Cloud and DevOps
Hire cloud and DevOps engineers
AI runs on infrastructure, and companies are spending on it faster than they can staff it. Microsoft's Azure grew 43% in the April to June 2026 quarter and now brings in more than $100 billion a year. Systems engineers and DevOps engineers are among the five most-posted tech roles in the US. Madrone finds cloud and DevOps engineers who have already run the platform you use, and places them on contract, contract-to-hire or direct hire.
How the job changed
| Role | Then | Now |
|---|---|---|
| DevOps engineer | Built the deployment pipeline | Also runs AI workloads, GPU costs and monitoring |
| Cloud engineer | Moved servers to the cloud | Controls a cloud bill that grows every month |
| Platform engineer | Didn't exist outside big tech | Gives every developer a safe, ready-made way to ship |
| Site reliability engineer | Got paged when the site went down | Sets the uptime targets and automates the fixes |
Roles we place
- Cloud engineers and cloud architects (Azure, AWS)
- DevOps engineers
- Platform engineers
- Site reliability engineers (SRE)
- Infrastructure-as-code specialists (Terraform, Bicep)
- Cloud security and FinOps specialists
Contract or hire?
Contract the migration, the landing-zone build or the cost cleanup. Hire the engineer who will own the platform after.
How we find them
We don't post jobs. We map who is doing this work today, reach out with a message written for each person, and draw on a database we've built since 2007. A recruiter screens every candidate and verifies identity and work history before you see them. Most roles are filled in one to three weeks.
Sources: Microsoft FY26 Q4, via Redmond, CompTIA, Oct 2026.
Questions
Azure or AWS?
Both. Most companies outside the tech industry run on Microsoft, so Azure depth matters. We look for people who have run your platform in production, not just passed the certification.
Is "Azure DevOps" the skill to look for?
It's one toolset, and many teams are moving to GitHub Actions. Hire for DevOps judgment, not for one tool.
Can these roles be remote?
Usually, yes. Cloud and DevOps work is among the easiest IT work to do remotely.