Principal Cloud Engineer - Azure - Hybrid - Manchester

Principal Cloud Engineer - Azure

Manchester (Hybrid - 1 day per week on-site)
Salary up to £78,000 + Bonus

We are supporting a UK-based organisation undertaking a significant, multi-year technology transformation. As part of this, they are investing heavily in their cloud platform and are seeking a Principal Cloud Engineer to play a key role in shaping and delivering their Azure environment.

This position is suited to a hands on engineer who enjoys building and improving platforms, rather than operating purely at an architectural or strategic level.

Role Overview

The successful candidate will be responsible for evolving an existing Azure environment from an early stage setup into a mature, secure, and scalable cloud platform.

Working closely with architecture and infrastructure teams, you will help establish best practice, implement standards, and contribute directly to the ongoing transition from on premise infrastructure to cloud.

Key Responsibilities

• Mature and enhance Azure landing zones in line with Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) principles
• Implement governance, policy, and identity standards (Entra ID)
• Develop core platform capabilities, including:
• API Management (APIM) and Web Application Firewall (WAF)
• Logging, monitoring, and observability
• Introduce and scale Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) across the environment
• Contribute to the design and implementation of business continuity and disaster recovery strategies
• Support the migration of on premise data platforms into Microsoft Fabric
• Work collaboratively with architects and engineering teams to embed best practices and improve overall cloud capability

Environment

• Early stage Azure environment with low current cloud maturity
• Predominantly on premise infrastructure transitioning to cloud
• Developing capabilities across governance, security, FinOps, and platform engineering
• Opportunity to influence direction and establish standards within a growing cloud function

Candidate Profile

Strong hands on experience in Azure infrastructure and platform engineering.

• Azure landing zones and governance frameworks
• Infrastructure as code (Terraform preferred)
• Identity and access management (Entra ID / Azure AD)
• Monitoring and observability tooling
• Experience working in environments undergoing cloud transformation
• Ability to operate across engineering and architecture, with a focus on practical implementation
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative approach

Additional Information

• This is not a purely architectural or strategy led role; a strong emphasis is placed on hands on engineering capability
• The organisation offers a collaborative environment with significant investment in cloud and long term technology transformation
• Hybrid working model with a requirement of one day per week on site in Manchester