Azure Platform Engineer

Azure Platform Engineer

LRQA is a global assurance provider with operations in over 100+ countries and a mission to delight our customers. We have a diverse portfolio of assurances activities that range from Security, ESG and Supply Chain, and many more. We have recently launched our Assurance 4.0 vision and we are looking for modern technology partners to help make this happen.

The Azure Platform Engineer, reporting to the Infrastructure and Platform Engineering Lead is responsible for building, supporting, and evolving the LRQA infrastructure environment. The role requires an expert in the Azure platform with robust knowledge regarding Kubernetes (AKS), infrastructure standardisation and automated deployment with Terraform.

As part of the infrastructure team, you will be working with the full range of cloud infrastructure elements including SaaS, PaaS, Virtualisation, Networking, IDAM, Storage and Security amongst many others, building scalable and resilient solutions primarily in Azure. The role also requires you to be able to solve difficult problems and using IaC to overcome large scale challenges with an understanding of the cost, performance and security elements associated with running an enterprise scale architecture. Your technical expertise and experiences will make you a key contributor to the architecture and implementation of solutions on the platform.

The role holder is also responsible for ensuring that all infrastructure is properly maintained, patched, and checked for vulnerabilities and resolved as effectively as possible. You will also be responsible for delivering project objectives ensuring these are aligned to relevant standards and processes and contributing to project delivery plans. You will also be responsible for contributing to the strategy for the platform to evolve capabilities and identify cost saving opportunities to ensure that the platform operates within budget.

The infrastructure team are encouraged to collaborate, share knowledge, and work collectively to cross-skill with other disciplines so an element of being able to work in a collaborative environment is critical to the success of this role. You will be expected to share your knowledge providing mentoring and guidance to the infrastructure team where appropriate.

The role will also require you to work closely with support vendors to ensure that incidents related to the platform are handled within the agreed service levels and act as an agent for any technical escalations that require specialist support.

Key Responsibilities:

• Contribute to the implementation, support, and refinement of our Azure environment
• Work with product owners and the IT team to support solution design and implementation of new or existing features
• Engineer and drive the adoption of flexible and repeatable cloud development environments
• Implement progressive delivery strategies in infrastructure for cloud applications
• Monitor cloud infrastructure and services and work to proactively identify and resolve issues to ensure optimal performance
• Work in an Agile environment working in 2-week sprints and attending all associated Agile ceremonies
• Contribute to observability and performance monitoring, utilising tools such as Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Open Telemetry and Grafana
• Build and maintain robust CI/CD workflows for infrastructure deployment, and support the DevOps team regarding cloud technicalities
• Build and maintain infrastructure through IaC (Terraform) ensuring that all infrastructure is built to defined standards
• Champion Security and Compliance by default – embed security policies into IAC and CI/CD processes, automate RBAC, IAM and least privilege access for development and data teams
• Drive modernisation of cloud infrastructure, including migrating external applications into Azure and engineering solutions to facilitate integration
• Contribute in the adoption of Kubernetes and containerised infrastructure for applications
• Provide ongoing support for legacy platforms (including but not limited to Windows Server, Active Directory)
• Work to drive up and maintain a high secure score rating on the platform and work to resolve any vulnerabilities reported using tools such as Defender for Cloud and its related services.
• Provide technical support and delivery of DR initiatives to ensure platform resilience
• Continually identify ways to optimise infrastructure to improve performance, optimise costs and remove duplication of services
• Assist in the management of fringe ancillary cloud platforms, including Amazon AWS and Vultr
• Contribute to project activities through delivery and supporting design and development stages
• Contribute to the roadmap for the infrastructure platform identifying modern technologies and identifying areas where these can benefit LRQA

Technical/Professional Qualifications/Requirements:

• Technical background with at least 3 years of working experience as a Cloud Infrastructure engineer specifically working in an Azure cloud environment
• At least 6 years' experience working as an Infrastructure Engineer or Support Engineer role supporting and maintaining traditional server infrastructure (Windows Server, Active Directory etc)
• Terraform experience with proven ability to deliver and manage infrastructure in a DevOps environment
• Strong experience of working with software deployment and orchestration tools such as Docker or Kubernetes
• Demonstrable understanding in supporting cloud application development and the respective development teams
• Experience working with hub/spoke architecture designs in Azure.
• Experience of working in a multi-discipline team with an understanding of cloud related concepts such as networking, IDAM and security
• Effective communication skills to engage with an ability to not only listen but also advise providing appropriate challenges and questions to find the correct resolution
• Solid grasp of ITIL around Release, Deployment and Change Management
• Self-motivated and can use own initiative to work with limited guidance to implement innovative solutions.
• Ability to lead when required – an ambassador for cloud standards and able to communicate complex architectures and strategies at all levels
• Ability to understand and assess complex and sometimes unfamiliar situations, visualise solutions and see through to resolution and work effectively within a matrix organisation.
• Result driven, analytical, and innovative individual with the ability to decipher business requirements and convert them effectively into innovative technology solutions

Diversity and Inclusion at LRQA: We are on a mission to be the place where we all want to work and we are passionate about embracing different perspectives because we understand the value this brings to our business, our clients and each other. We are all about creating a safer and more sustainable future and our inclusive culture is right at the heart of our business. Together our employees make our communities better and we want you to be part of our diverse team!