At a Glance
- Tasks: Lead the design and delivery of secure, scalable cloud platforms on Azure and AWS.
- Company: Dynamic tech company focused on cloud innovation and transformation.
- Benefits: Competitive pay, flexible working, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Collaborative environment with potential for contract extension.
- Why this job: Shape enterprise-scale cloud strategies and make a real impact in tech.
- Qualifications: 8-12+ years in cloud engineering with strong Azure and Terraform expertise.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
3 Month initial contract, scope for extension.
Location: Southampton - 2 x a week on site.
Role Overview:
We are seeking an experienced Principal Cloud Platform Engineer with strong DevOps leadership capability to support the design, delivery and continuous improvement of secure, scalable and resilient cloud platforms across Azure and AWS environments. The role will focus on building and governing cloud architecture patterns, landing zones, infrastructure standards and automation practices, while working closely with engineering, security, product and delivery teams.
The successful candidate will provide manager-level technical leadership across DevOps, cloud platforms, Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD, networking, security, observability and reliability engineering. They will help shape enterprise-scale transformation, hybrid cloud strategy and platform services aligned to the Azure Well-Architected Framework, ensuring solutions are robust, cost-effective and operationally ready.
- Own and evolve Azure & AWS cloud architecture, platform patterns, guardrails, and design principles.
- Provide architectural oversight across Terraform modules, CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions), networking patterns, and compute/storage design.
- Evaluate platform changes including major provider upgrades (AzureRM / Cloudflare), DR and high availability improvements, cost optimisation strategies, and observability frameworks.
- Lead technical designs for large-scale refactoring and provider upgrades, environment creation pipelines, secure container registry access, identity integration and Zero Trust patterns, and event-driven architectures with caching strategies.
- Drive Cloudflare integration (CDN, WAF, edge, traffic management) aligned to Azure networking and security architecture.
- Provide engineering governance through review of RFCs, design documents, and technical decisions, and collaborate with delivery teams, security, shared services, and product groups to maintain aligned architecture.
Requires 8-12+ years in cloud engineering/architecture, with deep expertise in Azure architecture (networking, App Services, Functions, APIM, PaaS, ACR, VNets, Private Endpoints, identity/security), strong Terraform experience (modules, pipelines, state management), and strong CI/CD background. Experience designing for SRE (DR, failover, monitoring, logging, autoscaling, resilience) and working across multiple engineering teams. Previous Cloudflare experience preferred. Architecture-led platform role (not a pure Solution Architect); deep scripting expertise not a primary requirement.
Principal Cloud Architect in Southampton employer: TXP Technology x People
Join a forward-thinking company in Southampton that values innovation and collaboration, offering a dynamic work culture where your expertise as a Principal Cloud Architect will directly influence enterprise-scale transformations. With a strong focus on employee growth, you will have access to continuous learning opportunities and the chance to lead cutting-edge cloud architecture initiatives across Azure and AWS environments. Enjoy the flexibility of hybrid working while being part of a team that prioritises security, resilience, and operational excellence.
