The Cloud Infrastructure Architect is responsible for designing, governing, and assuring end-to-end infrastructure architectures spanning on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. The role focuses on creating secure, resilient, scalable, and cost optimised platforms that enable modern applications, data platforms, and integration workloads.

Operating in a consulting and systems integration context, this architect ensures seamless integration between on-premises platforms and hyperscaler cloud services, leveraging native Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) capabilities while maintaining enterprise-grade security, operability, and resilience

Core Skills and Expertise

Deep knowledge of Azure, AWS, and GCP infrastructure services.
AI-ready infrastructure foundations designing for scalable compute (including accelerators where required), high-throughput networking, secure data access, and platform services to support modern analytics and AI workloads.
Hybrid networking and connectivity patterns (connectivity, routing, segmentation, firewalls, and load balancing).
Identity, security, and access integration across on-premises and cloud.
Landing zones and platform foundations (accounts/subscriptions, environments, zoning, and policy).
High availability, disaster recovery (DR), and business continuity design.
Cost optimisation and operational governance (FinOps).

Experience

12–18+ years of overall information technology (IT) experience.
8–12+ years in infrastructure, cloud, or hybrid architecture roles.
Experience designing infrastructure for AI use cases, including machine learning (ML) platforms, workload placement considerations, data access patterns, and controls to support safe and reliable operation.
Strong experience in consulting or systems integration organisations.
Proven track record designing on-premises and cloud hybrid platforms, including large-scale enterprise and regulated environments.
Experience of designing and implementing Recovery Time and Recovery Point objectives.

Competencies

Systems thinking across infrastructure, security, platforms, data, and integration workloads.
Pragmatic decision-making to balance risk, resilience, cost, and delivery timelines.
Stakeholder management and influence across operations, security, architecture, and delivery teams.
Delivery assurance and governance mindset: standards, guardrails, and design reviews that enable speed with control.

Key Responsibilities

Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Infrastructure Architecture

Design hybrid architectures combining on-premises data centres, private cloud platforms, and public cloud services (Azure, AWS, GCP).
Support cloud-first, hybrid-by-design, and multi-cloud strategies.
Ensure secure and performant connectivity between on-premises and cloud environments.
Enable gradual modernisation and legacy transformation through hybrid patterns.

Hyperscaler-Native Integration and Connectivity

Design and govern hybrid integration using native hyperscaler tooling to ensure low-latency, resilient, and secure connectivity for hybrid workloads.
Microsoft Azure: ExpressRoute, VPN Gateway, Virtual WAN, Firewall, Load Balancer, and Azure Arc for hybrid and multi-cloud management.
AWS: Direct Connect, site-to-site VPN, Transit Gateway, and AWS Outposts for on-premises workloads.
GCP: Cloud Interconnect, Cloud VPN, Network Connectivity Center, and Anthos for hybrid and multi-cloud management.

Cloud Landing Zones and Platform Foundations

Design and implement landing zones across cloud providers, covering identity and access integration with on-premises identity and access management (IAM), network segmentation and security zoning, and account/environment structures.
Standardise environments (DEV/TEST/UAT/PROD) across hybrid landscapes to ensure platforms are consistent, repeatable, and auditable.

Security-by-Design and Defendable Infrastructure

Embed security-by-design principles across hybrid architectures, including network isolation, segmentation, encryption, and secure routing.
Align infrastructure design with Zero Trust and enterprise security architecture, reducing attack surface across on-premises and cloud boundaries.
Ensure hybrid designs are defendable against cyber and operational threats.

Resilience, Availability and Disaster Recovery

Design architectures for high availability and fault tolerance across hybrid setups, including regional and zonal resilience.

Cost Optimisation and Operational Excellence

Design hybrid platforms with cost efficiency and transparency in mind and apply financial operations (FinOps) principles across cloud and hybrid environments.
Support sizing, scaling, and workload placement decisions to balance performance, resilience, and cost.
Ensure platforms are observable, operable, and supportable.

Governance, Assurance and Consulting Advisory

Define infrastructure architecture standards, patterns, and guardrails; review and approve hybrid and cloud designs across programs.
Support audits, compliance, and regulatory requirements and provide architectural assurance throughout the delivery lifecycle.
Act as a trusted cloud and infrastructure advisor to client stakeholders and mentor engineers and junior architects.

Qualifications and Certifications

TOGAF® Certified (mandatory) or equivalent architecture certification.
Hyperscaler certifications (strongly preferred): Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert; AWS Solutions Architect (Associate or Professional); Google Professional Cloud Architect.
FinOps or cloud cost management certifications (desirable).