Cloud Consultant

About ISx4

ISx4 is a growing AI and analytics business based in Northern Ireland providing products and services to blue chip clients globally. ISx4 take the customer on a journey from hindsight to foresight by enabling detailed insights into the client’s data. We create, deliver, and manage analytics and AI solutions in financial services, government, life sciences and the private sector. Our staff are based throughout Europe, and we operate hybrid working. ISx4 have an ambitious hiring plan for the next three years with new hires and growth at all levels to support the strategic growth of the firm, including its expansion into the US market.

The Role

As a Cloud Consultant with ISx4, you will be responsible for designing, implementing, and maintaining scalable cloud infrastructure solutions. The role will involve working directly with the client, providing support and ensuring optimal performance, security, and availability of cloud-based systems and services. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in cloud technologies and infrastructure, excellent problem-solving skills, and a passion for staying up to date with the latest advancements in cloud computing. Having sound data science, programming and analytics skills are desirable to support data-driven decision-making and understand the client journey.

The ideal candidate will be an engineer at heart, have a professional work ethic, be able to assist with cloud economics and provide accurate estimates of hosting and associated service costs for inclusion in commercial proposals. ISx4 plan to grow the cloud team in line with other areas of our business, and as such, this is a great opportunity for someone who has ambition, vision and drive, to help develop and build new innovative client opportunities.

ISx4 are delivering more and more solutions on the Azure platform and as such Azure hands on experience is essential.

Job Responsibilities

• Design, size, cost, deploy, and maintain cloud infrastructure solutions based on business and technical customer requirements.
• Collaborate with development & data science teams to provide guidance on cloud architecture best practices, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security.
• Implement and manage cloud services, including compute, storage, networking, and databases.
• Monitor and optimise cloud infrastructure performance, addressing issues related to scalability, availability, and efficiency.
• Ensure data integrity and security by implementing appropriate access controls, encryption, and backup solutions.
• Automating infrastructure, provisioning, configuration, and deployment processes using infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools.
• Conduct regular security assessments and implement necessary measures to protect cloud-based systems and data.
• Collaborate with the ISx4 team and our customers to troubleshoot and resolve infrastructure-related issues.
• Stay up to date with industry trends and emerging technologies in cloud computing, making recommendations for their adoption and implementation.
• Optimise data storage and retrieval mechanisms to ensure efficient access and retrieval of large-scale datasets.
• Assist in data governance and compliance efforts, including data privacy, data protection, and regulatory requirements.

Qualifications/Experience

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, engineering, data science, or a related field (or equivalent work experience).
• Proven experience as a Cloud SRE/Consultant or similar role, with a focus on public cloud platforms such as Azure, AWS or Google Cloud.
• Strong understanding of cloud architecture concepts, including virtualisation, containers, microservices, and serverless computing.
• Proficiency in infrastructure-as-code (IaC) tools such as Terraform, Bicep, CloudFormation, or Azure Resource Manager.
• Experience with automation and configuration management tools like Ansible, Puppet, or Chef an advantage.
• Solid understanding of networking principles, including TCP/IP, DNS, load balancing, and firewall configurations.
• Knowledge of cloud security best practices, including identity and access management (IAM), encryption, and vulnerability management.
• Familiarity with monitoring and logging tools such as CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, or Stackdriver.
• Experience with DevOps methodologies and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines an advantage.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to troubleshoot complex issues in a distributed cloud environment.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a team-oriented, fast-paced environment.
• Desirable: Experience and expertise in data science and analytics, including machine learning, data processing, and visualisation.
• Desirable: Proficiency in programming languages commonly used in data science, such as Python or R.
• Desirable: Experience with data engineering techniques and technologies, including data pipelines and ETL processes.
• Relevant cloud certifications (e.g., Azure Certified Cloud Engineer or AWS Certified Solutions Architect) are a strong plus.

Personal Skills

• Personal Integrity, Stakeholder Management, Project Management, Agile Methodologies, Automation, Solutions Architecture.
• Ability to be focused, manage your own time and communicate effectively are critical.

Experience in the following would be an advantage.

• Applying data science and analytics techniques to support data-driven decision-making processes within cloud-based systems.
• Develop and deploy machine learning models and data pipelines in a cloud environment.
• Collaborate with data scientists and analysts to provide infrastructure support for data exploration, modelling, and visualisation.
• Integrate cloud-based analytics tools and services for data processing, transformation, and analysis.
• Familiarity with SAS, Watsonx, Anaconda or POSIT.