Cloud Computing Engineer Principal

Syms Strategic Group, LLC (SSG)•Harrisonburg, VA

23h•$109,623 - $126,790•Remote

About The Position

Syms Strategic Group (SSG) is hiring a Cloud Computing Engineer Principal to support Veterans Affairs (VA) healthcare systems in the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) Azure GovCloud environment. This is a 100% U.S.-based remote, W-2, full-time position supporting cloud infrastructure, applications, and systems. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must possess or qualify for a Public Trust (MBI). Candidates residing in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, or Washington will not be considered. The engineer will design, deploy, operate, and support secure, scalable, highly available Azure cloud environments and services. The role includes cloud architecture and diagrams, automation and CI/CD, permissions management, monitoring, cloud security documentation, cloud readiness, and customer-focused setup and provisioning of VAEC environments. The position also calls for technical leadership, mentoring, collaboration on modernization and migration initiatives, and operational response support when required.

Requirements

At least 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.
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 and designing, deploying, and managing secure Azure infrastructure.
Expertise in Azure Virtual Machines, Blob Storage, SQL Database, Virtual Network, Functions, Microsoft Entra ID, Azure Resource Manager, Azure Monitor, and Azure DNS.
Experience with Azure security practices and services, including Entra ID, role-based access control, DDoS Protection, and Web Application Firewall.
Proficiency with Azure networking components, including VNet Peering, ExpressRoute, VPN Gateway, Private Endpoints, and Azure Load Balancer.
Experience establishing and governing multi-subscription Azure environments using Management Groups, Azure Policy, and Azure Landing Zones.
Knowledge of cloud cost management and FinOps practices, budgeting, tagging strategies, and resource optimization using Azure Cost Management.
Proficiency in scripting languages such as Python, PowerShell, Bash, or JavaScript/Node.js.
Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as ARM Templates and Ansible, and with GitOps methodologies.
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 Azure resource and service performance, availability, and resiliency.
Understanding of Azure security best practices and compliance frameworks, including HIPAA, FedRAMP, NIST, GDPR, and PCI DSS.
Experience implementing encryption, key and 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 containerization and orchestration technologies such as Docker, Azure Kubernetes Service, Azure Container Apps, and Kubernetes.
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to troubleshoot complex cloud issues and explain technical concepts to nontechnical stakeholders.
Ability to prioritize tasks, manage competing priorities and time effectively, and meet project deadlines.
Strong attention to detail to support 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 participate in emergency operational response and maintenance when required.
Strong verbal and written communication and documentation skills.
Ability to manage multiple projects and deliver high-quality results.
Commitment to staying current with Azure technologies, cloud-native architectures, tools, trends, and industry best practices.

Nice To Haves

Deep hands-on Edifecs experience with Electronic Data Interchange X.12 transaction standards and key X12 workflows.
Experience with X.12 medical claims transactions, including 837, 834, 835, and 277.
Experience with 270/271, 278, and 999 transactions.
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 cloud-provider permissions for applications, storage, and hosted 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 environments.
Support systems and applications in VAEC Azure GovCloud environments while ensuring compliance with Veterans Independence Program development, release, and documentation requirements.
Apply DevOps practices and tools.
Provide cloud security provider documentation.
Design VAEC and cloud-hosted solutions and address cloud-readiness gaps.
Lead or contribute to cloud modernization, migration, and transformation initiatives with cross-functional teams.
Mentor engineers, provide technical guidance, and contribute to cloud architecture governance.
Provide on-call and operational-response support when required.
Create and maintain architecture, operational, security-control, configuration, process, and procedure documentation.
Manage and contribute to multiple projects while meeting deadlines and quality expectations.