Azure Platform Architect

Join one of the fastest growing, most dynamic companies in the furniture industry. For over 25 years, Four Hands has been a leading designer and wholesaler of furniture and décor, helping people create spaces that feel like home.

Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies and named one of Austin’s Top Workplaces year after year. We invest in exceptional people — with a team of over 800 and growing — fostering our employees’ careers and celebrating them at every step of the way. Four Hands is where passion meets purpose and where your next chapter begins.

The Azure Platform Architect establishes and maintains the enterprise standards, reference architectures, and Infrastructure as Code foundations that enable Four Hands teams to build on Microsoft Azure securely, consistently, and cost-effectively. This is a hands-on senior level individual contributor role — the architect writes the reference implementations, publishes reusable templates, and serves as the trusted advisor for teams delivering Azure workloads.

Four Hands is at the beginning of its cloud maturity journey. Today, most Azure workloads are provisioned through the portal. This role will lead the transition to a codified, template-driven delivery model — without introducing friction that slows teams down. As the platform matures, the architect provides operational depth on Azure administration, serving as a peer and backup to the existing Azure Administrator to ensure continuity of service during planned absences and incident response.

In This Role

Platform Standards and Governance

Establish and maintain the Azure landing zone architecture — subscriptions, management groups, network topology, and Microsoft Entra ID integration

Define and publish enterprise standards for resource naming, tagging, subscription organization, and workload lifecycle

Own the Architecture Decision Record (ADR) process for platform-level decisions and maintain the decision history

Chair the periodic architecture review forum and set the agenda for platform standards evolution

Infrastructure as Code

Select and maintain the enterprise Infrastructure as Code standard (Bicep, Terraform, or hybrid), including the rationale for the choice

Build and maintain a reusable module library for the Azure workload patterns Four Hands deploys most often

Establish CI/CD patterns for infrastructure delivery, including linting, policy-as-code, drift detection, and secure secrets handling

Lead the practical migration from portal-based provisioning to codified delivery, prioritizing workloads where the return is highest

Reference Architectures and Templates

Publish reference architectures for the workload archetypes Four Hands deploys, such as web application with SQL, containerized workload, data pipeline, integration service, and static site

Maintain a template library that delivery teams can consume with minimal customization

Document opinionated patterns for cross-cutting needs including secrets management, private networking, hybrid connectivity, monitoring, and backup

Advisory and Architecture Review

Serve as the primary technical advisor for teams designing new Azure workloads, engaging during design phase rather than after deployment

Operate in an advisory capacity by default. Formal approval is reserved for a narrow set of high-impact decisions, including new subscription creation, workloads touching PCI-scoped data, cross-tenant integration, and deployments exceeding defined cost thresholds

Partner with the Security and Compliance team on identity, network, and data control architecture within Azure workloads

Escalate policy exceptions and cross-team architectural conflicts to the VP of Infrastructure

Operational Backup and Azure Administration

Provide backup coverage for the Azure Administrator during planned time off, holidays, and incident response — with sufficient operational proficiency to execute without a ramp period

Maintain day-to-day working knowledge of Azure administrative tasks including subscription management, RBAC assignments, resource provisioning, cost review, and platform-level break-fix support

Cross-train continuously with the Azure Administrator to ensure no single point of failure on operational knowledge and to keep documentation current

Participate in the platform on-call rotation as needed for cloud-level incidents

Adjacent Platform Collaboration

Partner with the Enterprise Data and Governance team on Microsoft Fabric and Power Platform architecture , providing platform-level guidance while respecting data team ownership of workspace design and content governance

Collaborate with the Identity and Access Management function on Entra ID architecture as it applies to Azure resource access

Contribute to FinOps standards, tagging discipline, resource optimization patterns, and budget guardrails — in partnership with the FinOps function. Not accountable for FinOps program execution

Other Duties

Other duties as assigned, in accordance with training and qualifications

Uphold the Core Values and be a valuable member of the Four Hands team

Be open and honest

Reach for excellence

Act with responsibility

Value the whole person

Enjoy the journey

The Ideal Person

7+ years of enterprise IT experience, with 4+ years in hands-on Azure architecture and administration roles

Deep production experience with Azure infrastructure services: compute, networking, storage, identity, and governance

Demonstrated production use of Infrastructure as Code (Bicep, Terraform, or ARM) at enterprise scale, including module design and CI/CD integration

Proven track record of establishing standards, reference patterns, and reusable templates in an environment maturing from ad hoc to codified delivery

Working knowledge of Microsoft Entra ID architecture, Azure RBAC, Azure Policy, and management group hierarchies

Ability to serve as an operational Azure administrator without a ramp period — comfortable executing day-to-day administrative tasks under time pressure

Strong written communication — this role produces standards documents, reference architectures, and decision records that teams need to actually use

Demonstrated ability to influence and drive adoption without formal authority

AZ-305 (Solutions Architect Expert), AZ-400 (DevOps Engineer Expert), or AZ-104 (Administrator Associate) Certifications preferred

About Four Hands

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, since 1996, Four Hands crafts furniture, art and décor — pieces that are all about creating space. Timeless, thoughtful designs with endless possibilities. Pieces meant to be experienced and form a whole that feels like home. Our trade customers range from interior designers to large retailers who rely on our expertise to grow and guide their business to success. We treat our partners as part of the Four Hands family, championing them and rooting for their every win. And, we are constantly pursuing better — from sourcing the finest materials and finishes to seeking fresh inspiration to elevate our designs — we are never settled, never done. Four Hands is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Four Hands recruits qualified applicants and advances in employment its employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, disability, genetic information, ethnic or national origin, marital status, veteran status, or any other status protected by law. Visit www.FourHands.com for more information.