Cloud SME- Need Only Local to Dallas, Texas

Title: Cloud SME Location: Dallas, TX (Onsite) Duration: Contract Job Description • The Cloud SME is the go‑to expert for AWS and Azure cloud platforms. • This role designs, reviews, and supports cloud solutions to make sure they are secure, reliable, cost‑effective, and compliant. • The SME guides teams, supports projects, resolves complex issues, and advises leadership and customers on cloud best practices. Key Responsibilities 1. Cloud Architecture & Design • Design and review AWS and Azure cloud architectures (IaaS, PaaS, limited SaaS). • Ensure solutions follow best practices for security, scalability, high availability, and DR. • Support hybrid and multi‑cloud environments. • Define standard architectures, templates, and guardrails. 1. Cloud Operations & Support • Act as Level‑3 / SME escalation for AWS and Azure issues. • Troubleshoot complex issues related to: • Compute (EC2, Azure VMs) • Storage (S3, EBS, Azure Blob, Disk) • Networking (VPC, VNets, VPN, Load Balancers) • Identity & Access (IAM, Azure AD) • Support 24x7 operations model (on‑call or advisory). 1. Security & Compliance • Enforce least‑privilege access, IAM best practices, and RBAC. • Implement and review: • Network security (NSG, Security Groups, NACLs) • Encryption, Key Management (KMS, Key Vault) • Logging and monitoring (CloudTrail, Azure Monitor) • Support compliance, audits, and security reviews. 1. Automation & Infrastructure as Code • Drive automation using: • Terraform / CloudFormation / ARM / Bicep • Standardize repeatable builds and reduce manual work. • Integrate cloud automation with CI/CD pipelines. 1. Cost Management & Optimization • Monitor cloud spend and optimize costs using: • Budgets, alerts, tagging, and chargeback/showback models • Identify unused or oversized resources and recommend savings. 1. Cloud Migration & Modernization • Support cloud migration strategies: • Lift‑and‑shift • Re‑platform • Refactor • Advise on application modernization, containers, and cloud‑native services. 1. Stakeholder & Team Enablement • Act as technical advisor for: • Project Managers • Delivery teams • Customers • Review designs, provide approvals, and mentor engineers. • Create documentation, SOPs, and runbooks. Required Skills & Experience Technical Skills • AWS Services: EC2, S3, IAM, VPC, RDS, CloudWatch, Route53, Lambda (basic) • Azure Services: Azure VMs, VNets, Azure AD, Storage, Azure Monitor, Key Vault • Strong understanding of: • Networking • Security • Backup & DR • Monitoring & logging • Hands‑on experience with Terraform or equivalent IaC tools