Lead Cloud Engineer - Azure [T500-27306]

About Ferguson: Since 1953, Ferguson has been a source of quality supplies for a variety of industries. Together We Build Better infrastructure, better homes and better businesses. We exist to make our customers’ complex projects simple, successful, and sustainable. We proactively solve problems, adapt and grow to continuously serve our customers, communities and each other. Ferguson is proud to provide best-in-class products, service and capabilities across the following industries: Commercial/Mechanical, Facilities Supply, Fire and Fabrication, HVAC, Industrial, Residential Trade, Residential Building and Remodel, Waterworks and Residential Digital Commerce. Ferguson has approximately 36,000 associates across 1,700 locations. Ferguson is a community of proud associates who operate with the shared purpose of building something meaningful. You will build a career that you are proud of, at a company you can believe in.

Job Summary: We are seeking a highly skilled and hands-on Lead Cloud Engineer to join our Platform Engineering team supporting enterprise mission-critical integration services across a globally distributed engineering organization. This role is ideal for a seasoned cloud engineer with strong technical depth in cloud platforms, infrastructure automation, and software delivery enablement. The individual will work closely with development teams to improve developer experience, streamline software delivery, and enhance automation across Azure-based environments. The Lead Cloud Engineer will provide technical leadership through hands-on contribution, standardization and best practices, and cross-functional collaboration with Cloud Engineering, SRE, Operations, and software development teams.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide hands-on technical leadership and drive operational excellence in cloud infrastructure, software delivery platforms and operation excellence.
• Manage and support Azure platform services, including AKS, identity management, storage, and access management across DEV, TEST, and PROD environments
• Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure automation, and deployment tooling supporting software delivery across development teams
• Partner with software engineers and SRE to improve build reliability, deployment consistency, release automation, and overall software release efficiency
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and resolve platform, deployment, automation issues and performance bottlenecks across cloud infrastructure and software delivery pipelines
• Drive continuous improvements in automation, Infrastructure-as-Code, service operation efficiency, and platform engineering capabilities
• Establish and promote engineering best practices, standards, and reusable automation patterns across teams
• Optimize platform reliability, scalability, performance, and cloud resource utilization, including:
• Cluster sizing and node pool management
• Scaling, performance tuning, and operational optimization

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field; equivalent practical experience will also be considered
• 7+ years of experience supporting enterprise cloud infrastructure, platform engineering, DevOps, or software delivery environments
• 5+ years of hands-on cloud experience with Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud Platform (Azure strongly preferred)
• Demonstrated ability to lead technical initiatives and operate independently in a globally distributed engineering organization

Extensive experience in managing Azure infrastructure and services, including:

• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) operations and troubleshooting.
• Azure networking, identity, governance, and security services.
• Virtual Machines, VM Scale Sets, storage, RBAC, Key Vault, and Managed Identities.
• Managed Services such as Service Bus and/or Event Hub.

Strong hands-on experience with:

• Infrastructure-as-Code using Terraform, Ansible or Helm
• Git-based source control and branching strategies.
• CI/CD platforms such as Jenkins and GitHub Actions.
• Scripting and automation using Python and/or Bash.
• Strong troubleshooting, analytical, and problem-solving skills.
• Familiarity with application build and package management tools.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration abilities.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience operating in hybrid or multi-cloud environments.
• Understanding of cloud cost optimization and operational efficiency.
• Experience working with globally distributed engineering teams.
• Working knowledge of Java and/or Python development ecosystems.