Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, Principal (Contractor)

Helmerich & Payne • Tulsa, OK

11d • Hybrid

About The Position

The Cloud Infrastructure Engineer, Principal (Contractor) is H&P’s most senior global IT cloud engineering role and serves as the technical authority for cloud architecture, engineering standards, automation, resiliency, and platform reliability across Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and related hybrid infrastructure services. The role translates business, rig technology, application, cybersecurity, data, and infrastructure requirements into secure, reliable, cost-efficient, and scalable cloud solutions. It provides technical direction and establishes engineering standards for internal teams and partners without direct people-management accountability. The position supports uninterrupted drilling operations, real-time rig data flow, global integration, employee productivity, and company growth.

This is a contract position providing services to Helmerich & Payne through a third-party staffing agency. The selected candidate will be an employee of the agency, not H&P. The contract is for a minimum of six months, with potential for extension to a full-time hire. The position is located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is onsite or hybrid.

The position leads cloud architecture and engineering practices, cloud migrations and modernization, infrastructure automation, operational readiness, reliability, security, disaster recovery, and cloud financial management. It partners with IT, functional teams, Cybersecurity, Governance, Risk & Compliance, vendors, and managed-service providers, and provides technical leadership and coaching across engineering teams.

Requirements

• Expert knowledge of Microsoft Azure infrastructure services, including Azure compute, networking, Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Azure Policy, Azure Backup, Azure Site Recovery, Azure Kubernetes Service, and common Azure platform governance patterns.
• Advanced working knowledge of GCP infrastructure services, networking, identity, monitoring, logging, security controls, and hybrid connectivity patterns.
• Advanced knowledge of hybrid infrastructure operations, including cloud connectivity, DNS, routing, firewalls, load balancing, F5, VPN, private connectivity, identity integration, virtualization, Nutanix, and datacenter dependencies.
• Strong Infrastructure as Code and automation capability, including Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, GitHub, Azure DevOps, PowerShell, Python, YAML, JSON, automated testing, and repeatable deployment practices.
• Strong understanding of cloud security, least privilege, privileged access, secrets management, encryption, logging, vulnerability remediation, policy-as-code, and secure-by-design engineering practices.
• Demonstrated ability to architect resilient systems with high availability, disaster recovery, backup and recovery alignment, monitoring, failure-mode thinking, and operational runbooks.
• Strong IT service management capability, including change control, incident management, problem management, documentation, operational readiness, and service ownership principles.
• Ability to lead technical work across internal teams, contractors, managed-service providers, vendors, and business partners without formal reporting authority.
• Strong business acumen and ability to explain cloud engineering decisions in terms of operational continuity, cost, risk, reliability, security, rig operations, and business value.
• Commitment to H&P values, including Actively C.A.R.E., service attitude, innovative spirit, teamwork, and doing the right thing.
• 10 or more years of progressive experience in infrastructure, cloud engineering, cloud architecture, systems engineering, platform engineering, or related enterprise technology disciplines.
• 5 or more years of hands-on experience designing, engineering, and operating Azure-based solutions in a complex enterprise environment.

Nice To Haves

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, engineering, or a related field; equivalent combinations of education, technical certifications, and directly relevant experience may be considered.
• Two or more years of experience within Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Experience supporting mission-critical, 24x7 operational environments.
• Experience in energy, drilling, industrial, or other high-availability environments.
• Professional certifications such as Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Administrator Associate, Azure Security Engineer Associate, Google Professional Cloud Architect, Google Professional Cloud Network Engineer, Terraform Associate, Kubernetes, ITIL, or equivalent credentials.

Responsibilities

• Serve as H&P’s enterprise-level technical authority for cloud engineering, cloud architecture, and hybrid cloud platform design across Azure, GCP, and related infrastructure services.
• Define and maintain cloud architecture patterns, landing-zone standards, platform guardrails, network integration models, identity dependencies, monitoring and tagging standards, and operational readiness expectations.
• Design and guide implementation of highly available, resilient, secure, and recoverable cloud solutions for critical applications, real-time rig data, global integration, automation, analytics, and operational continuity.
• Lead Infrastructure as Code and automation practices using tools and technologies such as Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates, PowerShell, Python, YAML, Azure DevOps, GitHub, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Partner with IT and functional teams to translate requirements into cloud platform designs that balance speed, cost, security, reliability, and maintainability.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for cloud migrations, modernization, platform integration, disaster recovery, backup readiness, observability, secrets management, and cloud-native service adoption.
• Establish and improve cloud operations practices, including monitoring, alerting, logging, performance management, capacity planning, incident triage, root cause analysis, and operational runbooks.
• Lead technical troubleshooting for cloud-related P1/P2 major incidents and make critical technical decisions to restore service quickly and safely.
• Communicate outage impact, reliability risk, capacity constraints, and technical debt clearly to IT leadership, business stakeholders, and executive audiences as needed.
• Guide engineers and partners through cloud design and implementation reviews, change planning, testing, knowledge transfer, and technical coaching.
• Evaluate cloud services, vendor capabilities, automation opportunities, and architectural alternatives, and recommend solutions aligned with H&P strategy, security, operations, and cost expectations.
• Partner with Cybersecurity and Governance, Risk & Compliance on cloud security posture, identity and access controls, network segmentation, vulnerability remediation, data protection, audit readiness, and compliance-aligned architecture.
• Oversee technical quality of cloud-related change controls, implementation plans, backout plans, validation plans, peer reviews, and post-change documentation in accordance with H&P standards.
• Support cloud financial management (FinOps) by validating consumption, recommending rightsizing and modernization, improving tagging and reporting, and ensuring support contracts and cloud services deliver intended value.
• Maintain architecture documentation, decision records, operational playbooks, diagrams, standards, and knowledge articles to support consistent cloud platform operations across regions and support models.
• Drive continuous improvement through automation, AI-enabled visibility, dashboards, reliability engineering, process simplification, and lessons learned from incidents, projects, and operational reviews.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Principal