Cloud & FinOps / Azure Architect

We are seeking an expert Cloud & FinOps / Azure Architect to lead the governance, security, cost optimization, and architectural strategy of our Microsoft Azure estate. Managing an extensive estate with over 20 years of historical data, you will go beyond traditional cloud management. You will spearhead our enterprise FinOps framework, optimize our data lifecycle and storage strategies, and architect scalable, high-performance, and cost-efficient data platforms.

Schedule: (Full-time) 5 days a week

Responsibilities:

FinOps & Cost Optimization Leadership: Define and implement an enterprise FinOps framework across Azure. Own cloud cost transparency, allocation, and accountability (showback/chargeback) while partnering with Finance to align spend with business value and ROI. Establish budgets, cost guardrails, and anomaly detection.

Cost Reduction Execution Programme: Drive a structured cost-reduction roadmap across four phases: Discovery & Baseline, Quick Wins (0–90 days for archiving cold data and removing redundant backups), Structural Optimisation (redesigning data architecture and Databricks workloads), and Continuous FinOps.

Azure Data Strategy & Lifecycle Management: Define enterprise data lifecycle strategies for 20+ years of historical data. Implement tiered storage architectures (Hot, Cool, and Archive), execute data rationalization programs to eliminate ROT (redundant, obsolete, and trivial) data, and optimize backup and retention policies.

Data Platform Architecture: Own the architecture for our cost-efficient data platform ecosystem—including Azure Data Lake, Databricks, CDP, and integration layers—ensuring separation of compute/storage, efficient pipelines, and minimal data movement.

Governance & Technical Assurance: Ensure cost is treated as a first-class architectural principle. Approve designs based on cost efficiency, data lifecycle alignment, and storage/compute optimization while extending governance to include FinOps policies.

Vendor & Service Management: Hold Microsoft and technology partners accountable for identifying cost-optimization opportunities, advising on reserved capacity strategies, and maximizing licensing efficiency.

Requirements:

Essential Experience: Proven, hands-on experience in FinOps / cloud cost optimisation at scale and managing large-scale historical data estates (10+ years).

Technical Mastery: Strong understanding of Azure Storage tiers and lifecycle policies, data lake architecture and optimization, and Databricks cost management.

Architecture Background: Deep expertise in designing scalable data platforms, handling batch vs. real-time pipeline optimizations, and implementing data compression, partitioning, and pruning strategies.

Desirable Qualifications: FinOps certification (e.g., from the FinOps Foundation), experience with data governance/MDM frameworks, and familiarity with CDP and analytics platforms like Amperity and Databricks.

Communication & Collaboration: Excellent ability to partner with cross-functional teams, bridge technical engineering with finance, and communicate architecture decisions clearly.