Senior Cloud Solution Architect

Senior Cloud Solution Architect

Location: UK\-based – Hybrid working with occasional travel to Shivom offices and client locations
Employment Type: Permanent, Full\-Time
Salary: £75,000–£85,000 per annum, depending on experience
Security Clearance: Current SC clearance or eligibility to obtain SC clearance

About the Role

Shivom Consultancy Ltd is looking for an experienced Senior Cloud Solution Architect to join our growing Architecture Practice.

You will provide architecture leadership across cloud platforms, application hosting, container platforms, infrastructure automation, observability, resilience and modern engineering practices, with a strong focus on the Microsoft Azure ecosystem.

The role will focus on designing secure, scalable and operationally resilient cloud solutions while helping organisations modernise legacy hosting and infrastructure through cloud\-native technologies, automation and repeatable engineering practices.

You will work across Azure platform services, containerised workloads, Kubernetes, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD, cloud networking, security, monitoring and operational tooling.

You will work closely with Enterprise Architects, Solution Architects, Cloud Engineers, DevOps Engineers, Software Engineering teams, Security Specialists, Network teams, Identity Architects, Service Management teams and technology suppliers.

The role will support major UK public sector and enterprise transformation programmes within Shivom's client portfolio.

Key Responsibilities

You will:

• Lead solution architecture across Microsoft Azure cloud platforms and hosted services.


• Define current, target and transition architectures for cloud hosting, infrastructure and platform services.


• Design secure, scalable and resilient Azure solutions for modern digital services.


• Architect cloud platforms supporting bespoke applications, commercial software and shared enterprise services.


• Define architecture for containerised workloads and Kubernetes\-based platforms.


• Design appropriate hosting patterns across PaaS, IaaS, serverless and container services.


• Define Azure networking, connectivity and cloud security patterns.


• Develop architecture for Azure subscriptions, landing zones, resource organisation and platform governance.


• Design resilient solutions spanning Availability Zones, regions and appropriate disaster recovery capabilities.


• Develop cloud migration and modernisation strategies for legacy applications and infrastructure.


• Assess applications to determine appropriate retain, rehost, replatform, refactor, replace or retire strategies.


• Promote automation and repeatability through Infrastructure as Code.


• Define architectural standards for Terraform, Bicep and automated cloud provisioning.


• Work with engineering teams to establish repeatable CI/CD and deployment patterns.


• Define architecture for Azure DevOps and GitHub\-based engineering workflows.


• Build monitoring and observability into cloud architecture from the outset.


• Define logging, metrics, tracing, alerting and operational dashboard requirements.


• Architect solutions using Azure Monitor, Application Insights and Log Analytics.


• Define integration with enterprise monitoring platforms such as Dynatrace and Grafana.


• Establish standards for cloud service health, capacity, performance and operational telemetry.


• Define secure approaches for secrets, certificates, keys and workload identities.


• Apply Zero Trust, least privilege and secure\-by\-design principles alongside cyber security teams.


• Define non\-functional requirements covering availability, resilience, performance, scalability, security, maintainability, recoverability and supportability.


• Develop High\-Level Designs, solution visions, options assessments, architecture decisions and technical roadmaps.


• Identify opportunities to simplify fragmented infrastructure and reduce unnecessary platform duplication.


• Work with engineering teams throughout discovery, design, implementation and transition into live service.


• Review detailed technical designs and implementation approaches against agreed architecture.


• Identify architectural risks, dependencies and technical debt.


• Present architecture decisions through technical governance and design authority forums.


• Support proofs of concept, technical feasibility exercises and platform evaluations.


• Contribute to architecture peer reviews and continuous improvement.

Essential Experience \& Skills

We are looking for strong experience across most of the following:

• Significant experience as a Cloud Solution Architect, Azure Architect, Technical Architect, Platform Architect, Infrastructure Architect or similar senior role.


• Strong Microsoft Azure architecture experience.


• Experience designing large\-scale, business\-critical cloud solutions.


• Strong understanding of cloud architecture principles and Azure platform services.


• Experience designing highly available, scalable and resilient cloud environments.


• Experience designing containerised and Kubernetes\-based solutions.


• Understanding of PaaS, IaaS, serverless and container hosting models.


• Experience designing Azure networking and secure cloud connectivity.


• Experience defining cloud security architecture.


• Strong understanding of identity, access control, workload identities, secrets and certificate management.


• Strong understanding of Infrastructure as Code.


• Experience with Terraform and/or Bicep.


• Experience defining CI/CD and automated deployment approaches.


• Practical understanding of Azure DevOps and/or GitHub.


• Strong understanding of monitoring and observability.


• Experience with Azure Monitor, Application Insights and Log Analytics.


• Experience architecting operational monitoring for distributed cloud services.


• Experience with Dynatrace, Grafana or equivalent observability platforms.


• Experience defining resilience, operational readiness and disaster recovery requirements.


• Experience modernising legacy infrastructure or applications for cloud environments.


• Experience producing architecture artefacts including HLDs, options assessments, architecture decisions, roadmaps and transition architectures.


• Experience defining and assuring non\-functional requirements.


• Experience working within technical governance or architecture review processes.


• Experience working across multiple engineering teams and technology suppliers.


• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.


• Ability to communicate architecture clearly to technical and non\-technical stakeholders.


• Ability to make pragmatic architecture decisions balancing strategy, security, resilience, cost and delivery requirements.

Microsoft Azure Architecture

Strong Azure architecture experience is central to this position. Relevant knowledge may include:

• Azure subscriptions and Management Groups


• Azure Landing Zones


• Azure Policy


• Role\-Based Access Control (RBAC)


• Microsoft Entra ID


• Virtual Networks and Network Security Groups


• Private Endpoints and Private Link


• Azure DNS


• Azure Load Balancer


• Application Gateway and Web Application Firewall


• Azure Front Door


• ExpressRoute and VPN connectivity


• Azure Firewall


• Azure Key Vault


• Managed Identities


• Azure Storage


• Azure SQL and managed database services


• Azure Functions


• Azure App Service


• Azure Container Apps


• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)


• Azure Container Registry


• Azure Monitor


• Application Insights


• Log Analytics


• Backup and recovery services

You should be able to select appropriate Azure services based on architectural requirements rather than defaulting to a single hosting model.

Containers \& Kubernetes

Experience with containerised platforms is important. You should understand:

• Docker and container architecture


• Kubernetes and Azure Kubernetes Service


• Container registries and image management


• Kubernetes networking and ingress


• Service discovery


• Configuration and secrets


• Workload identity


• Scaling and resource management


• Availability and resilience


• Cluster upgrades


• Platform and container security


• Policy enforcement


• Observability


• Deployment strategies


• Operational support

You do not need to be a Kubernetes administrator, but you should be able to architect secure and supportable container platforms and determine when Kubernetes is or is not appropriate.

Infrastructure as Code \& DevOps

Modern cloud environments should be reproducible and automated. Relevant experience includes:

• Terraform


• Bicep


• Infrastructure as Code


• Modular and reusable infrastructure components


• Policy as Code


• Automated provisioning


• Source control


• Environment configuration and promotion


• Secrets handling


• State and drift management


• Automated testing


• Release governance


• Azure DevOps


• GitHub and GitHub Actions


• Azure Pipelines


• CI/CD


• Pull requests and branching strategies


• Artifact and package management


• Infrastructure and application deployment pipelines


• Security and dependency scanning


• Pipeline governance

You do not need to operate as a DevOps Engineer but should be capable of defining the architectural principles and patterns that engineering teams implement.

Monitoring \& Observability

Cloud solutions should be designed so operational teams can understand service health, performance, dependencies and failures.

Relevant experience includes:

• Azure Monitor


• Application Insights


• Log Analytics


• Dynatrace


• Grafana


• Distributed tracing


• Metrics and logs


• Application Performance Monitoring (APM)


• Infrastructure monitoring


• Synthetic and dependency monitoring


• Centralised logging


• Alerting and operational dashboards


• Service health and availability monitoring


• Capacity and performance monitoring


• Correlation IDs and health checks

You should understand how to define meaningful telemetry and alerts rather than simply collecting large volumes of logs.

Resilience \& Disaster Recove

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