[Hiring] Cloud Engineer @Rackspace Technology

Role Description

We are seeking an experienced L2 Technical IT Engineer – Cloud Admin (Azure and AWS) to join our dynamic Cloud Platform Support Team. This pivotal role serves 24*7 technical support in rotating shift support to offshore customers for Azure-related technical issues, providing expert guidance to L1 engineers and support technical discussions with customers. The ideal candidate will possess deep Azure expertise and the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, matrixed operational environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Act as the primary escalation point for Azure-related technical issues, ensuring timely and effective resolution to minimize downtime and impact on customer operations.
• Lead technical discussions with customer engineering teams, delivering expert recommendations and best practices for Azure deployments and optimizations.
• Write/modify Basic Terraform scripts.
• Work seamlessly within a matrixed environment, partnering with Lead Engineers, Delivery Leads, and offshore support teams to ensure cohesive service delivery.
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to L1 team members.
• Translate complex technical concepts into clear, actionable insights for non-technical stakeholders and leadership.
• Deliver timely incident reports and post-mortem analyses for infrastructure-related issues within managed Azure subscriptions, ensuring transparency and continuous improvement.

Azure Technical Expertise

• Extensive hands-on experience with Azure IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS services, including but not limited to:
• Compute: Virtual Machines, VM Scale Sets, Availability Sets, Host Groups, Images, Container Apps, Container Registries.
• Networking: VWAN, Application Gateway, Front Door, Load Balancer, Firewall, ExpressRoute, VPN Gateways, Network Security Groups, Virtual Networks, DNS Zones, Private Endpoints.
• Storage and Databases: Storage Accounts, Backup Vaults, Managed Instances, SQL Servers, Virtual Clusters, Basic idea Azure Cosmos DB and SQL DB.
• Application Services: App Services, Service Bus, Logic Apps, Function Apps.
• Identity and Security: Azure AD/Domain Services, Action Rules, Prometheus Rule Groups, Grafana Dashboards, Action Groups, Metric Alerts, Web Tests.
• Advanced Services: AKS (Azure Kubernetes Service).
• Basic knowledge of Azure Cosmos DB, SQL DB, and Web/Sites.
• Working knowledge on Terraform.
• Strong expertise in observability tools (e.g., Azure Monitor, Grafana), alert refinement, and troubleshooting.
• Basic knowledge in Azure DevOps, particularly infrastructure pipelines using Terraform for automation and scalability.
• Advanced experience with AKS: configuration, provisioning, scaling, and troubleshooting.
• Monitor and manage application secret expiry for in-scope secrets, ensuring security compliance.
• Coordinate vendor escalations and support requests to resolve critical issues efficiently.

AWS Technical Expertise

• Hands-on experience supporting AWS infrastructure services.
• Compute: EC2, Auto Scaling Groups, Launch Templates, AMIs, Elastic Beanstalk, and Lambda.
• Networking: VPC, subnets, route tables, Internet and NAT Gateways, VPC Endpoints, Security Groups, Network ACLs, Transit Gateway, VPN, Direct Connect, Route 53, ELB, and ALB.
• Storage and backup: S3, EBS, EFS, FSx, lifecycle policies, AWS Backup, snapshots, and cross-region replication.
• Identity and security: IAM users, roles, policies, permission boundaries, KMS, Secrets Manager, Certificate Manager, GuardDuty, Security Hub, and AWS Organizations.
• Monitoring and logging: CloudWatch, CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, AWS Config, SNS, EventBridge, and centralized logging.
• Systems management: AWS Systems Manager, Session Manager, Patch Manager, Run Command, Automation, and Inventory.
• Troubleshoot AWS compute, storage, networking, IAM, monitoring, backup, and availability issues.

Infrastructure as Code and Automation

• Write and modify Terraform configurations and modules.
• Troubleshoot Terraform plans, state issues, provider errors, and deployment failures.
• Support pipelines using Azure DevOps.
• Use PowerShell, Bash, Python, AWS CLI, and Azure CLI for operational automation.

VM Patching, Backup, and OS Management

• Manage CPU, memory, disk, filesystem capacity, and performance for cloud-based VMs.
• Troubleshoot connectivity between VMs, applications, databases, and cloud services.
• Plan and implement monthly automated or manual OS patching according to customer maintenance windows.
• Apply emergency patches for critical vulnerabilities and monitor patch compliance.
• Configure and monitor Azure Backup, Recovery Services Vaults, AWS Backup, EBS snapshots, and cloud-native recovery services.
• Test recovery procedures and support disaster-recovery activities.

Monitoring and Observability

• Monitor infrastructure using Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and centralized logging platforms.
• Review and refine alerts to reduce false positives and improve operational response.
• Configure metric alerts, action groups, notification rules, dashboards, and operational reports.

Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree, Information Technology, or a related field (or equivalent professional experience).
• Experience: Minimum of 7+ years of hands-on experience with Azure cloud services in a technical support or engineering role.
• Technical Skills: Deep understanding of cloud infrastructure, observability, automation, and security best practices.
• Certifications: Relevant certifications such as Microsoft Certified or AWS Certified.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills.