Senior Azure Cloud Engineer

Dunhill Government Solutions is hiring a Senior Azure Cloud Engineer for a federal agency that is planning its move off Azure VMware Solution (AVS) and onto native Azure. This role owns the technical answer to how. You will design the post-AVS target state, determine which Azure-native services can replace the platforms the agency runs today, build the cost model that supports budget submissions, and shape the 18-24 month cloud roadmap that leadership executes against. Early work includes assessing Azure application delivery services (Application Gateway, Front Door and Load Balancer) as alternatives to F5.

You are the program's deep Azure expert. Your designs set the target state, and your options analyses and recommendations go to the Infrastructure Engineering Lead, program leadership and government stakeholders as the plan of record. The work is architecture and analysis rather than ticket queues or team management. You will partner closely with the network, systems and security teams so that what you design is something they can actually run, and serve as the escalation point when a hard Azure problem lands.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and compare target-state options, identify decision points, dependencies and risks, and plan how workloads move from AVS to native Azure services
• Provide the technical inputs that keep the roadmap aligned to agency planning and budget cycles
• Research, prototype in non-production, and recommend Microsoft services that replace legacy platforms, improve service delivery and advance modernization goals
• Develop and maintain the AVS-versus-native-Azure cost model, identify near-term savings, and support budget submissions with defensible projections
• Document the operational impacts of design decisions (monitoring, patching, backup, disaster recovery, runbooks) and advise on the skills operations teams will need as the model shifts to cloud platform management
• Provide expert guidance on complex Azure issues and share knowledge with the engineers around you
• Produce technical designs, options analyses, recommendation memos, roadmaps and change records suitable for government review

Required qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent relevant work experience; Master's degree preferred
• 8+ years of infrastructure engineering experience, including senior-level ownership of cloud design with Microsoft Azure as the primary platform
• Deep working knowledge of core Azure services: compute, virtual networking, storage, Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD), Azure Policy, Azure Monitor and Cost Management
• Experience planning or leading migrations of VMware-based workloads to Azure (from on-premises vSphere/ESXi/vCenter, from AVS, or a comparable platform), including workload assessment, sequencing and cutover planning
• Solid understanding of Azure networking: ExpressRoute, VNets and peering, NSGs, private endpoints, load balancing, DNS and hybrid routing
• Experience designing or operating cloud infrastructure in a security- and compliance-driven environment (federal, FedRAMP or similarly regulated), with a working understanding of NIST 800-53 as it applies to cloud
• Strong communication and documentation skills, able to present recommendations to program leadership and government stakeholders and translate complex technical options into clear business terms

Location: Hybrid, Washington, DC. On site at least two (2) days per week, with additional on-site days for migration events, cutovers and client reviews. No travel required.

Schedule: Full-time, 40 hours/week.

US Citizenship and the ability to pass a federal background investigation in order to be granted access to sensitive information.

Compensation: $160,000 - $200,000 per year

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