Director - Secure Cloud Hosting (AWS/Azure)

As Director of Secure Cloud Hosting, you will own strategy, delivery, and continuous improvement for client-facing managed cloud services across AWS and Azure. You’ll lead a global team to mature services in reliability, security/compliance, and cost efficiency, build trusted relationships with executives and application owners, and drive the transformation to Infrastructure as Code (IaC) as the default operating model through standards, reference patterns, and coaching.

You are responsible for ensuring key outcomes-system reliability, security integrity, compliance readiness, client satisfaction, and cost optimization-achieved through effective governance of teams and vendors.

Key Responsibilities

• Strategy & Ownership

• Define and own the multiyear service roadmap (landing zones, guardrails, automation, observability, DR, FinOps) and prioritize investments that advance reliability, security, and cost efficiency.

• Set SLO/SLA policy and institutionalize SRE practices (error budgets, reliability guardrails, automated remediation) through operating mechanisms and dashboards.

• Establish and approve reference architectures, templates, and IaC standards; ensure adoption across teams and vendors.

• Direct cloud governance (AWS Orgs/SCPs; Azure Mgmt Groups/Policy; tagging & cost allocation) and audit adherence.

• Define the strategy for AI-driven automation and observability (e.g., Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry) and sequence use-cases that deliver measurable impact.

Service Delivery & Operations

• Oversee onboarding of new client environments (landing zones, identity, networking, policy-as-code, baselines); approve readiness criteria and cutover.

• Be accountable for day-to-day operations outcomes (patching, backups/restore, capacity, performance, monitoring/alerting) delivered by teams and vendors, with clear KPIs and review cadences.

• Govern ITIL 4 processes (incident, change/CAB, problem, request) with targets for MTTR, change success rate, and RCA quality.

• Ensure a 24/7 support model (runbooks/playbooks, on-call rotations) is funded, staffed, tested, and reviewed via post-incident governance; mandate chaos engineering and DR test schedules with executive readouts.

• Champion integration of AI agents into operations; approve guardrails for automated remediation and anomaly detection.

Security & Compliance

• Ensure defensible controls aligned to NIST 800-53, ISO 27001, SOC 2, and (where applicable) FedRAMP, with continuous control monitoring and evidence management.

• Oversee vulnerability management, detection/response, log aggregation, key/secret management, and PAM; set risk thresholds and remediation SLAs.

• Direct continuous compliance via AWS Config, Azure Policy, CIS Benchmarks, Well-Architected/CAF; review exceptions and drive closure.

• Partner with Security/Compliance leadership on audits, findings, and corrective action plans.

• Govern secure AI workload deployment and ensure adherence to emerging AI governance frameworks with NIST/ISO/FedRAMP alignment.

IaC Leadership

• Make IaC the default operating model and hold teams accountable for compliant, automated delivery.

• Set direction and approve architectures for Terraform/Bicep/Pulumi/CloudFormation/CDK; ensure secure automation and traceability.

• Ensure CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, AWS CodePipeline) implement policy-as-code, scanning, and segregation of duties.

• Establish standards, reusable modules, and best practices; sponsor enablement and coaching programs for teams.

• Champion AI-assisted IaC validation and enforcement to accelerate secure deployments.

Observability

• Be accountable for end-to-end observability (CloudWatch, Azure Monitor, Datadog/Prometheus/Grafana, APM/trace, SIEM) with tiered standards by criticality.

• Approve golden signals and SLO dashboards; require auto-remediation where feasible and review trend reports.

• Direct AI-driven observability strategy for predictive alerting and noise reduction; track alert fatigue and burn rate.

FinOps & Commercial Management

• Own cost governance through budgets/forecasts, rightsizing, reservations/savings plans, anomaly detection, and showback/chargeback executed by FinOps and engineering.

• Establish and enforce tagging & cost allocation policy; publish executive reports and drive optimization guardrails that protect reliability and security.

• Track unit economics (cost-to-serve per workload/tenant) and improve over time through design standards and lifecycle management.

Stakeholder & Vendor Management

• Build trusted relationships with executives, business leaders, application owners, and client stakeholders; run QBRs and roadmap reviews tied to outcomes.

• Manage cloud provider and vendor partnerships; escalate and influence roadmaps/support aligned to your strategy.

People Leadership

• Lead and develop a multi-disciplinary organization (ops, engineering, admins, PMO, security, ITSM); recruit, coach, set goals, and succession-plan.

• Foster a culture of accountability, automation-first, and continuous improvement; recognize performance and address gaps.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years in cloud/platform engineering or operations; 5+ years leading multidisciplinary teams in a 24x7 environment, including direct leadership of Staff/Principal Architects.

Additional Qualifications

• Proven ability to drive IaC adoption and automation in regulated or security-sensitive organizations.

• Track record directing teams delivering with IaC (e.g., Terraform, Bicep, Pulumi, CloudFormation, AWS CDK) and policy-as-code; able to set standards, review designs, and enforce guardrails.

• Architectural depth across AWS and Azure (identity, networking, security, compute, storage, data protection) with the ability to evaluate designs, set guardrails, and make trade-offs.

• Demonstrated experience governing landing zones, guardrails, and policy-as-code in client-facing accounts, including readiness criteria and auditability.

• Strong command of ITIL 4 and SRE practices; instituted operating mechanisms (CAB, incident/post-incident reviews, error budgets) that improved MTTR and change success rate.

• Security/compliance depth: NIST 800-53, ISO 27001 (evidence management and continuous control monitoring expectations).

• FinOps leadership: cost governance, optimization, showback/chargeback, and executive reporting.

• Excellent stakeholder management: executive communication, QBRs, risk/ROI storytelling, and cross-functional alignment.

• Experience leading organizational change (e.g., IaC adoption, SRE, AI-Ops) with clear OKRs/SLOs and adoption metrics.

• Proven ability to build, develop, and succession-plan multi-disciplinary teams; attracts and scales talent in high-growth, regulated environments.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience defining strategy and measurable use cases for AI in operations (e.g., AWS Bedrock, Azure AI Foundry) across automation, observability, and compliance.

• Understanding of AI governance, model security, and responsible AI practices in regulated environments.

• Familiarity with FedRAMP for government workloads.

Working Model

• Global coverage; on-call rotation for critical services.

• Reston, VA vicinity; Hybrid/remote flexibility; periodic travel.

Bot and Third-Party Applications

Please note that this application must be submitted directly by the applicant for consideration. Failure to do so may result in the application being excluded for consideration. Applicants needing an accommodation for disability or religious purposes in connection with the application process should contact [email protected] for assistance.

Working at ICF

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Pay Range - There are multiple factors that are considered in determining final payfor a position, including, but not limited to, relevant work experience, skills, certifications and competencies that align to the specified role, geographic location, education and certifications as well as contract provisions regarding labor categories that are specific to the position.

The pay range for this position based on full-time employment is: