Expert certification.
- Azure Administrator Associate certification.
- Azure Security Engineer Associate certification.
Responsibilities
- Create data-flow, cloud, transition, and high-level architecture diagrams for cloud infrastructure, applications, and systems.
- Design, develop, deploy, and operate automation technologies for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD).
- Manage and control permissions in the cloud service provider for hosted cloud applications, storage, and services.
- Design, implement, and manage monitoring capabilities for cloud architecture and hosted systems and applications to support performance and compliance with VA and federal policies.
- Provide customer-focused product-line and service support, including setup, configuration, and provisioning of VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) environments.
- Provide cloud support for systems and applications in VAEC Azure GovCloud environments and ensure compliance with VIP development, release, and documentation requirements.
- Apply DevOps practices and CI/CD tooling.
- Provide cloud security provider documentation.
- Design VAEC and cloud-hosted solutions and address cloud-readiness gaps.
- Lead complex cloud modernization, migration, and transformation initiatives in collaboration with cross-functional teams.
- Mentor engineers and provide technical leadership and guidance to team members.
- Provide on-call support and participate in operational response activities when required.
- Create and maintain architecture, operational, security, system configuration, process, and procedure documentation.
- Manage and contribute to multiple projects while delivering high-quality work on schedule.
- Stay current with Azure technologies, cloud-native architectures, tools, trends, and industry best practices.
Stand Out From the Crowd
Upload your resume and get instant feedback on how well it matches this job.
What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Principal
