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 division’s 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 Advancement’s 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 Advancement’s 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 Advancement’s 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 Advancement’s 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

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, MIS or other field involving software and analytical training, or a Bachelor's 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 bachelor’s degree.
• Senate Bill 1310- The Florida Senate (https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1310) 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 bachelor’s degree;
• (c) Six years of direct experience for a master’s 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.