Sr Azure Cloud Engineer - Data

About Ascent

Ascent Global Logistics, headquartered in Belleville, Michigan, is a leading global provider of expedited, time-critical logistics solutions and other direct transportation services. The company connects customers to its extensive carrier network, internal ground fleet, and airline via its proprietary, digital PEAK freight marketplace, which provides robust carrier capacity and transparent pricing, backed by 24/7/365 logistics experts. Ascent’s offerings include air charter and ground expedited solutions, truckload, less-than-truckload, global forwarding, brokerage, and managed transportation services. The experienced Ascent team solves customers’ most challenging logistics needs by providing industry-leading service and top-tier satisfaction.

Our Guiding Principles

At the core of Ascent's culture is a strong commitment to excellence, driven by the passion and dedication of every team member. We're equally dedicated to going above and beyond for our customers, ensuring this commitment extends beyond our team and brings exceptional value to those we serve. We aim for perfect execution in everything we do and ‘play hard’ by creating an environment where tasks are performed with a can-do attitude from start to finish. We ‘play smart’ by delivering on our commitments honestly, fairly, and ethically. We treat every person we interface with the utmost dignity and respect. We understand that our teammates are our most valuable assets, so we ‘play together’ by making every effort to provide professional and enjoyable experience, enabling careers to flourish and personal growth to be achieved.

What You’ll Do

• Define reference architectures for OLTP/OLAP, HA/DR (AGs, clustering), capacity planning, multi-region resilience, and data lifecycle (backup/restore/RPO/RTO).
• Build and operate SQL on Azure SQL/MI, Azure SQL/VM, Azure SQL DB, AWS RDS (SQL Server), GCP Cloud SQL, plus hybrid SQL Server; Integrate with Synapse/Databricks/Snowflake where appropriate.
• Lead end-to-end tuning, workload baselining, indexing strategies, query plans, parameter sniffing, concurrency, and storage I/O optimization.
• Own SLOs/SLIs, patching, upgrades, schema changes, release orchestration, and incident response/on-call for critical systems.
• Enforce least-privilege access via Azure AD, RBAC, Private Link, VNet integration, and managed identities.
• Implement and own enterprise-grade data protection and encryption across the entire platform, including TDE, Always Encrypted, Dynamic Data Masking and row-level encryption.
• Design, implement, and maintain comprehensive SQL monitoring, including Azure Monitor, Database diagnostic settings, Query Store DMVs/DMFs at scale, and alerts on DTU/Vcores
• Proactive Data Backup Solutions for mission-critical availability & resiliency
• Implement Always on Availability Groups (multi-subnet, read-scale, hybrid Azure/on-prem) with Failover automation, quorum design, and regular DR drills
• Implement RBAC, encryption, secrets, masking, and audit trails, align with change management and regulatory needs, and drive posture reviews.
• Participate as a member of the off-hours on-call data support team.
• Standardize IaC (Terraform/Bicep/CloudFormation), DB DevOps (Flyway/Liquibase), and CI/CD for schema migrations; codify runbooks and self-service.
• Translate business goals into platform roadmaps, lead design reviews, and provide executive-ready status on risk, capacity, and cost.
• Technically lead and mentor IT data engineers/DBAs.
• Lead SQL performance reviews, DB performance reviews, and ensure proper security connectivity and governance over the Azure managed instance ecosystem.
• Evaluate tools, manage SOWs/licensing, and optimize cloud/database spend (rightsizing, storage tiers, reserved capacity).

What You’ll Bring

  Preferred

• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform or Bicep, and database change automation with Flyway or Liquibase.
• Familiarity with observability stacks (CloudWatch, Cloud Logging, Azure Monitor), Grafana/Datadog, and basic APM.
• Experience with Snowflake, Synapse, Databricks, or Kafka/Event Hubs integration patterns.
• Experience implementing data security controls (masking, tokenization) and aligning with audit/regulatory requirements.
• Demonstrated success in team building, including staff mentoring and vendor oversight.

Minimum

• 10+ years of hands-on experience with Azure, AWS, or GCP (including engine internals, HA/DR, and performance), with at least 3+ years technically leading teams and mentoring engineers.
• Proven experience operating SQL workloads across at least two major clouds (Azure, AWS, GCP), including hybrid/on-prem environments.
• Strong command of T-SQL, performance tuning, indexing strategies, and storage fundamentals.
• Solid understanding of OS, storage, and networking basics (Windows/Linux, SAN/NAS, IOPS/latency), plus automation experience with PowerShell or Python.
• Demonstrated ownership of production SLOs, change management processes, and regulated release practices.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to diagram, document, and brief executives clearly.
• High level of professionalism, commitment, and leadership.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills.
• Self-motivated, proactive, efficient, and highly organized.
• Professional, confident, and approachable demeanor.
• Strong desire and ability to learn rapidly.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision while maintaining high performance.
• Ability to mentor mid-level DBAs, data engineers, and technical staff.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with clients and team members to ensure solutions meet business needs and exceed expectations.
• Ability to estimate work effort accurately and consistently meet delivery commitments.

Ascent’s Competitive Benefits

• 401(k) and employer matching

• Life Insurance

• Health, Dental, Vision Insurance

• Short- & Long-Term Disability

• Paid Time Off (PTO)

• Employee Assistance Program

• Paid Parental Leave

• Employee Wellness Program

• Paid Holidays

• Employee Recognition Programs

• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)

• Tuition Reimbursement

• Health Savings Account (HSA)

• Overtime, Differential & Bonus Pay

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