Senior Azure Cloud Administrator (Remote Available)

Discover Vanderbilt University Medical Center:  Located in Nashville, Tennessee, and operating at a global crossroads of teaching, discovery, and patient care, VUMC is a community of individuals who come to work each day with the simple aim of changing the world. It is a place where your expertise will be valued, your knowledge expanded, and your abilities challenged. Vanderbilt Health is committed to an environment where everyone has the chance to thrive and where your uniqueness is sought and celebrated. It is a place where employees know they are part of something that is bigger than themselves, take exceptional pride in their work and never settle for what was good enough yesterday. Vanderbilt’s mission is to advance health and wellness through preeminent programs in patient care, education, and research.

Organization:

CPPA Data Team

Job Summary:

We are seeking a highly skilled Azure Cloud Engineer with strong FinOps expertise and infrastructure operations experience to support a managed services operating model.

This role will act as a technical execution lead for Azure infrastructure, responsible for maintaining platform health, optimizing cost, and executing operational tasks within a structured governance framework. The engineer will partner with internal stakeholders who retain accountability for governance, compliance, and application ownership, while this role focuses on hands-on infrastructure execution, monitoring, and continuous improvement.

(Note: This role is open to remote work from most US locations)

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Key Responsibilities

Infrastructure Operations & Managed Services Execution

• Perform day-to-day Azure infrastructure operations, acting as the technical executor for platform stability, performance, and maintenance.

• Provide Tier-3 infrastructure support, troubleshooting complex cloud issues and restoring service during critical incidents.

• Execute infrastructure changes and maintain detailed change logs, ensuring traceability and compliance with change management processes.

• Maintain accurate infrastructure documentation, including architecture diagrams, system inventories, and operational procedures.

Monitoring, Incident Management & Reliability

• Deliver 24x7 Azure infrastructure monitoring, proactively identifying issues and initiating remediation actions.

• Support incident response and escalation, including security-related events, ensuring rapid triage and resolution.

• Conduct root cause analysis (RCA) and contribute to continuous improvement of reliability practices.

• Perform periodic infrastructure log reviews, identifying anomalies and supporting operational and security insights.

Patching, Security & Compliance Support

• Execute periodic and emergency patching across Azure infrastructure to ensure systems remain secure and compliant.

• Support security operations by reviewing logs, escalating findings, and assisting with remediation activities.

• Provide technical support for compliance and audit activities, including PHI-related log collection and reporting.

• Assist in implementing and maintaining security controls aligned to governance policies (Azure Policy, Defender for Cloud, identity controls).

FinOps & Cost Optimization

• Lead cloud cost optimization initiatives, including:

  • VM and disk right-sizing

  • Reserved instances / savings plans

  • Storage lifecycle and backup optimization

• Develop and maintain cost visibility and reporting mechanisms, including anomaly detection and budget tracking

• Support FinOps governance, including tagging standards, KPI tracking, and cost optimization recommendations aligned to organizational objectives

Infrastructure Engineering & Automation

• Provision and manage Azure resources using Terraform and PowerShell-based automation.

• Support Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices while maintaining flexibility for operational (“click-ops”) activities when required

• Manage:

  • Virtual machines (Windows/Linux)

  • Storage accounts and backup solutions

  • Azure networking (VNets, NSGs, load balancers, app gateways)

• Contribute to automation improvements for operational efficiency and repeatability

Backup, Disaster Recovery & Continuity

• Implement and maintain backup and disaster recovery strategies using Azure-native services

• Monitor backup health and failure conditions, ensuring timely remediation and reliability improvements

• Support recovery testing and ensure alignment with business continuity requirements

Collaboration & Governance Alignment

• Work within a shared responsibility model, where:

  • This role executes infrastructure operations

  • Internal teams retain accountability for governance, compliance, and application ownership

• Collaborate with:

  • SRE and DevOps teams

  • Security and compliance stakeholders

  • Application and platform owners

• Support change advisory processes (CAB), incident communication, and audit readiness activities

Required Qualifications

•  3–5+ years of experience working in Azure cloud engineering or infrastructure roles.

•  Proven experience with Azure cost optimization / FinOps practices, including measurable savings outcomes.

•  Hands-on experience managing virtual machines (Windows & Linux) at scale.

•  Experience with Terraform and/or PowerShell for infrastructure automation.

•  Strong understanding of:

• Azure compute, storage, and networking

• Backup and disaster recovery solutions

• SSL/TLS certificate management

•  Experience with Azure AD / Entra ID, identity management, and access control.

•  Familiarity with monitoring, alerting, and performance tuning in Azure.

•  Strong troubleshooting and operational support skills in production environments.

Preferred Skills

• Experience working in a managed services or shared-responsibility model

• Familiarity with:

  • Change management processes (CAB)

  • Compliance frameworks (HIPAA, SOC2)

  • Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights

• Exposure to:

  • CI/CD pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions)

  • Security tooling (Defender for Cloud, Sentinel)

• Azure certifications such as:

  • AZ-104 (Administrator)

  • AZ-305 (Solutions Architect)

  • FinOps Certified Practitioner

  • CompTIA Cloud+/Security+

TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES
• Server Security (Advanced): Has led security initiatives that have resulted in the design of security interfaces and/or facilities to support company-wide security systems and products. Demonstrates the uppermost levels of expertise in applying security practices in challenging and complex situations. Consistently delivers security products and services in a creative and imaginative manner while setting a standard for others. Has worked with security suppliers in suggesting improvements to products.
• Server Installation and Upgrade (Intermediate): Has the ability to install software using vendor-supplied and company-developed procedures. Demonstrates the ability to use core utility programs in the installation and maintenance of systems. Demonstrates the ability to quickly analyze and resolve problems that may arise during a software installation. Demonstrates the ability to create and use complex utility programs to facilitate software installations.
• Server Monitoring and Tuning (Intermediate): Demonstrates knowledge of what metrics are available, understands their meaning, and can produce sophisticated reports. Possesses sufficient knowledge, training, and experience to be capable of successfully delivering products and services using the skill without requiring support and instruction from others. Able to direct associates of lower proficiencies on where to find data. Performs statistical analysis with performance tuning data.
• Server Administration (Intermediate): Demonstrates mastery of the skill in practical applications of a difficult nature. Possesses sufficient knowledge, training, and experience to be capable of successfully delivering products and services using the skill without requiring support and instruction from others. Able to train and educate by setting the example, giving technical instruction, providing leadership, and generally raising the level of performance of others while on the job.
• Network Operating Systems (Intermediate): Knows all commands of the network operating system and can help others in resolving general operating system issues. Experienced in basic restart/recovery procedures and has working knowledge of communication and user interface aspects of the operating system. Considers operating system capabilities when designing. Able to install and configure operating system parameters such as peripheral devices, network interfaces and drivers.

About the Department:

Vanderbilt Health Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy

The Vanderbilt Health Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy (CPPA), provides services, education and research that support the pursuit of professionalism and high reliability for medical centers and health systems worldwide.

Our programs, PARS® (Patient Advocacy Reporting System) and CORSsm (Coworker Observation Reporting System), use the observations and experiences of patients, families and fellow medical team members to create local and national data and discipline-specific benchmarks to identify, address and support the small group of physicians, advanced practice professionals, nurses, physician assistants and academic/research faculty who model disrespect towards patients, colleagues and trainees.  

The CPPA team, in partnership with research colleagues across the United States, has shown that clinical team members identified as modeling disrespect are associated with excessive malpractice claims experience. Their patients are at elevated risk for experience avoidable medical and surgical complications. Disrespectful behavior has also been shown to contribute to nursing turnover, reduce job satisfaction and threaten teamwork. In addition, individuals identified as high risk may be facing challenges that interfere with their ability to perform at their best professionally. 

CPPA partners with leaders from more than 300 health systems worldwide. Our work supports the core values and professional expectations that are foundational for effective teams in pursuit of high reliability and the delivery of safe, high-quality health care, education and research.

Our professional administrative functions include critical supporting roles in information technology and informatics, finance, administration, legal and community affairs, human resources, communications and marketing, development, facilities, and many more.

At our growing health system, we support each other and encourage excellence among all who are part of our workforce. High-achieving employees stay at Vanderbilt Health for professional growth, appreciation of benefits, and a sense of community and purpose.

Core Accountabilities:

Organizational Impact: Independently delivers on objectives with understanding of how they impact the results of own area/team and other related teams. Problem Solving/ Complexity of work: Utilizes multiple sources of data to analyze and resolve complex problems; may take a new perspective on existing solution. Breadth of Knowledge: Has advanced knowledge within a professional area and basic knowledge across related areas. Team Interaction: Acts as a "go-to" resource for colleagues with less experience; may lead small project teams.

Core Capabilities :

Supporting Colleagues: - Develops Self and Others: Invests time, energy, and enthusiasm in developing self/others to help improve performance e and gain knowledge in new areas. - Builds and Maintains Relationships: Maintains regular contact with key colleagues and stakeholders using formal and informal opportunities to expand and strengthen relationships. - Communicates Effectively: Recognizes group interactions and modifies one's own communication style to suit different situations and audiences. Delivering Excellent Services: - Serves Others with Compassion: Seeks to understand current and future needs of relevant stakeholders and customizes services to better address them. - Solves Complex Problems: Approaches problems from different angles; Identifies new possibilities to interpret opportunities and develop concrete solutions. - Offers Meaningful Advice and Support: Provides ongoing support and coaching in a constructive manner to increase employees' effectiveness. Ensuring High Quality: - Performs Excellent Work: Engages regularly in formal and informal dialogue about quality; directly addresses quality issues promptly. - Ensures Continuous Improvement: Applies various learning experiences by looking beyond symptoms to uncover underlying causes of problems and identifies ways to resolve them. - Fulfills Safety and Regulatory Requirements: Understands all aspects of providing a safe environment and performs routine safety checks to prevent safety hazards from occurring. Managing Resources Effectively: - Demonstrates Accountability: Demonstrates a sense of ownership, focusing on and driving critical issues to closure. - Stewards Organizational Resources: Applies understanding of the departmental work to effectively manage resources for a department/area. - Makes Data Driven Decisions: Demonstrates strong understanding of the information or data to identify and elevate opportunities. Fostering Innovation: - Generates New Ideas: Proactively identifies new ideas/opportunities from multiple sources or methods to improve processes beyond conventional approaches. - Applies Technology: Demonstrates an enthusiasm for learning new technologies, tools, and procedures to address short-term challenges. - Adapts to Change: Views difficult situations and/or problems as opportunities for improvement; actively embraces change instead of emphasizing negative elements.

Position Qualifications:

Responsibilities:

Certifications:

Work Experience:

Relevant Work Experience

Experience Level:

5 years

Education:

Bachelor's

This role offers the opportunity to make a meaningful impact within Vanderbilt Health, supported by a comprehensive benefits package which may include health, disability, retirement and/or wellness offerings to enhance your well-being and professional growth.

Vanderbilt Health is committed to fostering an environment where everyone has the chance to thrive and is committed to the principles of equal opportunity.  EOE/Vets/Disabled.