Technical Cloud Lead (Azure)

Hi, we’re Smoove, part of the PEXA Group.

Our vision is to simplify and revolutionise the home moving and ownership experience for everyone. We are on a mission to deliver products and services that remove the pain, frustration, uncertainty, friction and stress that the current process creates.

We are a leading provider of tech in the property sector - founded in 2003, our product focus has been our conveyancer two-sided marketplace, connecting consumers with a range of quality conveyancers to choose from at competitive prices via our easy-to-use tech platform. We are now building out our ecosystem so consumers can benefit from our services either via their Estate Agent or their Mortgage Broker, through smarter conveyancing platforms, making the home buying or selling process easier, quicker, safer and more transparent.

We're now looking for a Technical Cloud Lead to shape the next generation of our Azure platform while leading a small, high-performing cloud engineering function.

This is more than an infrastructure role.

As our Technical Cloud Lead, you'll own the technical direction of our Azure estate, leading the design, operation and continual improvement of the cloud platforms that support Smoove, Amity Law and Legal Eye.

You'll combine hands-on engineering with technical leadership, working alongside software engineers, security specialists, architects and operational teams to build resilient, secure and highly automated cloud environments.

You'll also mentor engineers, influence technical strategy and help drive our transition towards modern cloud-native and platform engineering practices.

What You'll Be Doing

You'll play a key role across cloud engineering, platform operations and technical leadership, including:

Designing and evolving our Azure platform

• Leading the design, implementation and continuous improvement of our Azure infrastructure
• Managing Azure landing zones, networking, identity, governance and platform standards
• Supporting cloud-native technologies including AKS, Istio and Grafana
• Operating enterprise Azure services including SQL PaaS, Storage, Redis, Cosmos DB, Key Vault and virtual infrastructure

Driving resilience and operational excellence

• Building highly available, secure and resilient cloud platforms
• Leading disaster recovery, backup, monitoring and observability initiatives
• Managing incident response, root cause analysis and continuous service improvement
• Ensuring platforms remain secure, reliable and operationally robust

Modernising through automation

• Developing Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Bicep
• Supporting CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation
• Using scripting and automation to remove manual effort and improve operational consistency
• Improving developer experience through practical platform engineering

Leading people and technology

• Mentoring and developing Azure Engineers and technical colleagues
• Acting as the senior technical escalation point for cloud infrastructure
• Working closely with Product, Engineering, Security and Operations teams across the UK and Australia
• Helping define the roadmap for cloud infrastructure and operational maturity

Governance and optimisation

• Supporting ISO27001, Cyber Essentials Plus and security assurance activities
• Working with suppliers and cloud partners
• Driving cloud cost optimisation and FinOps initiatives
• Maintaining documentation, standards and operational governance

About You

You'll be an experienced Azure infrastructure professional who enjoys balancing hands-on technical work with technical leadership.

We're looking for someone who has experience with:

• Designing and operating enterprise Microsoft Azure environments
• Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and containerised platforms
• Azure networking, security, identity and platform services
• Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Bicep
• CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation
• Monitoring, observability and operational excellence
• Cloud security, disaster recovery and high availability
• Troubleshooting complex infrastructure, networking and application hosting issues
• Leading engineers and influencing technical direction

You'll also bring excellent communication skills and enjoy working collaboratively across engineering, product, security and operational teams.

Experience within regulated or security-conscious environments would be highly advantageous.

Why join Smoove?

Great question! We pride ourselves on attracting, developing and retaining a diverse range of people in an equally diverse range of roles and specialisms - who together achieve outstanding results. Our transparent approach and open-door policy make Smoove a great place to work and as our business expands, we are looking for ambitious, talented people to join us.

Benefits for PEXA employees include:

• Annual Leave: 25 days per year (Jan-Dec), increasing to 27 days after 5 years, plus Bank Holidays (pro-rata for part-time).
• Annual Leave Purchase: Option to purchase up to 1 working week of additional leave.
• Wellness Days: 4 paid days per year to rest and recharge (pro-rata for part-time). We kindly ask you take 1 per quarter.
• Paid Volunteer Day: 1 paid day per year to volunteer at a charity of your choice.
• Pension scheme (Aviva): 6% employer contribution, 4% employee contribution.
• Life Assurance: 4x basic salary
• Health Flex Pot via Benifex: - £800 flexible benefit to spend on health options of your choice, including: Private Health Insurance / Health Cash Plan / Dental Plan / Health Assessments
• Additional Benifex perks: Voluntary opt-in for additional benefits including Activity Pass, discounts via Perkbox, Beauty and Fitness Discount Card, Cycle to Work, Motor Breakdown, Will Writing, or enhance your cover of benefits provided by company.
• Critical Illness Cover: 1x basic salary
• Group-wide Equity Plan: Eligibility for participation in our Group-wide employee share plan, subject to annual invitation.
• Enhanced Maternity/Adoption Pay: Up to 20 weeks full pay. Enhanced Paternity Pay: Up to 4 weeks full pay.
• Performance-based Incentive Scheme: Eligibility for a discretionary Short Term Incentive plan, based on job role and level.
• Learning & Development: Access to LinkedIn Learning, reimbursement of your professional membership costs.
• Additional: Access to our Employee Assistance Programme and wellbeing resources, eye test vouchers and VDU glasses contribution.
• Office Space: Use of our PEXA office workspaces in Leeds and Thame. Our new Leeds office is in West Village, managed by Bruntwood SciTech and allows you access to Bruntwood hosted local events.

To be conducted as part of post offer employment checks:

The personal information we have collected from you will be shared with Cifas who will use it to prevent fraud, other unlawful or dishonest conduct, malpractice, and other seriously improper conduct. If any of these are detected, you could be refused certain services or employment. Your personal information will also be used to verify your identity. Further details of how your information will be used by us and Cifas, and your data protection rights, can be found at [Cifas].

GDPR Compliance

Digital Completion UK Limited (trading name “PEXA”), Optima Legal Services Limited (trading name "Optima Legal") and Smoove Limited (a holding company which comprises of the following wholly owned trading Subsidiary companies: United Legal Services Limited, Legal-Eye Limited, and Amity Law Limited) are all owned directly by DigCom UK Holdings Limited, which is a wholly owned Subsidiary of PEXA Group Limited in Australia (ACN 140 677 792; ASX: PXA) (referred to collectively as “PEXA Group”).

When we process your applicant personal data for recruitment purposes, we do so as a controller. If as part of the recruitment process, we share your personal data with another company within the PEXA Group, that company may process your personal data as either an independent controller or, in certain circumstances, a joint controller. By applying for this role, you consent to us processing your personal data in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation ("UK GDPR") and the Data Protection Act 2018, and further information can be found in our privacy noticehttps://pexa.co.uk/applicant-policy/.