Lead Azure Cloud Engineer

Job Description

We have an exciting opportunity for a Lead Azure Cloud Engineer at UL Research Institutes and UL Standards & Engagement, based in our Evanston, Illinois, office.

The Lead Azure Cloud Engineer serves as a senior technical expert and individual contributor responsible for defining, designing, and advancing enterprise cloud infrastructure strategy and solutions. This role provides technical leadership across complex cloud initiatives, drives cloud architecture standards and best practices, and partners with cross-functional teams to ensure secure, scalable, resilient, and cost-effective cloud environments. The Lead Azure Cloud Engineer influences technical direction, mentors team members, and leads the implementation of cloud modernization efforts while remaining hands-on in solution design and delivery. The Lead Azure Cloud Engineer also directs the day-to-day technical work of a managed service provider (MSP) engineering team, setting priorities, defining standards of quality, and holding delivery partners accountable to agreed service levels and outcomes.

UL Research Institutes and UL Standards & Engagement

At UL Research Institutes (ULRI) and UL Standards & Engagement (ULSE), we expand the boundaries of safety science to create a more secure and sustainable world. For more than a century, we have studied the unintended consequences of innovation, designed solutions to mitigate risk, created new safety standards and shared our findings with academia, scientists, manufacturers, and policymakers across industries. We identify critical safety and sustainability issues, asking the tough questions because we believe a safer world begins with knowledge.

What you'll learn and achieve:

• Lead the design, implementation, and optimization of enterprise cloud infrastructure solutions across major cloud platforms (AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform).


• Lead and direct an MSP-based technical team - assigning work, reviewing deliverables, coaching engineers, and driving consistent execution against runbooks, SLAs, and engineering standards.


• Serve as the primary technical point of escalation for MSP-delivered services, partnering with vendor leadership on staffing, onboarding, quality, and continuous improvement.


• Establish cloud architecture standards, governance frameworks, and best practices that support organizational scalability, security, and operational excellence.


• Serve as the technical lead for complex infrastructure projects, providing architectural guidance and influencing technology decisions across multiple teams.


• Design and implement Infrastructure as Code (IaC) strategies using Terraform as the primary provisioning standard, with CloudFormation where platform-native tooling is required.


• Build and maintain configuration management and server automation using Ansible, including role design, inventory management, and drift remediation.


• Design, build, and maintain CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions for infrastructure provisioning, configuration deployment, automated testing, policy enforcement, and release automation.


• Develop and maintain technical documentation, architecture diagrams, implementation standards, and operational procedures usable by both internal staff and MSP partners.


• Provide mentorship, technical coaching, and knowledge sharing to engineering team members while promoting engineering best practices.


• Contribute to and/or lead other department specific and cross-functional initiatives.

What you'll experience working at UL Research Institutes and UL Standards & Engagement:

We have pursued our mission of working for a safer, more secure, and sustainable world for nearly 130 years, embedding conscientious stewardship into everything we do.

People

Our people make us special. You'll work with a diverse team of experts respected for their independence and transparency and build a network, because our approach is collaborative. We collaborate across disciplines, organizations, and geographies to build the global scientific response that today's global challenges require.

Interesting work

Every day is different for us here. We see what's on the horizon and use our expertise to build the foundations of a safer future. You'll have the opportunity to push the boundaries of human understanding as part of a team working to advance the public good.

Grow and achieve

We learn, work, and grow together through targeted development, reward, and recognition programs.

Values

Four core values guide our work: collaboration, respect, integrity, and beneficence. By living our values, we inspire the trust essential to fulfilling our mission and foster the partnerships that enable us to pursue a beneficent future in which we all can thrive.

Total Rewards

All employees at UL Research Institutes and UL Standards & Engagement are eligible for bonus compensation based on the level of