Senior Cloud Support Engineer in Cheltenham

String Systems is a trusted UK Microsoft Solutions Partner committed to helping growing organizations modernize their IT infrastructure, enhance security, and maximize the value of Microsoft technology. The company delivers tailored solutions to meet customer needs, ensuring robust IT operations and greater efficiency. Operating at the forefront of technology, String Systems prides itself on fostering innovation and providing exceptional service.

The Senior Cloud Support Engineer at String Systems is a senior technical role responsible for resolving the most complex technical issues, providing escalation support to the Cloud Support team, and acting as a technical authority across our Microsoft-centric customer environments. This role blends deep hands-on engineering with technical leadership, continuous improvement, and close collaboration with Service Delivery, Cloud Solutions, and Customer Success.

The Senior Cloud Support Engineer is expected to take ownership of critical incidents, drive root cause analysis, and help shape the technical standards, tooling, and best practices used across the business—ensuring we continue to deliver secure, resilient, and high-quality managed services.

• Advanced Technical Support & Escalation: Act as the final escalation point for complex 2nd and 3rd line technical issues across Microsoft 365, Azure, networking, security, and on-premise/hybrid environments. Take ownership of major incidents, leading technical diagnosis, resolution, and post-incident reviews. Provide clear technical communication to internal teams and, where appropriate, directly to customers.
• Platform Ownership & Technical Leadership: Act as a technical authority for one or more core platforms (e.g. Microsoft 365, Azure, Security, Backup & DR, Networking). Define, maintain, and improve technical standards, configurations, and best practice documentation. Support the evaluation, introduction, and optimisation of tools, services, and automation across the support stack.
• Mentoring & Knowledge Development: Coach and mentor 1st and 2nd Line Engineers, supporting their technical development and confidence in issue resolution. Contribute to internal training sessions, runbooks, SOPs, and knowledge base articles. Promote a culture of structured troubleshooting, root cause thinking, and continuous learning.
• Security, Resilience & Risk Reduction: Proactively identify technical risks, recurring issues, and single points of failure across customer environments. Support security hardening, conditional access, backup, disaster recovery, and compliance initiatives. Work closely with Cloud Solutions and Projects teams to ensure secure-by-design implementations.
• Collaboration & Continuous Improvement: Work closely with Service Delivery, Customer Success, and Account Management to support customer outcomes. Feed technical insight into service reviews, problem management, and service improvement plans. Champion automation and efficiency improvements to reduce noise, repeat incidents, and manual effort.

• First 90 Days: Become fully embedded in String’s technical landscape, standards, and tooling. Build strong working relationships with the Cloud Desk, Cloud Solutions, and Service Delivery teams. Confidently handle escalated tickets and contribute to major incident resolution.
• 6 Months: Be recognised as a go-to escalation engineer and technical authority in key platforms. Actively mentoring junior engineers and improving the quality of escalations. Contributing meaningful improvements to documentation, standards, and recurring issue reduction.
• 12 Months: Driving measurable improvements in platform stability, security posture, and support efficiency. Influencing technical direction, tooling decisions, and service design. Helping shape the future capability of the support function at String.

• Essential: Proven experience in a senior (3rd line) support or engineering role within an MSP or complex IT environment. Strong expertise in Microsoft 365 (Entra ID, Exchange Online, SharePoint, Intune, Defender). Solid Azure experience (IaaS, networking, identity, backup, monitoring). Excellent troubleshooting skills across Windows Server, networking, and hybrid environments. Clear, calm communication skills—especially during high-pressure incidents.
• Desirable: Microsoft certifications (e.g. AZ-104, AZ-305, MS-102, Security certifications). Experience with automation (PowerShell, Power Platform, or similar). Exposure to compliance, security frameworks, or regulated environments. Previous experience mentoring or leading technically within a support team.

• Client First mindset—always focused on doing the right thing for customers.
• Calm, methodical, and accountable under pressure.
• Curious and improvement-driven; not satisfied with “that’s how it’s always been done”.
• Willing to share knowledge and raise the technical bar for others.

Location: Preston-based role with flexibility aligned to customer and business needs. Package: Competitive salary, company pension scheme, modern Preston office, ongoing training and certification support.

This role is critical to maintaining String Systems’ reputation for technical excellence, security, and outstanding customer outcomes—and offers a genuine opportunity to influence how our services evolve as we grow.