Cloud Engineer

5-month contract role in Indianapolis, IN with potential for extensions. W2 contract, no PTO or benefits; ACA-compliant supplemental package available for enrollment. Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States and able to sit on Primary Talent Partners W2 without sponsorship.

Responsibilities

• Cloud Architecture & Infrastructure
  • Design and deploy cloud architectures on Microsoft Azure that meet performance, security, availability, and cost-efficiency requirements for enterprise and research applications.
  • Architect and implement cloud networking, compute, storage, and identity constructs with security built in from the outset—applying least-privilege principles, network segmentation, encryption, and defense-in-depth across every layer.
  • Evaluate and recommend cloud services, architectural patterns, and infrastructure approaches; build evidence-based adoption cases accounting for engineering capability, operational cost, and long-term platform sustainability.
• Automation & Deployment
  • Implement and maintain infrastructure-as-code (IaC) frameworks using Terraform, Ansible, Bicep, ARM templates, or equivalent—making infrastructure provisioning repeatable, auditable, and developer-friendly.
  • Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for cloud infrastructure and application deployments; ensure changes are tested, validated, and deployed safely with automated rollback capability.
  • Drive automation of operational tasks—patching, scaling, monitoring, alerting, and cost optimization—reducing manual intervention and improving platform reliability and response time.
• Security & Compliance
  • Ensure cloud environments comply with security standards, regulatory requirements, and data governance policies; implement and maintain controls for identity management, secrets management, audit logging, and encryption at rest and in transit.
  • Monitor cloud security posture continuously; identify and remediate misconfigurations, drift, and policy violations—integrating CSPM tooling into operational workflows for proactive compliance management.
  • Partner with Cybersecurity teams to align cloud platform security with enterprise threat models and applicable regulatory frameworks including GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA, and SOX where relevant.
• Optimization & Operational Excellence
  • Monitor cloud environments for performance, availability, and cost efficiency; proactively identify waste, right-size resources, and drive FinOps practices that deliver cloud value without unnecessary spend.
  • Contribute to platform engineering standards, reference architectures, and guardrails that simplify how development teams consume cloud infrastructure correctly and consistently.
  • Troubleshoot and resolve cloud infrastructure issues with urgency and precision; contribute to post-incident analysis and implement preventive improvements that reduce recurrence.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field—or equivalent professional experience.
• 3+ years of hands-on cloud engineering experience in a production enterprise environment (Microsoft Azure required).
• Demonstrated proficiency with infrastructure-as-code tools (Terraform, Ansible, Bicep, ARM templates, or equivalent) and version control (Git).
• Proficiency in scripting languages (Python, Bash, or equivalent) for automation and tooling development.
• Strong understanding of cloud networking, virtualization, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and cloud security principles.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices in a cloud-native context.

Preferred Qualifications

• Microsoft Azure certification strongly preferred—Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Azure Administrator Associate, or Azure DevOps Engineer Expert.
• Experience with FinOps practices and cloud cost optimization at enterprise scale.
• Familiarity with monitoring and observability platforms (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, Azure Monitor, Application Insights, or equivalent).
• Experience in pharmaceutical, healthcare, life sciences, or other regulated industries—particularly with GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, or HIPAA cloud compliance requirements.
• Experience with Kubernetes in production (Azure Kubernetes Service / AKS or self-managed) including cluster operations and workload management.
• Background in cloud security architecture: IAM design, secrets management, network security groups, and cloud-native security tooling.

Skills

• Deep, hands-on cloud expertise—building and operating production cloud infrastructure with accountability for reliability, security, and cost.
• Infrastructure-as-code as a default practice: writing Terraform or equivalent as naturally as using the cloud console, with understanding of its importance for consistency, auditability, and scale.
• A security-conscious engineering mindset—designing with least privilege, defense in depth, and compliance requirements built in from the start.
• A cost-conscious approach: designing systems that deliver value without unnecessary spend and proactively surfacing optimization opportunities.
• Strong communication skills to work effectively with developers needing platform guidance and business stakeholders understanding cloud investment decisions.

Pay

$95.00 - $105.00/hr

Schedule

5-month contract to start, with potential for extensions.