Cloud Architect

About role

Senior Cloud Architect to design and implement scalable, secure, and highly available cloud-based solutions, primarily utilizing Azure Cloud and other cloud platforms preferably Alibaba Cloud. The ideal candidate will drive architectural improvements, provide technical leadership, and ensure the delivery of high-quality, robust cloud services. You will work closely with various teams to solve complex business challenges and mentor them in adopting cutting-edge cloud technologies.

Key Responsibilities:

• Architecture Design & Optimization: Drive the design and evolution of scalable, efficient, and robust cloud architectures that simplify operations and reduce complexity.
• Service Quality & Reliability: Define service quality measures, ensure high reliability through self-healing mechanisms, and minimize manual intervention.
• Documentation & System Understanding: Gain an in-depth understanding of the L&H product ecosystem and generate clear architectural documents that guide product development.
• Team Leadership & Culture Building: Foster a high-performance culture within the team, acting as a champion for Swiss Re's core values. Mentor and guide teams in delivering excellence.
• Technical Challenge Mitigation: Proactively identify and mitigate technical challenges early in the development process, ensuring smooth project progress.
• Portfolio Representation: Represent the product portfolio confidently to internal stakeholders and strategic partners, presenting both vision and functional/technical roadmaps.
• Code Quality Assurance: Write technical specifications and ensure developers adhere to architectural designs through thorough code reviews and guidance.
• Innovation & Research: Lead R&D activities, proof of concepts (POCs), and explore new-age technologies to fulfill evolving business requirements.
• Security: Design and implement Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) for identity management and enforce Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Conditional Access policies. and Privileged Identity Management (PIM) to protect admin accounts.
• Cloud Expertise: Architect and design scalable, secure, and mission-critical end-to-end Azure Cloud solutions.
• Cloud Infrastructure Design: Provide technical leadership in designing cloud-native infrastructure on Azure Cloud, including AKS, Networking, CDN, WAF, Load Balancer, Monitoring, and FinOps.
• Cross-Functional Leadership: Mentor teams on solving complex business problems using Azure Cloud capabilities and provide insights to Digital Governance boards on cloud architecture and solutions.

Required Skills & Qualifications:

• Experience: Overall 10+ years of experience in Cloud Applications and with 5+ years in an architectural role. Proven experience with Azure DevOps and Azure-based infrastructure.
• Experience in designing and implementing Zero trust applications
• Experience in Technical Analysis: Solid background in technical analysis, familiar with tools like Visio or Enterprise Architect (EA) for architecture modeling and design.
• System Design & Architecture: Proven experience contributing to the system design or architecture of enterprise systems, with a focus on design principles, scalability, and reliability.
• Software Development Experience: Expertise in designing and developing enterprise web applications using Java, Spring MVC, and distributed databases.
• Distributed Computing Expertise: Deep understanding of distributed computing principles and experience with enterprise-wide systems.
• External Service Integrations: Experience designing and implementing external service integrations using technologies like REST, SOAP, and/or ESB.
• SaaS Product Design: Experience designing multi-tenant SaaS products on cloud platforms, especially for Azure Cloud.
• Event-Driven Architecture: Familiar with event-driven architectures for scalable and resilient system design.
• Authentication & Security: Knowledge of authentication protocols and tools like MFA, SAML, OpenID, and OAuth.
• Cloud Development & DevOps Expertise: Proficient in developing on Azure using Terraform for infrastructure-as-code. Hands-on experience with Azure DevOps (Repos, Pipelines, CI/CD) and Azure Data Factory.
• Leadership & Communication: Strong leadership abilities with excellent communication skills to work with diverse teams and stakeholders.
• Cloud Expertise: Proficient in designing, deploying, and managing highly scalable, secure, end-to-end solutions on Azure Cloud (AKS, Networking, CDN, WAF, Load Balancer, Monitoring, etc.) and other cloud platforms like Alibaba cloud.

Preferred Skills:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field.
• Cloud Financial Management:  Knowledge in FinOps (Financial Operations) to optimize cloud costs and resources effectively.
• Security Operations: Experience with SecOps for ensuring security best practices in cloud environments.
• Azure certifications (e.g., Azure DevOps Engineer Expert, Azure Solutions Architect).
• Knowledge of microservices architecture and managing related deployment pipelines.