Steve I. Cloud, Security & Hybrid Infrastructure
LinkedIn
Microsoft Escalation Engineer · AZ-305 Architect Expert · AZ-500 · Terraform · CKA & KCNA

Enterprise cloud, network security & hybrid infrastructure.

Four years at Microsoft owning high-severity Azure compute (VMs, VMSS), VNet, and storage escalations and serving as SME for Windows on Azure and AVD—preceded by three years administering a regulated 20,000-server estate across Azure and VMware at UBS.

LinkedIn Profile ↗
terraform-landing-zone — main.tf
Writing…
Provisioned Topology & Data Flow 0 / 5 Provisioned
Data & Token Flow: Waiting for deployment… Standby
Microsoft Foundry · Agents Playground azure-iaas-rag-escalation-agent Entra ID RBAC · RAG Connected
Scenario:
Agent Configuration v2.4
Model Deployment (Foundry Catalog)
Azure OpenAI temp: 0.1 · 200k ctx
System Instructions
Azure Core IaaS Escalation Agent. Ground all root-cause analysis in retrieved runbooks from idx-azure-iaas-runbooks-rag. Cite document IDs and correlate with KQL logs.
Knowledge (RAG Grounding)
Azure AI Search Index Connected
Index: idx-azure-iaas-runbooks-rag
Query: VECTOR_SEMANTIC_HYBRID
Model: text-embedding-3-large
Corpus: 420 IaaS Guides & DevOps Wikis
Registered Tools (3)
AzureAISearchTool top_k=5
KQL_LogAnalytics_Triage Active
ARM_Deployment_Inspector Active
Playground Thread · gpt-5 Grounded Run
Select a citation badge to highlight the source chunk in Azure AI Search
Retrieved RAG Chunks top_k = 3
Grounding Faithfulness: 100% 3 Citations Verified
Built in Azure AI Foundry with Python (azure-ai-projects) to automate recurring diagnostic lookups across internal troubleshooting guides and KQL queries.

Core engineering scope

01 / Architecture & Operations
Compute & VDI

Azure IaaS (VMs, VMSS & AVD)

Daily ownership of complex VM and VM Scale Set (VMSS) escalations across Windows Server and Linux (RHEL, Ubuntu, SUSE)—isolating deployment, boot, filesystem, SSH, configuration, and performance issues. Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Windows on Azure and Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD).

Cloud Networking

Hub-Spoke VNets & Firewall

Resolving VNet connectivity, authentication and authorization, and split-horizon DNS failures across Azure Firewall, bidirectional VNet peering, User-Defined Routes (UDRs), NSGs, Private Link, internal and external Load Balancers, and VPN / NAT Gateways.

Storage & Identity

Zero-Trust Storage & Entra ID

Troubleshooting Azure Storage authentication and authorization (Microsoft Entra ID, RBAC, SAS tokens, Managed Identities, Private Endpoints, storage firewalls) and IOPS throttling; advising enterprise customers on Conditional Access, PIM, JIT, Azure Policy, and Defender for Cloud.

IaC & Hybrid Estates

Terraform, CI/CD & 20k+ Servers

Rebuilding customer environments in Terraform and authoring reusable ARM templates; automating delivery via Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines, PowerShell, and Azure AI Foundry; backed by administering 20,000+ Windows and VMware servers under banking change control at UBS.

Professional experience

02 / 2013 – Present (11 Years)
Microsoft
May 2022 – Present
Senior Technical Support Engineer (Support Escalation Engineer) · Azure Core IaaS

Resolve complex Azure VM and VM Scale Set (VMSS) escalations covering deployment, connectivity, performance, configuration, and storage authentication and authorization from scoping to root cause alongside product engineering and incident-management teams. Rebuild customer environments in Terraform and author reusable ARM templates; debug failing deployments down to the Azure REST API and ARM control plane; lead 24x7 Sev A incidents with Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and KQL; serve as SME for Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows on Azure (20+ Customer Hero recognitions).

UBS
Dec 2019 – Apr 2022
IT System Administrator (Sep 2021 – Apr 2022) & IT Technical Analyst (Dec 2019 – Aug 2021)

Administered Windows Server infrastructure across a 20,000+ server banking estate spanning Azure and VMware with separate development and production environments under regulated change control. Automated VM inventory reporting and bulk cleanup of inactive accounts with PowerShell; delivered monthly OS patching and compliance remediation with WSUS; managed multi-domain Active Directory (AD DS), DNS, DHCP, DFS, and Group Policy (GPO); supported VDI, Citrix, Intune, VPN, and MFA in English and French.

Rennwear (e-commerce)
Oct 2018 – Dec 2019
IT Network & System Administrator

Sole IT administrator managing Windows Server infrastructure, Active Directory, LAN networking, NAS storage, and user access controls.

Rhône Department
Mar 2018 – May 2018
IT Administrator (Internship)

Rolled out access-controlled print management for 2,000+ users and automated Windows Server provisioning with PowerShell.

CMA CGM
Oct 2013 – Oct 2016
IT Assistant · World’s 3rd-Largest Container Shipping Company

Administered Windows Server core infrastructure services (AD DS, DNS, DHCP) and user permissions for 100+ staff.

Personal technical projects

03A / Hands-On Labs
Azure Platform Automation Lab

Deploy Azure resources and identity configuration from a Terraform repository through Azure DevOps CI/CD pipelines; enforce cost and governance guardrails with Azure Policy (blocking restricted resource types) and alert on new resource creation with Azure Automation; document the setup in a project wiki.

Kubernetes Lab

Deployed self-managed, multi-node kubeadm clusters on Azure Linux VMs with Calico.

Verified certifications

03B / Credentials
AZ-305 · EXPERT
Azure Solutions Architect Expert
AZ-500 · ASSOCIATE
Azure Security Engineer Associate
AZ-800 / 801 · ASSOCIATE
Windows Server Hybrid Admin
AZ-140 · SPECIALTY
Azure Virtual Desktop Specialty
AZ-104 · ASSOCIATE
Azure Administrator Associate
HASHICORP · ASSOCIATE
Terraform Associate
CKA & KCNA · CNCF
Certified Kubernetes Administrator
FUNDAMENTALS · 900 SERIES
AZ-900 · SC-900 · AI-900