LightFeather is seeking an Azure Cloud Security Engineer to help secure an enterprise Azure platform for a federal customer. You'll join a cloud security team that protects a shared Azure environment and guides the application teams who build on it. You'll recommend secure architectures, review configurations, and enforce tenant-wide security controls. The right person has strong security fundamentals, communicates clearly with customers, and enjoys learning new services quickly.
- Location: Hybrid—on-site 4 days per week in the Washington, DC metro area.
- Job Type: Full-time
- Salary: $120,000–$130,000 annually, based on experience level.
- Clearance Requirement: U.S. citizenship is required for this position due to federal contract requirements and the need to obtain and maintain a Secret-level security clearance
Key Responsibilities
- Advise customer teams on secure architecture, service usage, access design, and workload deployment best practices.
- Review customer service configurations and proposed changes, and give clear recommendations and reference guidance.
- Explain landing zone templates and where shared responsibility falls once customers take over their environments.
- Secure the workloads and services the team deploys.
- Design and maintain tenant-wide governance controls, including Conditional Access, Azure Policy, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud regulatory compliance.
- Evaluate and apply new Microsoft security features and Zero Trust capabilities as the platform grows.
- Extend Zero Trust principles to emerging services such as Azure Databricks and AI workloads. That includes least privilege, mutual authentication, default-deny access, and tenant isolation.
- Support security operations with guidance on logging architecture, including audit, diagnostic, and traceable logs, and on reporting requirements.
- Automate security and management tasks with scripting.
Required Qualifications
- Active Secret clearance and the ability to obtain Top Secret.
- 3+ years of hands-on experience securing Microsoft Azure environments.
- Strong Azure infrastructure security fundamentals.
- Hands-on experience with Conditional Access, Azure Policy, and Defender for Cloud.
- Solid grasp of Zero Trust concepts: least privilege, shared responsibility, mutual authentication (mTLS), and the differences between tenancy, access, and continuous authentication.
- Excellent written and verbal communication, including direct, frequent work with customers over Microsoft Teams and other collaboration tools.
- Adaptability and a drive to pick up new technologies and responsibilities.
Preferred Qualifications
- Microsoft certifications: AZ-500 (strongly preferred), AZ-104, SC-300, SC-900, or SC-200
- Azure CLI and Microsoft Graph PowerShell.
- Terraform and Python.
- Working knowledge of NIST SP 800-53.
- Experience securing Azure Databricks or other data platforms.
- Exposure to AI model governance and security.
- Familiarity with SOC operations and logging requirements.
At LightFeather, you're not just taking a job—you're joining a purpose-driven team that delivers innovative, mission-critical solutions to make a real difference. You'll work on diverse, meaningful projects that challenge and inspire you, alongside some of the best minds in the industry.
Skills Required
- Active Secret security clearance
- Ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance
- U.S. citizenship
- 3+ years of hands-on experience securing Microsoft Azure environments
- Strong Azure infrastructure security fundamentals
- Hands-on experience with Conditional Access, Azure Policy, and Defender for Cloud
- Understanding of Zero Trust, least privilege, shared responsibility, mutual authentication, tenancy, access, and continuous authentication
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with frequent customer interaction
- Adaptability and willingness to learn new technologies and responsibilities
- Microsoft security certifications, especially AZ-500; AZ-104, SC-300, SC-900, or SC-200
- Experience with Azure CLI and Microsoft Graph PowerShell
- Experience with Terraform and Python
- Working knowledge of NIST SP 800-53
- Experience securing Azure Databricks or other data platforms
- Exposure to AI model governance and security
- Familiarity with SOC operations and logging requirements
What We Do
LightFeather is a federal technology company that helps government agencies move from complexity to clarity. We build and run the systems behind some of the government’s most consequential missions: AI and data intelligence, secure agile engineering, cloud, and cybersecurity for more than 20 federal agencies, including DHS, DOJ, the Department of State, and the IRS. Our work unifies hundreds of millions of records, automates what used to take whole teams, and keeps mission-critical platforms running at 100 percent uptime. We are a woman-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned small business, founded in 2018 and headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with a team of 55 working across 16 states. Small is the point. Our engineers, analysts, and designers get real ownership of work that matters from day one, ship to production in their first weeks, and see their work used by the people who protect, process, and serve the public every day.
Why Work With Us
We hire people who are curious, direct, and comfortable in complex, high-trust environments. Many of our roles support cleared federal programs, and we hold a Top Secret facility clearance. If you want your work to carry weight, come build with us.
