At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the strategy and evolution of our Azure cloud infrastructure and team.
- Company: Join a forward-thinking tech company with a focus on innovation and collaboration.
- Benefits: Enjoy competitive pay, generous leave, and a strong pension contribution.
- Other info: Flexible hybrid work, continuous learning opportunities, and a vibrant company culture.
- Why this job: Shape the future of cloud technology while making a real impact in a dynamic environment.
- Qualifications: Proven experience in leading cloud teams and expertise in Azure technologies.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
A senior leadership role owning the strategy, reliability, and evolution of our entire Azure estate — infrastructure, networking, cloud security, budget management, and platform engineering. You will report to the Director of Technology, manage a team of Cloud Engineers, and own the platform underpinning our consumer‑facing products, data platform, and internal tooling. The estate runs a hub‑and‑spoke landing zone, AKS‑hosted microservices, event‑driven architectures, and a growing Databricks data platform, and we’re migrating off a legacy VM estate toward cloud‑native services. You will balance perfection against expediency to meet business needs, embedding yourself across technology, product, and commercial — setting expectations, building trust, and striking the right balance between short‑ and long‑term goals.
Strategy & Leadership
- Define and own a 3–5 year cloud strategy for Cazoo across infrastructure, networking, security, and platform engineering.
- Drive migration from the legacy VM estate to a cloud‑native platform (AKS, Azure Functions, managed services).
- Design and maintain the Azure Landing Zone — hub‑and‑spoke topology, subscription management, and governance policies.
- Partner with Product, Commercial, and Engineering leadership so cloud accelerates business outcomes; represent Cloud & Security on the Technology Management Team, shaping strategy, culture, and ways of working.
- Manage cloud budgets, drive FinOps, and oversee third‑party vendor relationships.
- Drive adoption of AI‑assisted engineering, automation, and self‑service platform capabilities that improve developer productivity and operational efficiency.
Platform & Infrastructure
- Deep expertise designing and operating secure Azure networking architectures, including hybrid connectivity, segmentation, routing, ingress and identity‑aware access patterns.
- Ensure secure, scalable operation across AKS, Azure Functions, and remaining VM workloads.
- Own infrastructure‑as‑code with Terraform and Helm, ensuring consistency and repeatability across environments.
- Champion DevSecOps and security‑by‑design with InfoSec, enforcing Zero Trust, compliance, and threat mitigation.
- Maintain observability (Azure Monitor, Prometheus, Grafana, PagerDuty) and operational excellence through incident management, on‑call, and continuous reliability improvement.
People & Culture
- Lead, mentor, and grow a high‑performing Cloud team, fostering an engineering culture of feedback, continuous learning, and technical excellence.
- Give feedback, recognise great work, and support career development; own and improve team engagement scores.
- Provide technical leadership and mentorship across the wider technology organisation.
- Bring a calm, steadying presence during incidents and high‑pressure periods, and foster an architectural mindset across cloud and infrastructure teams.
Role Requirements
- Several years leading Cloud or Platform Engineering teams, with significant Azure‑at‑scale experience.
- Azure networking: hub‑and‑spoke, VNets, VPNs, NSGs, ASGs, firewalls, DNS, ExpressRoute, hybrid connectivity.
- Designing, building, and operating secure, scalable Azure platforms (AKS, Azure Functions, managed PaaS).
- Infrastructure as Code with Terraform and Helm, including IaC best practices and governance.
- Proven cloud migration and modernisation programmes (legacy VM → cloud‑native).
- Azure security: Key Vault, Managed Identities, RBAC, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Policy, Microsoft Entra ID.
- Observability and monitoring (Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Prometheus, Grafana, PagerDuty) and FinOps/cost‑accountability practices across engineering teams.
- Strong grasp of SLIs, SLOs, and error budgets.
- Developing technical strategies for a cloud/infrastructure discipline and gaining senior‑stakeholder buy‑in; giving clear, actionable direction in complex situations to keep teams aligned.
- Exceptional communication — translating technical direction for non‑technical stakeholders — and a natural coaching/mentoring style.
Desirable Skills & Experience
- WAF technologies — Azure Application Gateway, Azure Front Door, or third‑party (Cloudflare, Akamai).
- Azure data services — Data Lake Storage, Databricks, AI Search, Cosmos DB, PostgreSQL Flexible Server.
- Container networking and service mesh (e.g. Istio), plus Azure Container Registry.
- Azure messaging — Service Bus, Event Grid, Event Hubs.
- CI/CD pipelines — Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions.
- API Management platforms — e.g. Azure APIM.
- Azure certifications.
Perks & Benefits
- We offer an annual bonus scheme.
- We more than match your commitment to your pension, so when you contribute 6%, we put in 9%, taking your total up to 15% of your base salary.
- Quarterly value‑led awards with generous cash prizes.
- Referral Bonus: Recommend a colleague, get £2,000.
Work‑Life
- 25 days (plus bank holidays) (increasing after 2 years of service).
- Hybrid role, two days a week based in our Richmond office.
- Family Enhanced leave after 6 months of service: Maternity/Pregnant Parent Leave: 20 weeks at 100% pay. Paternity/Non‑birth Parent Leave: 12 weeks at 100% pay.
- Volunteer Days: We offer 2 volunteer days a year so you can help out wherever matters to you.
Health & Peace of Mind
- AXA Private Healthcare: High‑level coverage for you, partners, and dependents—including pre‑existing conditions.
- Bupa Dental: Level 2 coverage for cashback on preventative, restorative and emergency care.
- Private GP: 24/7 digital access via Help@Hand.
- Income Protection: 13 weeks of sick pay, before going onto Long term Illness cover with Canada Life.
- Life Assurance: 4x basic salary covered by Unum.
- Specialist Support: Free counseling and menopause/fertility support via Peppy.
Your Growth
- Learning budget and continuous development opportunities.
- Every manager has a dedicated budget for your specific role development.
The Extras
- Your choice of a MacBook or Windows laptop.
- Perks@Work: Discounts at over 30,000 retailers and entertainment venues.
- Annual conference with top tier industry guest speakers.
- Social events including a Summer bash and an annual festive party.
- Free food & drinks in the office.
- We’re proud partners of Brentford FC, and we share the rewards with you.
Head of Cloud (Azure) in Kingston upon Thames employer: Cazoo
Cazoo is an exceptional employer that prioritises employee growth and well-being, offering a hybrid work model with flexible hours and generous leave policies, including enhanced family leave. With a strong focus on continuous learning, employees benefit from dedicated development budgets and a vibrant work culture that encourages feedback and recognition. Located in Richmond, the company fosters a collaborative environment where innovation thrives, supported by comprehensive health benefits and engaging social events.
