Job Title: Azure Cloud Engineer – Compute Focus Location: Charlotte, NC - 2x/week onsite Duration: 18 month contract to hire Pay Rate: $65/hr About the Role We are seeking an experienced Azure Cloud Engineer with a focus on compute infrastructure to help design, deploy, and manage scalable solutions in the Microsoft Azure environment. This role will concentrate on compute workloads, including Virtual Machines and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), while ensuring high performance, availability, and security across all infrastructure components. Required Skills • Strong hands-on experience with Azure Virtual Machines, AKS, and compute workload scaling. • Solid understanding of Azure networking, storage, and role-based access control (RBAC). • Proficiency in IaC tools such as Terraform, ARM, or Bicep. • Experience with scripting/automation using PowerShell, Azure CLI, or Python. Key Responsibilities • Manage and optimize compute infrastructure including Azure Virtual Machines, AKS, VM Scale Sets, and App Services. • Design and implement robust and secure network architectures in Azure. • Collaborate with application teams to scale workloads efficiently using compute services. • Monitor and maintain performance, availability, and cost-effectiveness of compute environments. • Implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, ARM templates, or Bicep. • Apply security best practices across virtualized environments including identity, encryption, and firewall management. • Support backup, disaster recovery, and high availability planning.