Principal Infrastructure & Cloud Architect

Summary

The Principal Infrastructure & Cloud Architect is a senior individual contributor responsible for defining and governing enterprise architecture for global hybrid infrastructure and cloud platforms, with deep expertise in enterprise networking. This role establishes target-state architectures, reference designs, and engineering guardrails that enable secure, resilient, scalable, and cost-effective services across on-premises data centers, co-location environments, and public cloud (Azure).

The Principal Architect sets architecture rigor through documented standards and patterns (architecture decision records, design reviews, infrastructure-as-code blueprints, automation, and observability requirements) and serves as a technical authority and escalation point for complex cross-domain decisions (identity, network, compute, storage, and security). The role partners closely with Enterprise Architecture, Cybersecurity, Application and Product teams, Manufacturing IT, and key business stakeholders to modernize platforms, reduce operational risk, and deliver measurable improvements in service health (SLOs/SLAs), recovery readiness (RTO/RPO), and total cost of ownership in a 24x7x365 environment.

Responsibilities

Architecture leadership, standards, and governance

• Define and evolve hybrid infrastructure and cloud architecture strategy, principles, and roadmaps aligned with business objectives, risk posture, and enterprise architecture.
• Create and govern reference architectures, standards, and reusable templates (landing zones, network topologies, identity integration, logging/monitoring baselines) to drive consistency and adoption.
• Lead architecture reviews and decision forums; document decisions, trade-offs, risks, and design controls.

Hybrid cloud foundations (Azure) and platform engineering

• Architect Azure foundations, including management groups, subscriptions, policies, RBAC/PIM, logging, and connectivity aligned with CAF and internal standards.
• Define patterns for hybrid compute, virtualization, storage, backup, and identity across data centers and cloud environments.
• Guide modernization initiatives including migrations, consolidation, upgrades, and standardization with clear readiness and operational requirements.

Enterprise network and cloud network architecture

• Own network architecture across data center, campus, WAN, and cloud environments, including routing, segmentation, IP addressing, DNS/DHCP, and resiliency.
• Design hybrid connectivity solutions, including ExpressRoute, VPN, peering, hub-and-spoke, shared services, routing controls, firewalls, and private connectivity.
• Define standards for SD-WAN/SASE and remote access aligned with Zero Trust principles.

Security architecture, risk management, and compliance readiness

• Partner with Cybersecurity to ensure secure-by-design architectures across network, identity, compute, and cloud services, including hardening, least privilege, encryption, vulnerability remediation, and audit readiness.
• Establish controls for data protection and secure connectivity for critical and regulated workloads.
• Conduct and document risk assessments and compensating controls while ensuring compliance with policies and requirements.

Reliability, observability, and resilience (DR/BCP)

• Define requirements for availability, performance, scalability, and recoverability; support establishment of SLOs, SLAs, and operational KPIs.
• Establish monitoring, logging, and alerting standards to improve detection, troubleshooting, and root cause analysis.
• Own disaster recovery architecture standards and testing, including RTO/RPO objectives, dependency mapping, and reporting.

Automation, IaC, FinOps, and vendor influence

• Establish infrastructure-as-code and automation standards (Terraform, Bicep/ARM, PowerShell, Python), including source control, CI/CD integration, testing, and drift management.
• Partner with Finance and platform teams on tagging standards, cost allocation, budgets, and optimization practices.
• Evaluate technology solutions, provide technical leadership to vendors and partners, and ensure alignment with enterprise standards.

Essential Functions of the Role