Senior Platform Engineer - Azure Data & AI Platform

Senior Platform Engineer - Azure Data & AI Platform

The Role

We are looking for senior platform engineers to build and operate our Azure-based data and AI platform. This is hands-on infrastructure and platform work - you'll be writing Terraform, designing network architecture, implementing MLOps (AI model) pipelines, and establishing DevSecOps patterns that engineering teams can use.

This isn't a "thought leadership" or "strategy" role. You'll be in the code, in the CLI, and in the infrastructure daily.

What You'll Actually Do

Azure Platform Engineering (40%)

• Design and implement Azure landing zones, management groups, and subscription architecture

• Build and maintain hub-spoke network topologies with proper segmentation and security controls

• Implement Azure Policy, RBAC, and governance frameworks that balance security with developer productivity

• Manage identity and access using Entra ID, service principals, managed identities

• Establish monitoring, logging, and alerting with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights

• Cost management and FinOps practices - keeping cloud spend under control without hamstringing teams

Databricks & Data Platform (30%)

• Deploy and configure Azure Databricks workspaces with Unity Catalog for data governance

• Assisting both data and AI teams with pipeline development

• Establish Databricks best practices: cluster policies, job scheduling, notebook standards, workspace organization

• Integrate Databricks with ADLS Gen2, Azure SQL, Synapse, and other data services

• Set up and maintain CI/CD for Databricks notebooks, jobs, and infrastructure

• Work with data engineers on performance optimization, cost control, and platform capabilities

MLOps & AI Platform (20%)

• Build ML model deployment pipelines using Azure ML, Databricks MLflow, or both

• Implement model versioning, experiment tracking, and model registry patterns

• Establish inference endpoints (batch and real-time) with proper monitoring and governance

• Create reusable ML pipeline templates and infrastructure-as-code modules

• Integrate AI services (Azure OpenAI, Cognitive Services) into platform offerings

• Implement responsible AI guardrails: model monitoring, bias detection, explainability

DevSecOps & Platform Enablement (10%)

• Creation of tools, features and dashboards for the developer platform

• Build CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions with proper security scanning

• Implement shift-left security: SAST/DAST, dependency scanning, infrastructure scanning, secrets management

• Establish infrastructure-as-code standards with Terraform (or Bicep), including modules and policy enforcement

• Create self-service tooling and automation for common platform tasks

• Write documentation that engineers will read and use

• Participate in on-call rotation for platform incidents

What We Need From You

Required

• 5+ years platform/infrastructure engineering

  • you've built production platforms, not just prototypes

• Deep Azure knowledge

  • networking, IAM, storage, compute, PaaS services. You know the difference between service endpoints and private endpoints and when to use each

• Databricks experience

  • you've deployed workspaces, configured Unity Catalog, optimized Spark jobs, managed costs

• Infrastructure as Code

  • Terraform (preferred) or Bicep. You write modules, understand state management, know how to structure large IaC projects

• CI/CD pipelines

  • Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions. You've built multi-stage pipelines with gates, approvals, and security scanning

• Containerization experience

  • you know best practices when building and working with both application-based containers and containers holding ML/AI models

• Security-first mindset

  • you understand defense in depth, least privilege, network segmentation, and don't treat security as an afterthought

• MLOps fundamentals

  • model training vs inference, experiment tracking, model versioning, deployment patterns

• Python and/or PowerShell

  • for automation, tooling, and platform utilities

• Observability stack beyond basic metrics (distributed tracing, log aggregation patterns)

Strongly Preferred

• Experience with Azure landing zones and CAF (Cloud Adoption Framework)

• Microsoft Purview for data governance and cataloging

• Experience with Delta Lake, Spark optimization, data quality frameworks

• Azure networking certifications or equivalent deep knowledge

• Container orchestration (AKS)

• API design and management (API Management, App Gateway, Front Door)

What Actually Matters

• Pragmatism over purity

  • you choose the right tool for the job, not the coolest one

• Documentation discipline

  • you document as you build because you know future-you will thank today-you

• Automation mindset

  • if you do it twice, you automate it

• Everything-as-code - if it's not in git, it doesn't exist to you

• Collaboration skills

  • you can translate between data scientists, engineers, and business stakeholders

• Ownership mentality

  • you build it, you run it, you support it

• Intellectual honesty

  • you say "I don't know" when you don't, and then you figure it out

What We Offer

Actual flexibility: Remote-first with occasional in-office travel for workshops/planning. We care about outcomes, not seat time.

Real learning budget: for conferences, training, certifications. We expect you to use it.

Tooling: You'll get the equipment and licenses you need to do the job properly.

Grown-up engineering culture:

• PRs are required, branching is mandatory, tests matter

• Blameless post-mortems when things break

• Technical decisions driven by evidence and context, not politics or trends

• We write RFCs for significant changes

Add the usual stuff here: How to apply, interview process.