Infrastructure and Cloud Operations Lead
Location: City of Industry, CA (On-Site)
Full-Time Employment with CLIENT
Position Summary
Our Direct client is seeking an Infrastructure and Cloud Operations Lead to provide hands-on ownership and directional leadership of their hybrid IT environment across all offices nationally.
As a lean IT organization, this role combines direct technical execution with responsibility for guiding the evolution of their cloud and infrastructure strategy. The individual will actively manage day-to-day operations while helping define, standardize, and mature the infrastructure/cloud posture over time.
This position establishes durable operational accountability, strengthens reliability, and ensures disciplined execution across cloud, on-premises, and end-user environments.
Core Responsibilities
Hybrid Infrastructure and Cloud Leadership (Hands-On)
- Directly administer public cloud and on-premises systems
- Operate and optimize Microsoft-centric cloud stack (Entra, Intune, Azure IaaS/PaaS)
- Lead evaluation, direction, and optimization of cloud architecture and platform strategy
- Define infrastructure standards and configuration baselines
- Ensure system availability, scalability, and performance
- Perform troubleshooting, optimization, and lifecycle improvements
- Maintain current infrastructure documentation and architecture diagrams
Operational Governance and Change Discipline
- Implement and enforce structured change management processes
- Establish monitoring, alerting, and operational visibility standards
- Reduce configuration drift and unmanaged system variance
- Ensure disciplined patching, maintenance, and upgrade cycles
- Maintain clear documentation of system changes and infrastructure state
Security Implementation and Infrastructure Hardening
- Partner with fractional CISO to execute infrastructure security initiatives
- Implement identity, access, endpoint, and network security controls (Entra, Conditional Access, EDR/NDR)
- Maintain secure configuration baselines across cloud and on-prem systems
- Remediate vulnerabilities and support audit requirements
Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity
- Maintain and optimize backup and recovery architecture
- Conduct periodic disaster recovery testing
- Refine recovery procedures and improve recovery time performance
- Strengthen infrastructure resiliency across locations
IT Service Delivery and End-User Support
- Oversee and actively support service desk operations
- Provide escalation support for complex technical issues
- Coordinate desktop support across offices
- Track service metrics and identify recurring issue trends
- Drive root-cause resolution to improve stability
IT Asset Management and Technology Lifecycle
- Maintain accurate tracking of hardware, software, and cloud resource utilization
- Support technology lifecycle planning and replacement forecasting
- Provide visibility into asset inventory and infrastructure-related spend
- Identify redundant or underutilized resources
Vendor and Partner Coordination
- Serve as operational lead for infrastructure-related vendors
- Evaluate managed services and cloud providers as needed
- Ensure effective knowledge transfer from modernization initiatives
- Align vendor performance with internal operational standards
Qualifications and Experience
- 7+ years of progressive, hands-on infrastructure engineering experience
- Strong experience designing and operating hybrid cloud environments (Azure and OCI a primary focus)
- Experience guiding cloud architecture decisions in small-to-mid-sized organizations
- Comfort operating in lean IT environments requiring direct execution
- Working knowledge of IT Service Management (ITSM) frameworks (e.g., ITIL)
- Familiarity with IT Asset Management best practices
- Solid networking fundamentals (firewalls, VPNs, SD-WAN, routing, subnets)
- Experience supporting multi-site / multi-branch organizations preferred
Technical Skills
- Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD) administration
- Conditional Access policy design and enforcement
- Microsoft Intune (device management, compliance, endpoint configuration)
- Azure Infrastructure (Virtual Machines, networking, resource governance)
- Azure Virtual Desktop (general understanding and support)
- Azure hybrid infrastructure and networking (on-prem to cloud integration)
- Windows Server administration and Active Directory management
- Multi-site network architecture, routing, and subnet design
- Branch connectivity technologies (SD-WAN concepts and operations)
- Firewall platforms (Palo Alto preferred)
Security & Monitoring Tooling (Preferred Experience)
- Threat & Vulnerability Management (e.g., Tenable)
- Network Monitoring (e.g., WhatsUp Gold or equivalent)
- Endpoint Detection & Response (e.g., Cortex or equivalent)
- Network Detection & Response (e.g., Darktrace or equivalent)
Preferred Certifications
(At least one strongly desired, in priority order)
- MD-101 – Modern Desktop Administrator (Entra / Intune focus)
- AZ-800 – Windows Server Hybrid Administrator
- AZ-104 – Azure Administrator (core infrastructure)
- MS-102 – Microsoft 365 Administrator
