Director of IT Cloud Operations

Azure is now the home of World Finance's core business systems, and the company will keep building there. The Director of IT Cloud Operations owns the Azure platform as a managed program: setting the strategy, designing the target architecture, and leading the execution that moves the environment from one built one resource at a time to a governed, secure-by-default cloud. The Director leads a small, high-leverage team, draws on the wider IT organization and external delivery partners, and is accountable for where the cloud is headed and how well it runs along the way. This is a player-coach seat. In a given week the Director may set the quarter's roadmap with IT leadership, review a landing-zone design and a pipeline change from the team, pair on an infrastructure-as-code module, work through a remediation plan with Information Security, and manage an external partner's delivery. The role requires both leadership and hands-on depth. Essential Duties and Responsibilities: - Lead and develop a Cloud Engineer and a DevOps Engineer; set technical direction, review work, and mentor. Coordinate matrixed support from across IT and manage external delivery partners against defined scope, schedule, and quality. - Use the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) as the baseline to assess the current Azure environment against best practice across the Ready, Govern, Secure, and Manage disciplines, with the Azure Well-Architected Framework applied to key workloads. Establish a scored maturity model with a named owner for each capability, reassess at least annually, and use the gaps to shape the platform roadmap and report progress to IT leadership. - Own the environment cleanup already underway: retire orphaned and idle resources, close platform-level exposures, and turn point-in-time findings into a routed, SLA-backed remediation flow. - Enforce mandatory tagging and ownership on every resource, Azure Policy governance, management-group hierarchy, and break-glass controls. - Set the multi-year cloud direction and own the target state including landing zones, networking, identity and secrets strategy, and cloud standards. - Deliver reusable Bicep or Terraform modules deployed through Azure DevOps pipelines. - Run cloud spend as a managed number through tagging, right-sizing, reservations, lifecycle controls, and reporting. - Establish prioritization, documentation, review gates, and audit evidence supporting SOX ITGC, GLBA/FTC Safeguards, and PCI DSS. - Ensure monitoring, backup standards, logging, and remediation of platform-level posture findings. - Other duties as assigned. Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required: - 8+ years in cloud or infrastructure engineering, with hands-on depth in Microsoft Azure at production scale. - Demonstrated ownership of a cloud platform or governance program. - Working knowledge of the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework and Azure Well-Architected Framework. - Strong IaC background (Bicep, ARM, or Terraform) and CI/CD in Azure DevOps. - Cloud security expertise including identity, RBAC, networking, secrets management, encryption, logging, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud. - FinOps experience including tagging strategy, right-sizing, and reservations. - People leadership experience with hiring, mentoring, and leading engineers. - Experience in regulated environments including SOX ITGC, GLBA/FTC Safeguards, or PCI DSS. - Strong communication skills with technical and executive stakeholders. Education and/or Experience: - Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent experience. - 8+ years of cloud or infrastructure engineering experience. - Azure certifications such as AZ-305, AZ-400, or AZ-500 preferred. - Experience managing external or offshore delivery partners preferred. - Experience leading a cloud transformation from a sprawling environment to a governed platform preferred. - Financial services industry experience preferred. Physical Demands: · Must be able to constantly remain in a stationary position. · The person in this position needs to occasionally move about inside the office to access file cabinets, office machinery, etc. · Constantly operates a computer and other office productivity machinery, such as a calculator, copy machine, and computer printer. · Occasionally may require light lifting up to 25 pounds. Work Environment: - Office environment; based at Corporate Headquarters in Greenville, SC. - Shared on-call rotation for the infrastructure the business depends on. - Occasional travel as needed. This job description reflects management’s assignment of essential functions; and nothing in this herein restricts management’s right to assign or reassign duties and responsibilities to this job at any time. It is the policy of World Acceptance Corporation to provide equal employment opportunity (EEO) to all persons regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, creed, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, marital status, status with regard to public assistance, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. The duties listed are the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made unless they create an undue hardship to the Company. Physical and environmental requirements are representative of those needed to successfully perform the job.