Azure Platform Engineer

We are seeking a senior Azure Platform Engineer to lead design, deployment, and operation of production workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS). This role is critical for enabling scalable, secure microservices and accelerating time-to-market through repeatable AKS bootstrapping, CI/CD enablement, and platform automation. The engineer will work hands-on across AKS cluster administration, deployment pipelines, security enforcement, observability, and automation templates. This is an opportunity to shape a Platform-as-a-Service offering, improve operational maturity, and drive GitOps-based delivery for event-driven microservices. Responsibilities * Design, deploy, and operate workloads on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) to meet security, resilience, and performance goals * Lead AKS bootstrapping, cluster/node/pod configuration, and operational support activities * Build automated deployment templates for customers to provision AKS instances * Implement and maintain CI/CD and GitHub build/release pipelines for Dev, Stage, and Production environments * Configure autoscaling (Horizontal Pod Autoscaler, Cluster Autoscaler) and integrate Azure Container Instance (ACI) where appropriate * Implement Pod security policies, node-to-node encryption, and enforce NIST-aligned security controls when deploying container images * Integrate AKS logs (application, event, cluster, user activity, diagnostics) into Azure Event Hub or Storage and enable real-time monitoring * Manage authentication and authorization for cluster access using managed identities, service principals, certificates, and secrets * Deploy and manage HTTPS Ingress controllers and TLS certificate management for Kubernetes services * Use governance and scanning tools to monitor images, runtime, vulnerabilities, registries, and hosts Requirements * 3-4 years of hands-on container deployment experience on Azure AKS * 7+ years working with microservices, with focus on event-based services, scalability, and security * 4+ years of Azure engineering experience designing, developing, and deploying Azure cloud solutions * Proven experience developing and implementing AKS-hosted solutions and Kubernetes build pipelines * 2+ years building automation/CD pipelines with Terraform and Flux following GitOps practices * Hands-on experience with Docker and Kubernetes concepts: pods, nodes, ConfigMaps, selectors, services * Experience deploying and configuring HPA, Cluster Autoscaler, and integrating Azure Container Instance (ACI) * Experience deploying Linux and/or Windows Kubernetes clusters from Azure CLI and using AKS for CI/CD runtime * Working knowledge of NIST security policies and standards, FedRAMP, CSA, or ISO cloud/container standards * Proficient with code versioning tools such as GitHub * Experience pulling images from private Azure Container Registry (ACR) and deploying to AKS * Familiarity with API standards (Swagger, REST) and database technologies mentioned (Azure SQL Server, MongoDb, PostgreSQL) Nice to have * Hands-on knowledge of Istio, Envoy, Helm, Kustomize, Flux, Crossplane * Experience with governance and security tools such as Arnica, Wiz, SonarQube * Familiarity with observability tools like Prometheus and Dynatrace * Experience with Kusto query language or integrating logs into Azure monitoring systems * Background working in Agile, Scrum, Kanban, or GitOps-based development lifecycles * Terraform scripting * YAML * Shell scripting for Azure CLI automation