Advancement Cloud Engineer II

The USF Advancement division is leading a modern relationship-driven approach to fundraising alumni engagement and donor impact focused on strengthening lifelong connections and driving meaningful results for the university. The Technology Innovation and Strategic Solutions team leads the design and delivery of the divisions digital ecosystem bringing together data platforms and AI-enabled capabilities to support how work gets done across Advancement.

Through our core pillars Data Intelligence & Trust Innovation & Digital Experience and Enterprise Digital Platforms & Engineering we ensure data is trusted solutions are adopted and systems are built to scale.

Our North Star is Human Connections multiplied by intelligence. We use trusted data and ethical AI to enhance decision-making strengthen engagement and enable our teams to focus on what matters most: relationships and impact.

The Cloud Engineer is a hands-on technical role responsible for building migrating modernizing and operating Advancements cloud platform ecosystem. This role plays a critical part in the transition from on-premises systems to a scalable Azure-based environment ensuring platforms are secure reliable and optimized for long-term performance.

This position supports the full lifecycle of platform engineering including migration rearchitecture integration monitoring and continuous improvement. The Cloud Engineer works across systems data and vendor platforms to ensure Advancements digital environment is resilient scalable and ready to support analytics and AI capabilities.

Cloud Platform Engineering and Modernization

Design build and support Azure cloud environments including compute networking storage identity and platform services

Lead and support migration of on-premise systems and applications into Azure including assessment planning testing and cutover

Rearchitect applications and services where needed to align with modern cloud patterns security standards and scalability requirements

Establish repeatable patterns for hosting integration monitoring backup and disaster recovery

Implement automation and infrastructure as code to enable consistent scalable deployments

Platform Operations Monitoring and Optimization

Monitor system health availability performance and reliability across cloud platforms and applications

Develop and maintain alerting dashboards runbooks and operational procedures

Troubleshoot and resolve cloud application and integration issues and perform root cause analysis

Continuously optimize platform performance cost reliability and scalability

Strengthen observability and reduce operational risk across systems

Application and Integration Support

Support modernization and ongoing operation of applications APIs databases and integrations

Ensure systems are properly integrated across CRM data platforms Microsoft services and vendor solutions

Support CI/CD deployment pipelines and environment management across development and production environments

Contribute to decisions on whether systems should be migrated as is replatformed refactored replaced or retired

Platform and Ecosystem Support

Support Advancements CRM and data platform ecosystem from a technical hosting and operations perspective

Ensure cloud hosted platforms are secure integrated and scalable

Collaborate with Data Intelligence & Trust to support data platform readiness while maintaining clear separation of data ownership and platform operations

Vendor and SaaS Platform Stewardship

Partner with vendors and platform providers to ensure systems are properly configured integrated and supported

Evaluate technical requirements integrations and performance of vendor platforms

Troubleshoot and escalate issues with external systems and services

Ensure vendor solutions align with Advancements technical security and operational standards

Security Risk and Governance Alignment

Apply secure configuration access control monitoring logging backup and recovery practices

Align cloud environments with university security governance and compliance standards

Support audits access reviews and operational documentation

Identify opportunities to reduce technical debt risk and manual processes

Cross Functional Collaboration

Work closely with Enterprise Platforms Digital Experience Data Intelligence & Trust and Advancement teams

Support solution implementation testing and operational readiness

Communicate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Ensure solutions are reliable scalable secure and supportable over time

Expected First Year Outcomes

Establish a clear and sustainable Azure operating model for Advancement

Collaborate with Microsoft and Central IT to define and execute an approved migration plan for on-premises systems ensuring a repeatable and scalable approach

Improve monitoring alerting and system health visibility across platforms

Establish repeatable scalable platform architecture through strong documentation runbooks and infrastructure as code practices

Reduce reliance on legacy hosting and single-person dependencies

Improve reliability and performance across core Advancement systems

Bachelors degree in Computer Science MIS or other field involving software and analytical training or a Bachelors degree with no specific required field and one year of IT related work experience OR a combination of 5 years of IT related work experience and validated training. Preparation for a relevant IT certification validated through certification requirements and documentation of completion is considered to be related training.

Degree Equivalency Clause: Four years of direct experience for a bachelors degree.
Senate Bill 1310- The Florida Senate ( is conditional upon meeting all employment eligibility requirements in the U.S.
SB 1310: Substitution of Work Experience for Postsecondary Education Requirements
A public employer may include a postsecondary degree as a baseline requirement only as an alternative to the number of years of direct experience required not to exceed:
(a) Two years of direct experience for an associate degree;
(b) Four years of direct experience for a bachelors degree;
(c) Six years of direct experience for a masters degree;
(d) Seven years of direct experience for a professional degree; or
(e) Nine years of direct experience for a doctoral degree
Related work experience may not substitute for any required licensure certification or registration required for the position of employment as established by the public employer and indicated in the advertised description of the position of employment.
Minimum Qualifications that require a high school diploma are exempt from SB 1310.

Preferred Qualifications:

Experience with Microsoft Azure services such as Azure Virtual Machines App Services Azure SQL Storage Accounts Key Vault Azure Monitor Log Analytics Application Insights Azure Functions Azure Networking and Azure Backup. Experience with Microsoft Entra ID role-based access control conditional access concepts service principals managed identities and secure access patterns. Experience with infrastructure-as-code and automation tools such as Bicep Terraform Azure CLI PowerShell GitHub Actions Azure DevOps Ansible or similar tools. Experience with Docker containers CI/CD pipelines web application hosting API integrations and modern application deployment patterns. Experience with SQL Server MySQL ETL/ELT processes scheduled jobs file transfers APIs and integration monitoring. Familiarity with Microsoft Power Platform Dataverse Microsoft Fabric OneLake Lakehouse concepts or Dynamics 365. Experience supporting CRM fundraising advancement higher education nonprofit or enterprise SaaS platforms. Experience working with vendor platforms and technical support teams to resolve integration reliability performance access or configuration issues. Microsoft certifications such as AZ-104 AZ-305 AZ-400 SC-300 PL-400 DP-600 or related certifications.