Senior Azure Engineer – Cloud Infrastructure, APIM & Security

About the Role

Programme Context & Phased Effort Allocation

• The engagement is structured as a 22-week sequential programme divided into two delivery phases, assuming a five-day working week:
• Phase 1: MCP Gateway and Governance (Weeks 1–10 / 10 Weeks): Full-time allocation (1.0 FTE) configuring Azure APIM, gateway routing policies, private networking, secrets management, and automated CI/CD pipelines.
• Phase 2: Model Access through Microsoft Foundry (Weeks 11–22 / 12 Weeks): Full-time allocation (1.0 FTE) supporting Microsoft Foundry deployments, model endpoint connectivity, failover testing, and production handover.

Key Responsibilities

• APIM Gateway Configuration: Configure Azure APIM, gateway policies, routing, authentication, mutual TLS, and role-based access controls.
• Networking & Security Integration: Implement secure networking (VNets, Private Endpoints, NSGs), Microsoft Entra ID integration, managed identities, secrets management (Azure Key Vault), and environment configuration.
• Infrastructure as Code & CI/CD: Build reusable Infrastructure as Code (Terraform or Bicep) and multi-stage CI/CD pipelines for automated, repeatable deployment.
• Monitoring & Telemetry: Configure Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, diagnostic logs, metric alerts, and operational health dashboards.
• High Availability & Disaster Recovery: Implement high availability and disaster recovery arrangements, and test deployment, capacity, and failover under load.
• Microsoft Foundry & Operational Release: Support Microsoft Foundry deployments, model endpoint connectivity, production release validation, and operational handover to platform teams.

Required Skills & Experience

• 7–10+ years of experience as an Azure Cloud Engineer, Platform Engineer, or DevOps / Site Reliability Engineer.
• Azure APIM Expertise: Strong hands-on experience configuring Azure API Management (APIM), XML policy definitions, rate-limiting, authentication delegation, and gateway routing.
• Identity & Access Management: Deep knowledge of Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), managed identities, RBAC, service principals, and Key Vault integration.
• Azure Networking: Hands-on experience with VNet peering, Private Endpoints, Private Link, DNS, and Application Gateways.
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) & CI/CD: Proficiency with Terraform or Bicep, alongside Azure DevOps pipelines or GitHub Actions for automated zero-downtime releases.
• Monitoring & Diagnostics: Hands-on expertise with Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics (KQL queries), and alert automation.

Preferred Qualifications

• Regulated Financial Services Experience: Familiarity with financial services compliance, data residency, private cloud perimeter controls, and audit trails.
• AI Infrastructure Exposure: Experience provisioning infrastructure for AI/ML workloads, Azure OpenAI Service, or Microsoft Foundry endpoints.
• Azure Certifications: Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate, Azure Security Engineer Associate, or DevOps Engineer Expert.
• Container & Container Apps: Experience with Azure Container Apps (ACA), AKS, or Docker-based microservices deployments.

Key Competencies