Cloud Solutions Architect (IC)

Organizational Context

The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), part of the UN Secretariat, operates under the UN Economic and Social Council. This role is within the Decision-Support and Data Science Division (DSDSD), which drives modernization and innovation by providing advanced analytics and secure digital platforms. DSDSD supports ESCWA, other UN entities, and Member States, leveraging hybrid infrastructure and cloud technologies for operational resilience and performance.

Job Purpose

This role serves to provide expert architectural analysis, cost-optimization assessment, and technical solution design to facilitate the migration of core application workloads from on-premises infrastructure to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The Individual Contractor will collaborate closely with development and infrastructure teams, auditing existing applications and analyzing resource utilization to design tailored Azure cloud architectures. The objective is to ensure a seamless, efficient, and cost-effective transition, delivering actionable designs and specifications that enable internal teams to execute the migration and deployment successfully, ultimately enhancing the performance and availability of critical digital assets.

Responsibilities

The Cloud Solutions Architect will conduct comprehensive audits of existing on-premises applications and their workloads, gathering technical deployment requirements and analyzing resource utilization metrics. They will design tailored Azure cloud architecture topologies and migration runbooks, evaluating whether applications should be migrated as IaaS virtual machines or refactored into Azure PaaS services. The role involves formulating step-by-step migration blueprints and sequence plans for internal teams. Additionally, the architect will perform cost-benefit analyses comparing on-premises costs with Azure pricing, recommending right-sizing for Azure resources to ensure cost-efficiency and optimal performance. Providing technical guidance on Azure deployment pathways, identity management, and access controls, as well as recommending operational best practices and monitoring strategies, are also key duties.

Work Experience

A minimum of 4 years of professional experience in cloud systems architecture, IT infrastructure analysis, or enterprise cloud solutions design is required. Demonstrated experience in designing, evaluating, or auditing cloud infrastructure solutions on Microsoft Azure is essential. Experience with workload migration from on-premises hypervisors to Microsoft Azure is highly desirable.

Skills

Cloud systems architecture, IT infrastructure analysis, enterprise cloud solutions design, Microsoft Azure cloud solutions, application workload assessment, resource utilization analysis, Azure cloud architecture design, IaaS and PaaS evaluation, cloud cost optimization, resource right-sizing, technical guidance and advisory, analytical skills, architectural skills, communication skills.

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