Are you a seasoned cloud professional with a passion for leading teams, optimizing complex cloud environments, and driving operational excellence? We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Lead Cloud Operations Engineer to guide our Managed Cloud Services Cloud Support Team. In this critical lead role, you will not only provide expert technical guidance but also mentor team members, define best practices, and play a pivotal role in ensuring the robust, efficient, and reliable operation of our cloud infrastructure, supporting our most critical applications and services.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategic Cloud Infrastructure Management: Help lead the team in providing expert support, advanced troubleshooting, and proactive remediation for virtual machines, containers, and cloud-native services across Linux and Windows operating systems within our diverse cloud environments. Drive initiatives for infrastructure optimization and stability.
• Senior Vendor & Stakeholder Collaboration: Act as a primary liaison with cloud service providers and other key vendors, leading complex support issue resolution, advocating for our needs, and optimizing service delivery. Collaborate effectively with internal stakeholders, including development teams and project managers.
• Advanced Resource Deployment & Orchestration: Guide the team in deploying, configuring, and managing cloud resources, including virtual machines, storage, networking components, and platform services, ensuring adherence to architectural best practices, security standards, and scalability requirements.
• Critical Incident & Service Request Leadership: Serve as the ultimate escalation point for complex incidents and service requests related to our cloud infrastructure and applications. Lead critical incident response, define resolution strategies, and conduct post-incident reviews to drive continuous improvement.
• Cloud Project Leadership & Execution: Lead and manage significant cloud-focused projects from conception to completion, including new service implementations, infrastructure upgrades, migrations, and cost optimization initiatives. Oversee project timelines, resources, and deliverables.
• Team Leadership & Mentorship: Provide technical leadership, mentorship, and coaching to junior and mid-level engineers, fostering their growth and ensuring high-quality operational support.
• Process Optimization & Best Practices: Identify opportunities for process improvement, develop and implement operational best practices, and ensure adherence to ITIL frameworks for incident, problem, and change management.
• Automation Strategy & Implementation: Drive the strategy and implementation of automation scripts and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions to streamline cloud operations, deployments, and routine tasks, significantly enhancing efficiency and reliability.
• Follow-the-sun and On-call Management: Oversee the "follow-the-sun" operational model, ensuring seamless handovers and continuous coverage. Manage team on-call schedules and serve as a critical escalation point for severe issues.

Job Qualifications:

The successful candidate will be a proven leader with deep technical expertise, exceptional problem-solving abilities, and a strategic mindset. You will inspire and guide your team while contributing significantly to our cloud operations strategy. 

• Education: A Bachelor's degree (or equivalent practical experience) in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field. A Master's degree or advanced certifications are a strong plus.
• Exceptional Communication & Leadership: Must possess outstanding communication skills in English (oral and written), with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences, lead team discussions, and present to senior stakeholders.
• Extensive Cloud Operations Leadership Experience: 7+ years of professional experience in Cloud Operations, Cloud Infrastructure Management, or Systems Administration, with at least 3-4 years in a leadership or senior technical lead role focusing on major cloud platforms. Proven expertise in Linux environments within the cloud is paramount, with strong knowledge of Windows environments being a significant advantage.
• Advanced Operating System Acumen: Expert-level experience with various Linux distributions (e.g., RHEL, CentOS, SLES, Ubuntu) in a cloud context, including advanced troubleshooting and performance tuning.
• Enterprise Cloud Architecture & Management: In-depth, architectural-level knowledge of managing, administering, and optimizing cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) in large-scale, multi-region, enterprise environments. Global experience and multi-cloud strategy input are highly desirable.
• Strategic Virtualization & Cloud Services: Deep understanding of cloud virtualization technologies (e.g., EC2, Azure VMs, Google Compute Engine), containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and serverless architectures. Ability to strategically integrate VDI solutions into cloud architectures.
• Advanced Cloud Tooling & Ecosystem: Expertise in selecting, implementing, and optimizing cloud-native monitoring, logging, security, and configuration management tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk, CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, GCP Operations Suite).
• IT Service Management Leadership: Expert-level understanding and practical application of ITIL processes (incident, problem, change, release, and service level management) within a complex cloud environment, with experience in leading process improvement initiatives.
• High-Level Developer Support & Collaboration: Proven ability to lead a team in providing high-quality support to software development teams, defining and meeting stringent SLAs, and fostering strong collaboration for effective problem resolution and proactive system improvements.
• Cloud Networking Architecture & Security: Strong architectural understanding of cloud networking concepts (e.g., VPCs, subnets, security groups, load balancers, VPNs, direct connect/express route, DNS) and advanced ability to design and troubleshoot complex network-related issues within cloud environments.
• Strategic Organizational & Project Management Skills: Exceptional time management, prioritization, and project leadership skills to strategically balance daily operational demands with multiple project deadlines and team workload management.
• Team Leadership & Collaboration: A natural leader with a collaborative spirit, capable of building, mentoring, and motivating high-performing teams in cross-functional and matrixed environments. Strong conflict resolution and negotiation skills.
• Cloud Storage & Data Management: Expert working knowledge of cloud storage solutions (e.g., S3, EBS, Azure Blob, Google Cloud Storage, object storage, block storage, file storage) and their strategic integration with cloud instances and data management strategies.
• Adaptability & Innovation: The ideal candidate will thrive in a dynamic and evolving cloud landscape, leading the team in adapting to new technologies, driving continuous improvement initiatives, and fostering a culture of innovation in incident response, project delivery, cloud resource optimization, and cost management.
• Git & CI/CD Expertise: Expert working knowledge of Git tools and best practices, with experience in integrating version control into CI/CD pipelines for automated deployments and infrastructure management.

Nice to Have

• Advanced Automation & DevOps Leadership: Proven track record of leading significant automation initiatives and implementing DevOps principles within cloud operations.
• Expert Scripting & Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Mastery in scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash, PowerShell) for complex cloud automation, and extensive hands-on experience with advanced IaC tools such as Terraform, CloudFormation, Ansible, or Pulumi, including module development and state management.
• Professional Cloud Certifications: Multiple advanced or specialty certifications from major Cloud Service Providers (e.g., AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Google Professional Cloud Architect).