Principal Engineer- Cloud Platform

Unclassified - Chicago, IL

Full-time - Principal

Remote - Chicago, IL

About the position

The Principal Engineer - Cloud Platform will play a pivotal role in shaping the cloud solutions for Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of the global food retailer Ahold Delhaize. This position is designed for a thought leader who will collaborate with a dedicated team to define and deliver comprehensive cloud solutions that prioritize security, reliability, availability, and self-service functionalities. The successful candidate will be responsible for addressing the end-to-end cloud platform needs of product development teams, ensuring that the solutions provided are robust and scalable. In this role, you will provide strong technical leadership and guidance in deploying and delivering various Azure services. You will be expected to design, build, manage, and operate Azure Core Services, utilizing automation and infrastructure as code principles. Your responsibilities will also include managing the continuous delivery framework and tools, automating the lifecycle of different platform components, and supporting product teams in their cloud initiatives. As a Principal Engineer, you will lead engineering practices focused on test-driven development and continuous delivery of infrastructure. You will integrate various components and develop new services with a keen focus on customer needs. Additionally, you will evaluate performance trends, anticipate changes in demand and capacity, and establish scalability plans to ensure optimal performance of cloud services. Troubleshooting availability and performance issues at various layers of Azure Services and on-premises environments will be a critical part of your role. You will also recommend and maintain Azure policies, governance, cost management guidance, and guardrails to ensure compliance and efficiency. Documentation will be key, as you will create and maintain low-level designs, as-built documentation, and standards on Confluence. Collaboration with solution architecture, platform engineering, and product teams will be essential for delivering effective solutions. You will work within project management and agile scrum teams, taking on a leading role as part of a broader team effort.

Responsibilities

• Designs, builds, manages, and operates Azure Core Services with automation and infrastructure as code.
• Designs, builds, manages, and operates the continuous delivery framework and tools, managing and automating the lifecycle of different platform components.
• Leads a team's engineering practices around test-driven and continuous delivery of infrastructure.
• Integrates different components and develops new services with a prioritized focus on customer needs.
• Evaluates performance trends and expected changes in demand and capacity; establishes scalability plans.
• Identifies and troubleshoots availability and performance issues at layers of Azure Services and on-premises.
• Recommends and maintains Azure policies, governance, cost management guidance, and guardrails.
• Creates and documents low-level designs, as-built documentation, and standards on Confluence.
• Collaborates with solution architecture, platform engineering, and product teams for delivering solutions.
• Works within project management/agile scrum teams in a leading role as part of a wider team.

Requirements

• 4+ years of experience building, maintaining, and automating Azure environments in enterprise environments.
• 3+ years of experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools such as ARM, Terraform, JSON, PowerShell, GitHub, etc.
• 8+ years of IT experience focused on infrastructure, including server, storage, network, security, and identity.
• Certification in Azure Administrator is required; Azure DevOps and Azure Solutions Architect certifications are preferred.
• 4+ years of hands-on technical experience supporting Azure Virtual Network, VWAN, Express route, Load Balancer (L4/L7), Traffic Manager, CDN, Azure DNS, routing protocols like BGP, and firewall concepts.
• Experience with Azure Identity services including Azure AD, PIM, Conditional Access, MFA, Azure AD Connect, Passwordless sign-ins, Microsoft Defender, and Key Vault.
• Knowledge of Azure Governance, Security, Monitoring, Workbooks, Compliance, and cost awareness.
• Experience with Azure Virtual Machines, Containers, Kubernetes, and OpenShift.

Nice-to-haves

• Hands-on experience deploying Azure Enterprise-scale reference architecture and its components.
• Experience in Full stack Cloud Infrastructure Engineering, Operations, and Application Knowledge.
• Ability to work in an Extreme Programming environment and in a paired programming/engineering model.
• Experience with IaC tools like ADO, ARM, Terraform, Ansible, PowerShell, Python, azcli, GitHub.
• Design, configuration, and maintenance of Kubernetes environments using AKS.
• Technical expertise in Windows/Linux/VMware/Hyper-V/AKS, SQL and No-SQL databases, IaaS, PaaS, FaaS, Data, BCDR, Security, Management, Storage, Networking, Monitoring, Identity, and Connectivity.
• Experience working in DevOps and Agile environments.

Benefits

• Flexible/hybrid work schedule with 3 in-person days and 2 remote days.