Platform Engineer (Azure), Boulder, CO (Hybrid or Remote)
Ascend's Azure platform runs the hosted environments behind Market Intelligence (MI), PowerVAL (PV), PowerSIMM (PS), SmartBidder (SB), Ascend Power Procurement (APP), and Ascend Energy Exchange (AEX). As Platform Engineer, you'll design, build, and operate that platform alongside our Senior Platform Engineer, working at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, DevOps, and identity and security administration. You'll partner with Development, Model Support, and client-facing teams to deliver reliable environments, move clients from on-premises hosting into Azure, and help maintain our security and compliance posture.
You'll do well here if you have strong hands-on Azure skills, automate and document what you build, and can explain technical topics clearly to both technical and non-technical colleagues.
Key Responsibilities
Azure infrastructure and networking
- Design, deploy, and maintain Azure resources, including virtual machines, App Services, container apps, batch accounts, storage accounts, file shares, and key vaults.
- Build and maintain Azure networking: VNets and subnets, site-to-site and point-to-site VPN, private endpoints, NAT gateways for static IP requirements, and Front Door routing.
- Configure and manage Azure Virtual Desktop host pools, images, scale plans, and published applications for analyst and developer workstations.
- Maintain backup, monitoring, and alerting coverage across development and production environments.
Automation and DevOps
- Develop and maintain infrastructure as code with Terraform, delivered through Azure DevOps pipelines.
- Build and maintain Azure DevOps pipelines for application build, versioned deployment, and environment promotion, including service connections, self-hosted agents, and federated identity credentials.
- Help development teams move build and test workloads from legacy on-premises environments into Azure.
Identity, security, and compliance
- Administer Entra ID: user and group provisioning, conditional access, MFA, SSO integrations, and app registrations, with automated monitoring of expiring secrets and certificates.
- Manage Privileged Identity Management role eligibility, access reviews, and approval of elevation requests.
- Administer role-based access for client-facing platforms and resolve customer authentication and MFA issues escalated through the IT case queue.
- Deploy and maintain endpoint security tooling, including Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
- Provide evidence, control descriptions, and technical input for SOC 2 Type II audits and customer security assessments, and advise on audit scope for newly production-hosted systems.
Client support and documentation
- Support client onboarding and migrations, including storage access, VPN connectivity, and third-party integrations.
- Serve as an escalation point for platform incidents affecting internal users and hosted clients.
- Maintain network diagrams and hosting documentation as environments change, and lead internal cross-training sessions on Azure architecture.
- Provide weekly status updates on priorities, progress, and blockers.
Key Qualifications
Required
- 4+ years in cloud platform, DevOps, or infrastructure engineering, including 3+ years of hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure.
- Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
- AZ-104 or a similar intermediate-level Azure certification.
- Strong working knowledge of Azure IaaS and PaaS: VMs, App Services, Storage, Key Vault, Container Apps, and Azure Batch.
- Strong working knowledge of Terraform and infrastructure-as-code practices.
- Azure networking experience: VNet design, VPN gateways, private endpoints, NAT, DNS, and firewall rules.
- Hands-on Entra ID administration: conditional access, MFA, SSO, app registrations, and PIM.
- Proficiency with PowerShell and KQL for automation and reporting.
- Experience building CI/CD pipelines in Azure DevOps.
- Clear technical writing and the ability to communicate with non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred
- Experience supporting a SOC 2 Type II audit cycle.
- Azure Virtual Desktop administration at scale.
- Bicep infrastructure-as-code experience.
- Power BI Embedded capacity management.
- Oracle Database or Autonomous Database on Azure.
- Background supporting SaaS products in energy, utilities, or another regulated industry.
- Advanced certifications: AZ-305, AZ-400, or SC-300.
If you don't meet every qualification but this role excites you, we'd still love to hear from you.
Your Value @ Ascend
Join a team that values your work, supports your growth, and invests in your future.
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage
- Life and disability insurance
- Paid parental leave
- FSA, HSA, and dependent care accounts
- 401(k) with 3% non-elective contribution
- Flexible PTO and work hours
Salary range: $85,000-$115,000 USD annually, calibrated to your experience and structured to grow with you.
Compensation is flexible and tailored to your qualifications, relevant experience, and location of hire.
We thrive on collaboration, whether in our Boulder office or across a screen.
That's why our Boulder, CO office runs on a hybrid schedule (3 days in-office, 2 days remote). We prefer candidates who can work from Boulder HQ, but it isn't a requirement: we're open to strong remote candidates, and we make it easy to collaborate across both.
