Cloud Systems Engineer

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Always Connecting, Always Evolving.

TECHEAD is seeking qualified applicants for the following Contract position – Cloud Systems Engineer / Richmond VA – (JOB-22775). If you are looking for a new opportunity and this position looks to be a fit, please apply to see the TECHEAD difference that has made us successful for 30+ years!

You can find more about our team and values by checking us out at TECHEAD.com or on Glassdoor

Job Details:

Title: Cloud Systems Engineer
Location: Richmond, VA
Compensation: $50.00 – $52.00 /per Hour
Work Type: Contract
Work Location: Hybrid

Job Description:

6 Month Contract
Hybrid – Tuesday and Thursday Onsite
Contract to Hire

We are seeking an experienced Cloud Systems Engineer to join a specialized infrastructure team supporting a mission-critical, high-throughput digital commerce and underwriting transaction platform for a global insurance services leader.

Reporting directly to the Cloud Infrastructure Manager, you will serve as a key custodian of a large-scale, highly resilient enterprise cloud environment. This is a high-visibility, hands-on role where you will operate across the entire cloud footprint—ensuring maximum uptime, bulletproof security posture, end-to-end automation, and performance optimization for customer-facing applications processing millions of high-value transactions.

The Cloud Systems Engineer is responsible for operating, maintaining, securing, and optimizing the cloud infrastructure that supports the platform, a highly available, high-volume ecommerce and offer optimization platform. Working under the direction of the Cloud Infrastructure Manager, who owns infrastructure architecture and design, this role is one of a small number of positions that support the platforms entire infrastructure footprint, spanning networking, identity, security and compliance, monitoring, backup and disaster recovery, automation, governance, and cost management. The role partners with application development, IT Operations, data, and Information Security teams to ensure the platform meets its availability, performance, and security commitments to internal and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Implement infrastructure changes in line with established architecture and standards and provide operational feedback to the Cloud Infrastructure Manager to inform improvements.
• Provision, configure, and maintain cloud infrastructure, including subscriptions/accounts, resource hierarchies, virtual machines, and platform services (PaaS) supporting a high-volume, revenue- generating ecommerce platform.
• Configure and maintain cloud networking, including virtual networks, subnets, network security groups, NAT, private connectivity (e.g., ExpressRoute), DNS, load balancing, and edge/CDN services.
• Manage cloud storage services, including lifecycle policies and replication.
• Configure and maintain identity services, including hybrid identity and directory synchronization.
• Manage workflow automation and integration services, including connections to internal and third- party systems.
• Manage OS patching and update compliance for Windows and Linux workloads across all environments.
• Administer related platform services, including application email relay (SPF/DKIM, domain verification, delivery monitoring) and Microsoft Teams/M365 settings that support operational and alerting workflows. Database Platform Support
• Administer managed cloud databases, including performance scaling, geo-replication, and long-term backup retention.
• Monitor database health, query performance, and storage growth; implement alerting for resource exhaustion, deadlocks, and connection failures.

Security and Compliance

• Implement role-based access control, managed identities, and least-privilege access models, including just-in-time privileged access.
• Manage cloud security posture tooling, including secure score remediation, threat protection, and vulnerability findings.
• Implement and maintain CIS benchmark compliance and system hardening standards, including periodic assessment, remediation tracking, and audit evidence.
• Manage secrets, encryption keys, and the full SSL/TLS certificate lifecycle (procurement, installation, renewal, revocation), automating renewal where possible.
• Enforce network security through firewalls, private endpoints, and service endpoints.
• Conduct regular access reviews and support SIEM operations, risk exceptions, and Information Security requests.

Monitoring, Alerting and Reliability

• Configure platform monitoring and log analytics, including data collection, custom queries (e.g.,KQL), diagnostic settings, and retention policies.
• Manage application performance monitoring (e.g., New Relic) and incident alerting (e.g., PagerDuty), including dashboards, escalation policies, and on-call schedules.
• Implement and maintain backup and recovery policies, including restore testing, cross-region replication, and backup compliance reporting.
• Execute and regularly test disaster recovery and high-availability procedures, including failover testing against defined recovery objectives (RTO/RPO).
• Troubleshoot outages, connectivity issues, and performance degradation; lead triage during incidents and coordinate with application teams.
• Participate in the team’s after-hours on-call support rotation.

Automation and DevOps

• Write PowerShell and CLI scripts for provisioning, configuration, and maintenance tasks.
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for infrastructure deployments.
• Implement automation runbooks and configuration management; prevent configuration drift across dev, QA/UAT, and production.

Cost Management and Governance

• Monitor and optimize cloud spend using cost management tools, alerts, and anomaly detection.
• Act on platform advisor recommendations across cost, security, reliability, and performance; report on realized savings.
• Right-size compute and databases and manage reservations and savings plans.
• Apply and maintain cloud governance policies, management hierarchies, and resource tagging standards for cost allocation, ownership, and lifecycle tracking.
• Produce monthly cost and utilization reports for leadership, including trend analysis and forecasts.

Documentation, Change Management and Partner Coordination

• Maintain runbooks, configuration documentation, and up-to-date infrastructure diagrams.
• Follow IT service management (ITSM) change, incident, and problem management processes, including change requests and post-incident reviews.
• Coordinate with Allianz Technology, Information Security, and managed-service partners (e.g., contract DBAs) on access, escalations, and security reviews.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5+ years of systems or infrastructure engineering experience, including 3+ years administering production workloads on a major public cloud platform.
• Hands-on experience with cloud networking, identity and access management, and security hardening.
• Experience with monitoring, alerting, incident response, and disaster recovery for production systems with defined SLAs.
• Proficiency in scripting and automation (e.g., PowerShell, CLI tooling) and source control with Git.
• Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform or Bicep) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Working knowledge of Windows and Linux server administration and patch management.
• Strong troubleshooting skills and the ability to work independently and with cross-functional teams.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including documenting configurations and reporting to leadership.

Preferred Qualifications

• Extensive experience with Microsoft Azure, including Entra ID, Virtual Networks/ExpressRoute, App Services, Azure SQL Database, Key Vault, Azure Policy, Azure Monitor/Log Analytics, Defender for Cloud, Sentinel, Azure Backup/Site Recovery, and Azure Cost Management.
• Azure certifications, such as Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104); Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500) a plus.
• Experience with New Relic, PagerDuty, and Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions.
• Experience with CIS benchmarks, PCI DSS, or other regulatory and audit frameworks.
• Experience supporting ecommerce, insurance, or financial services platforms.
• Experience using AI-assisted tools (e.g., Claude Code) to speed up infrastructure automation, troubleshooting, and documentation.

Requirements

Participation in an after-hours on-call rotation every two weeks is required.

TECHEAD’s mission is to make our on-site associates successful by placing them in the right environment so they can grow and prosper. How we treat and respond to our clients and employees is a reflection of who we are and makes us stand out from the rest. Keeping our business focused on building and maintaining relationships with our employees and clients is the key to our success. We won’t strive for anything less.

TECHEAD provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.

For more information on TECHEAD please visit www.techead.com.

No second parties will be accepted.

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