Infrastructure & Microsoft Cloud Platform Lead

Circet USA is the leading provider of Network Services in North America, and we're looking for talented professionals to join our team. We specialize in engineering and construction services delivering comprehensive solutions across Inside Plant, Outside Plant, and Wireless networks to meet the evolving infrastructure needs of our customers.

With nearly 50 years of industry experience, we work with major telecom service providers, MSOs, cloud service providers, and utilities. At Circet USA, you'll have the opportunity to make an impact by helping to create customized solutions that address our clients' unique challenges. If you're passionate about innovation and thrive in a dynamic environment, we'd love to hear from you.

Circet USA's benefits package includes the following:

Medical, Dental, and Vision insurance
• Digital Health & Wellness Support
• Critical Illness, Accident, & Hospital Insurance
• Short-term & Long-term disability
• Group term & Voluntary life insurance
• Flexible Spending and Health Savings Accounts
• Paid Time Off & 401K
• Company Discount Website

Circet USA's IT is currently largely supported by its sister company, KGP Telecommunications. Circet Group has a strategy to build an independent IT team for Circet USA.

The Infrastructure Lead is responsible for designing the Microsoft-based target architecture for this new environment and the project plan to move away from the legacy environment, in accordance with the project team (the group CISO, an infrastructure consultant, the KGP IT team). This role will then be responsible for implementing and operating this new core IT infrastructure, executing the split and transitioning other acquisitions to this environment. This role combines technical leadership, day-to-day oversight of infrastructure services, and significant hands-on engineering work across network, servers, cloud, and end-user platforms. This role establishes Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 as the core enterprise platforms for infrastructure, identity, collaboration, security, and endpoint management.

The ideal candidate is comfortable defining strategy, standards, and governance while also rolling up their sleeves to build, configure, and support systems directly.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES include the following. Other duties may be assigned:

Competencies summary:

• Azure: IaaS/PaaS, Landing Zones, networking (VNets, VPN, peering), security (NSGs, Firewall, Private Endpoints), monitoring.
• Microsoft 365: Entra ID, Conditional Access, MFA, PIM, Intune, Defender, Exchange Online security.
• Systems: hybrid AD, DNS, DHCP, certificates, backup and DR.
• Networking: strong fundamentals, firewalls, advanced troubleshooting.
• Security: Zero Trust, least privilege, hardening.
• Operations: run, complex incident handling, patching, documentation.
• Automation: PowerShell, basic IaC exposure.
• Profile: very hands-on, autonomous, structured, executes a defined framework without reinventing it.

Strategy and leadership

• Own the overall infrastructure strategy and roadmap (on-prem, cloud, network, storage, backup, endpoints) in alignment with business and security priorities.
• Define infrastructure standards, patterns, and best practices for availability, performance, security, and scalability.
• Own the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) for Circet USA, including identity, networking, security, governance, landing zone design and platform automation aligned with Microsoft best practices.
• Apply the Microsoft Well-Architected Framework to platform and workload designs across security, reliability, cost optimization, performance, and operational excellence.
• Define and maintain Azure and Microsoft 365 architectural standards for all new workloads and acquisitions.
• Act as the primary infrastructure point of contact for IT leadership, security, applications, and business stakeholders.
• Provide technical leadership to a small team of engineers/administrators and any external partners, including informal mentoring and code/review of configurations.

Design and implementation

• Architect and implement network, system, and cloud solutions, with a focus on Azure landing zones, virtual networks, subnets, firewalls, and hybrid connectivity.
• Build and manage Microsoft Azure IaaS and PaaS environments, including compute, storage, networking, and platform services.
• Define and implement Azure subscription and management group hierarchy, resource group standards, naming/tagging conventions, and Azure Policy baselines
• Implement and maintain core infrastructure services such as Active Directory/Microsoft Entra ID (including Conditional Access, MFA, device-based access controls, and application integrations), DNS, DHCP, certificates, and identity integrations.
• Lead infrastructure components of key projects (e.g., new site deployment, application rollouts, migrations, security initiatives).

Operations and support (hands-on)

• Perform advanced troubleshooting of infrastructure issues (network, servers, cloud resources, storage, backups) and drive problem resolution.
• Configure, monitor, and maintain systems, including patching, updates, capacity management, and performance tuning.
• Implement and operate monitoring, alerting, and logging tools; proactively address issues before they impact the business.
• Participate in and help define on-call rotations and incident response for critical infrastructure events.

Security, reliability, and governance

• Work closely with security teams to implement and maintain security controls (hardening, firewalls, VPN, endpoint tools, identity & access).
• Design and operate backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity capabilities appropriate to the organization's risk profile.
• Implement and operate Microsoft security platforms, including Defender for Cloud, Defender for Endpoint, Conditional Access, and Privileged Identity Management (PIM), in alignment with Zero Trust principles.
• Ensure infrastructure changes follow change management processes and are documented clearly and consistently.
• Contribute to and enforce infrastructure-related policies, standards, and procedures.

Collaboration and process

• Collaborate with application, data, and service desk teams to ensure infrastructure appropriately supports their needs and SLAs.
• Document architectures, runbooks, and troubleshooting guides; help build a knowledge base for the broader IT team.
• Identify opportunities for automation and process improvement (e.g., infrastructure-as-code, scripted deployments, standardized images).

SAFETY DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Adhere to, promote, and accept personal responsibility for compliance to:

Federal and Local Occupational Safety and Health Regulations

Industry Consensus Standards

Circet USA Injury and Illness Prevention Program Manual

• Participate in job site safety/hazard analysis

• 7+ years of experience in infrastructure engineering/administration roles, with increasing responsibility.
• Strong hands-on experience with:
• Networking and Azure networking (routing/switching, VLANs, VPN, firewalls, wireless).
• Azure landing zone design and deployment, including network architecture, security, and governance.
• Hands-on experience designing and deploying Azure Landing Zones, including network architecture, security, and governance, aligned with the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework.
• Deep hands-on experience designing and operating Microsoft Azure environments; exposure to other cloud platforms is a plus but not required.
• Microsoft 365 / Modern Workplace, including Entra ID, Intune, Exchange Online, SharePoint, Teams, and endpoint security
• Core services such as Active Directory/Microsoft Entra ID, DNS, DHCP, certificates, file services.
• Experience designing and supporting highly available, secure, and scalable infrastructure environments.
• Demonstrated ability to own complex incidents end-to-end, from diagnosis through root cause analysis and remediation.
• Prior experience providing technical guidance or leading small teams (formal or informal).

Preferred qualifications

• Experience in a greenfield, merger/separation, or rapidly changing IT environment where processes and standards had to be built from scratch.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code and automation tools (e.g., PowerShell, Terraform, ...).
• Exposure to security frameworks and practices (e.g., least privilege, zero trust, hardening guidelines).
• Experience working with ITIL-based processes (incident, problem, change) and ITSM tools.

Key competencies

• Hands-on builder mindset: willing and able to configure, troubleshoot, and support systems personally.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills; calm under pressure during incidents and outages.
• Clear communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ownership and accountability; comfortable operating with limited legacy structure in a new IT organization.

Circet USA is an Equal Opportunity Employer - Veteran/Disabled. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law.