About the Role We are seeking an experienced Azure Cloud Operations Lead to join our growing cloud and infrastructure team. This role is ideal for a highly skilled cloud operations professional with strong Microsoft Azure expertise, a passion for operational excellence, and a proactive approach to automation, governance, and reliability engineering. You will be responsible for leading operational support across Azure environments, driving continuous improvement initiatives, ensuring platform stability and security, and mentoring technical teams in best practices for cloud operations and DevOps. Key Responsibilities Cloud Operations & Support Lead operational support for Azure subscriptions, landing zones, and shared services including networking, identity, monitoring, backup, and security Manage and drive incident, problem, and change management processes for Azure services Design, implement, and maintain monitoring, alerting, operational dashboards, and SLO/SLA reporting Lead root-cause analysis (RCA) and post-incident reviews while tracking corrective and preventative actions Ensure high availability, operational stability, and reliability across cloud platforms Automation, DevOps & Infrastructure Automate operational tasks using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and scripting to improve consistency and efficiency Partner with DevOps and application teams to enhance CI/CD pipelines, release governance, and deployment processes Implement and maintain operational standards, runbooks, and support procedures Manage Azure resource performance, capacity planning, and cost optimisation initiatives (FinOps) Maintain operational documentation, architecture diagrams, and technical handover artefacts Security, Governance & Leadership Ensure security, governance, and compliance controls are effectively implemented and continuously improved Implement Azure Policy, Defender for Cloud, logging, auditing, key management, and least-privilege access controls Provide technical leadership, mentoring, and guidance to engineers and operational teams Support enterprise-scale governance initiatives aligned with Azure best practices and cloud frameworks Collaborate with stakeholders across infrastructure, engineering, and business teams to ensure operational alignment and service excellence Requirements & Qualifications Must-Have Skills 7-10+ years of hands-on IT infrastructure and cloud operations experience with strong recent Microsoft Azure experience Current Microsoft Azure certifications such as Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104) and/or Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) Proven experience delivering Infrastructure as Code (IaC) solutions using Terraform and/or Bicep/ARM Strong understanding of DevOps practices including CI/CD, Git workflows, automated testing, and release management Experience with ITIL-aligned operations including incident, problem, and change management processes Strong operational knowledge of Azure Networking, Identity (Entra ID, RBAC, PIM), Compute, Storage, and Azure Monitor Experience implementing cloud security controls, governance frameworks, and compliance best practices Proficiency in PowerShell and/or Python scripting for automation Excellent stakeholder management, communication, and documentation skills Highly Desirable Skills Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400) or security-focused certifications such as SC-100 or SC-200 Experience with Azure Landing Zone / Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) implementations Experience managing AKS environments at scale, service mesh technologies, and container security Exposure to observability and monitoring tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, Splunk, or Datadog Experience with FinOps, cloud budgeting, tagging strategies, and cost management models Experience with Disaster Recovery (DR) and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) within Azure environments Education Bachelor’s degree, diploma, or relevant certification in Information Technology, Computer Science, Cloud Computing, or a related field Additional Information Contract role with possibility or renewal Rate: Negotiable Location: Cape Town, South Africa Must be located in Cape Town and hold a valid South African ID #J-18808-Ljbffr