Cloud Engineer

Howard University

6d•$130,000 - $140,000

About The Position

The Cloud Engineer designs, implements, maintains, and optimizes secure and scalable Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure supporting institutional data, analytics, applications, and enterprise technology services. The role works with senior data engineering, infrastructure, application, security, and business teams to ensure cloud environments are reliable, secure, cost-effective, and aligned with institutional technology and governance standards. The position supports cloud architecture, infrastructure automation, identity and access management, networking, security, monitoring, and deployment as part of the university’s cloud and data modernization initiatives. The Cloud Engineer automates cloud provisioning, establishes identity and access management, and monitors environment performance. The role is responsible for operational reliability and cost-efficiency while ensuring cloud environments comply with university governance standards and technical architecture goals. The position reports to the Chief Data and Analytics Officer.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in information technology, Information Systems, Engineering, Cybersecurity, or a related field, with at least five years of relevant technology experience, including Microsoft Azure cloud experience; or a master’s degree in a related technical field with at least three years of relevant technology experience, including Microsoft Azure cloud experience.
Strong knowledge of Microsoft Azure architecture, networking, storage, compute, and identity and access management.
Experience designing, deploying, and maintaining secure and scalable Azure cloud environments and services.
Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (IaC), scripting, and cloud automation.
Knowledge of Azure security, role-based access control (RBAC), encryption, secrets management, and security best practices.
Experience with cloud monitoring, logging, performance optimization, backup, and disaster recovery.
Familiarity with SQL and Python, with experience using PySpark or comparable distributed data-processing technologies.
Familiarity with containers, virtualization, APIs, and modern application and data architectures.
Experience with Git/version control, CI/CD, automated testing, and production deployment practices.
Knowledge of cloud governance, resource management, compliance, and cost optimization.
Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills, including the ability to independently manage complex cloud infrastructure projects.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills and ability to collaborate with infrastructure, security, data, application, and business teams.

Nice To Haves

Microsoft Azure certifications.
Experience supporting cloud environments in higher education or similarly complex organizations.

Responsibilities

Design, deploy, configure, and maintain secure and scalable Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure and services.
Manage Azure networking, compute, storage, identity and access management, and cloud security configurations.
Develop and maintain Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automation to standardize cloud provisioning and configuration.
Implement and maintain role-based access controls, security policies, encryption, secrets management, and cloud governance standards.
Monitor cloud infrastructure performance, availability, security, and utilization; troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure issues.
Support cloud-based data platforms, analytics environments, enterprise applications, and system integrations.
Develop and maintain monitoring, logging, backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity processes.
Support CI/CD pipelines, automated deployments, and production release processes.
Monitor and optimize cloud resource utilization and costs while maintaining performance and availability requirements.
Maintain technical documentation for cloud architecture, configurations, security controls, operational procedures, and infrastructure standards.
Collaborate with security, infrastructure, data engineering, application, and business teams on cloud architecture and technology initiatives.
Evaluate emerging Azure capabilities and recommend solutions that improve scalability, security, reliability, and operational efficiency.