Azure Cloud Architect – AIML & Data Services Niles, IL Contract Opportunity

Role: Azure Cloud Architect AI/ML & Data Services

Location: Niles IL (Hybrid 2-3 days office in a week)

Duration: Contract opportunity

Key Responsibilities

• Architect design and implement end-to-end Azure cloud solutions with a focus on AI/ML workloads data engineering pipelines and platform infrastructure.
• Lead the adoption and integration of Azure AI/ML services including Azure Machine Learning Azure OpenAI Service Cognitive Services and Snowflake.
• Define and enforce cloud architecture standards patterns and best practices across development teams.
• Design secure scalable data platforms using Azure Synapse Analytics Azure Data Factory Azure Data Lake Storage and related services.
• Collaborate with data scientists and ML engineers to operationalize ML models through MLOps practices (CI/CD for models monitoring retraining pipelines).
• Drive infrastructure-as-code (IaC) adoption using Terraform Bicep or ARM templates.
• Conduct architecture reviews cloud readiness assessments and provide technical guidance on migrating on-premises workloads to Azure.
• Ensure compliance with security governance and cost management requirements (Azure Policy RBAC Defender for Cloud FinOps).
• Mentor and upskill engineering teams on Azure best practices and AI/ML service capabilities.
• Engage with stakeholders to present architecture proposals roadmaps and technical recommendations.

Required Qualifications

• 8 years of experience in cloud architecture and engineering with at least 5 years focused on Microsoft Azure.
• Proven experience architecting and deploying AI/ML solutions on Azure at scale.
• Deep hands-on expertise with Azure ML Azure OpenAI Azure Databricks Synapse Analytics Data Factory and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).
• Strong proficiency in infrastructure-as-code using Terraform Bicep or ARM templates.
• Solid understanding of MLOps DevOps and CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps GitHub Actions).
• Experience with cloud networking security architecture identity management (Entra ID / AAD) and compliance frameworks on Azure.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.
• Microsoft Azure certifications (e.g. Azure Solutions Architect Expert AZ-305 Azure AI Engineer AI-102).