JOB PURPOSE

The Manager, Cloud Engineering is EGA's first dedicated cloud engineering role, established to build the cloud capability that EGA currently lacks and to lead the organization's transition from a predominantly on-premises operating model to a structured, secure, and strategically governed cloud environment. The role combines deep technical expertise with a progressive leadership mandate: the immediate priority is to function as EGA's primary cloud authority, establishing strategy, architecture, and engineering foundations; over time the role will build and lead a small cloud engineering section of up to five engineers.

EGA operates in a hybrid environment with an existing Azure footprint alongside on-premises infrastructure. The Manager, Cloud Engineering is responsible for defining EGA's cloud strategy and migration roadmap, establishing cloud architecture standards and engineering foundations, and building the team and processes needed to sustain cloud operations at scale, with UAE data residency requirements guiding all architectural decisions.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES

Cloud Strategy, Architecture, and Guardrails

Assess EGA's current infrastructure landscape, existing Azure footprint, SaaS portfolio, and on-premises data center to establish a clear baseline for cloud adoption.
Define EGA's cloud strategy and migration roadmap, covering prioritization of workloads for cloud migration, target architecture patterns, phasing, dependencies, and cost implications.
Establish cloud architecture principles, reference patterns, and guardrails across IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, ensuring cloud adoption is consistent, supportable, and secure by design — enabling delivery teams, engineers, or vendors to move efficiently without reinventing designs.
Define approved cloud patterns for common use cases covering hosting, integration, identity, security logging, networking, and disaster recovery and provide authoritative guidance on cloud trade-offs including risk, resilience, performance, cost, and vendor lock-in, ensuring decisions are evidence-based
Maintain awareness of Azure platform developments and evaluate new capabilities for applicability to EGA's environment and roadmap.

Data Center Migration Planning and Execution

Lead end-to-end migration of workloads from on-premises infrastructure (including VMware-based environments) to Azure, using tools such as Azure Migrate and Azure Site Recovery.
Perform workload discovery and dependency mapping; define migration waves with cutover sequencing, rollback planning, and post-migration validation.
Understand data center infrastructure components — compute, SAN/NAS storage, backup systems — and map them to appropriate Azure IaaS architecture patterns.
Work with application and infrastructure teams to ensure workloads are optimized for cloud operation following migration, not simply lifted and shifted without architectural improvement.
Ensure migration plans include operational acceptance criteria and readiness controls so that services are stable, recoverable, monitored, and supportable post-migration.

Cloud Engineering and Operations

Own the design, build, and operation of EGA's cloud infrastructure, including networking, compute, storage, identity, and platform services on Azure.
Establish and enforce Infrastructure-as-Code practices using Terraform or Bicep, ensuring cloud environments are provisioned, managed, and version-controlled through automated pipelines rather than manual configuration.
Define and implement cloud operational processes covering monitoring, alerting, incident response, capacity management, and disaster recovery for cloud-hosted workloads.

Hybrid Connectivity and Network Architecture

Design and implement hybrid connectivity between on-premises environments and Azure using Site-to-Site VPN, ExpressRoute, and MPLS/SD-WAN integration.
Apply strong networking fundamentals — IP addressing, subnetting, routing, NAT, DNS — to hub-spoke architecture, NSG rules, route tables, Azure Firewall, and traffic control across cloud and hybrid environments.
Provide technical leadership on SD-WAN and cloud on-ramp approaches, coordinating with network teams and vendors to ensure designs meet security, performance, and resiliency requirements.

Cloud Security Architecture

Own the design and implementation of cloud security architecture across EGA's Azure environment, including identity and access management (Entra ID), network security, encryption, secure configuration baselines, and audit logging.
Implement hybrid identity patterns including AD + Entra ID, Azure AD Connect, SSO, MFA, and Conditional Access — including migration-specific identity dependencies.
Define cloud security architecture patterns in partnership with Information Security, covering segmentation, key management, identity controls, private endpoints, and monitoring baselines.

Resilience and Disaster Recovery

Design and implement DR and backup solutions using Azure Site Recovery and Azure Backup, aligned to defined RTO/RPO targets, including failover testing and BCP readiness.
Define resilience and DR patterns for cloud and hybrid services, including multi-zone and multi-region approaches where appropriate.
Act as Tier 3 escalation point for cloud architecture and complex cloud technical issues, coordinating vendor escalation and support with Microsoft and other providers where required.

Operational Readiness and Documentation

Define cloud operational readiness standards including monitoring and observability, incident response integration, backup and restore patterns, patching responsibilities, runbooks, and support models.
Ensure cloud services are designed for operational sustainability with clear ownership, supportability, and measurable service health — not just technical deployment.
Maintain cloud documentation including reference architectures, standards, patterns, decision records, and knowledge articles and Provide training, enablement, and knowledge transfer for infrastructure, operations, security, and delivery teams to build cloud capability across EGA and reduce single points of failure.

Team Building and Leadership

Inherit one existing infrastructure engineer into the section and progressively build the cloud engineering team to a target of up to five engineers as capability and workload demand grows.
Lead, mentor, and develop team members, building hands-on cloud engineering capability within EGA and reducing dependence on external expertise over time.

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE, AND SKILLS

Educational and Professional Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technical field is required.
Microsoft Azure certifications are required; Azure Solutions Architect Expert (AZ-305) is the minimum expectation.
Additional certifications such as Azure DevOps Engineer Expert (AZ-400) or Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500) are a strong advantage.
Familiarity with Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and landing zone design models is strongly preferred.
Multi-cloud certifications (AWS or GCP) are a plus. Deep, real-world cloud engineering experience is valued at least as highly as formal certification.

Experience

8 to 12 years of experience in infrastructure and cloud engineering, with at least 5 years of hands-on Azure experience in a production environment.
Proven, hands-on track record delivering end-to-end migrations from on-premises environments (VMware-based) to Azure — including workload discovery, dependency mapping, cutover execution, rollback, and post-migration optimization. This is a mandatory requirement.
Demonstrated experience designing and delivering enterprise-scale cloud architectures, including migration programs from on-premises environments.
Proven experience establishing cloud engineering practices, standards, and governance in an organization with limited prior cloud maturity.
Strong experience managing Windows (Active Directory, DNS, GPO, IIS) and Linux (RHEL, Ubuntu) environments, including migration of domain-joined workloads; with proven skills in OS-level troubleshooting, patching, hardening, and hybrid operations.
Hands-on experience with hybrid identity: AD + Entra ID, Azure AD Connect, SSO, MFA, and Conditional Access.
Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code tooling (Terraform, Bicep, or equivalent) and CI/CD pipeline integration for cloud provisioning via Azure DevOps or GitHub.
Experience implementing DR and backup solutions (Azure Site Recovery, Azure Backup) aligned to RTO/RPO, including failover testing.
Experience implementing cloud security frameworks and working collaboratively with information security teams.
Experience working in a government, public sector, or regulated environment is an advantage; UAE or GCC experience is a further plus.
People management or team leadership experience is preferred, though not essential at the point of hire given the SME-first nature of the role.

Technical Skills

Deep hands-on expertise in Microsoft Azure across computer, networking, storage, identity (Entra ID), security, and platform services.
Solid understanding of data center infrastructure (compute, SAN/NAS storage, backup) and how it maps to Azure IaaS.
Strong command of Infrastructure-as-Code and configuration management tooling.
Solid understanding of cloud security architecture including zero trust principles, network segmentation, identity governance, encryption, and private endpoints.
Experience with hybrid connectivity patterns including Site-to-Site VPN, ExpressRoute, and SD-WAN integration.
Experience with cloud monitoring, observability, and root cause analysis using Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.

Language Requirements

English (written and spoken): Essential
Arabic (written and spoken): Advantageous

Human Resources Department of Ras Al Khaimah Government jobs

Manager, Cloud Engineering

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