We are seeking a Principal Administrator to join our IT Operations team, specializing in Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). This senior individual contributor role sits at the intersection of software engineering, infrastructure, and emerging AI technologies. You will drive the reliability, performance, and scalability of Cencora's critical systems while championing the adoption of AI-powered tooling to elevate the operational maturity of the organization.

This is a highly influential position — you will set technical direction, shape engineering standards, and serve as a force multiplier for the broader IT Operations function.

Key Responsibilities:

Site Reliability Engineering

• Own and drive the reliability, availability, and performance of critical production systems, defining and enforcing SLOs, SLIs, and error budgets across services.

• Lead incident response efforts — serving as the escalation point for major outages, conducting thorough post-incident reviews, and driving systemic improvements from blameless retrospectives.

• Design and implement advanced observability strategies, including distributed tracing, structured logging, and metrics-driven alerting using modern observability platforms.

• Champion toil reduction by systematically identifying manual operational work and replacing it with automation and self-healing systems.

• Develop and maintain runbooks, playbooks, and disaster recovery procedures that are clear, tested, and actionable.

AI Tooling & Innovation

• Lead the evaluation, integration, and operationalization of AI-powered tooling, with a strong focus on platforms such as Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI Service, and related MLOps frameworks.

• Architect and maintain AI/ML infrastructure pipelines, including model deployment, inference endpoints, monitoring, and feedback loops for production AI systems.

• Drive the adoption of AI-assisted operations — including intelligent alerting, anomaly detection, predictive capacity planning, and LLM-based automation workflows.

• Collaborate with product and data science teams to translate AI capabilities into reliable, production-grade services with appropriate guardrails and governance.

• Stay at the forefront of emerging AI tooling and proactively identify opportunities to apply new capabilities to operational challenges.

Network Technologies

• Apply a deep understanding of networking principles — including TCP/IP, DNS, BGP, load balancing, CDN, SD-WAN, and zero-trust network architecture — to diagnose and resolve complex infrastructure issues.

• Partner with network engineering teams to ensure resilient, low-latency connectivity for distributed and cloud-native services.

• Design and validate network observability practices, including flow analysis, packet capture, and performance baselining across hybrid cloud environments.

• Contribute to network security posture through familiarity with firewalls, WAFs, DDoS mitigation, and private connectivity patterns (e.g., Azure Private Link, ExpressRoute).

Software Engineering

• Write production-quality code and automation in one or more languages (Python, Go, PowerShell, or equivalent) to build internal tooling, infrastructure-as-code, and automation frameworks.

• Apply software engineering best practices — including version control (Git), CI/CD pipelines, code review, testing, and documentation — to all operational work.

• Contribute to and govern Infrastructure as Code (IaC) standards using Terraform, Bicep, or similar tooling across cloud environments (primarily Azure).

• Design and develop APIs and microservices that enhance operational capabilities, integrating with monitoring, ticketing, and AI platforms.

Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Serve as a technical authority and mentor, guiding engineers across IT Operations on SRE principles, architectural decisions, and engineering excellence.

• Influence product roadmaps by advocating for reliability and operability as first-class design requirements.

• Engage with senior stakeholders and leadership to communicate risk, reliability posture, and strategic improvements in clear, business-relevant terms.

• Drive alignment across infrastructure, security, application, and AI teams to ensure cohesive and well-integrated operational practices.

Required Qualifications

• • 8+ years of experience in IT Operations, infrastructure engineering, or software engineering, with at least 3 years in a dedicated SRE or platform engineering role.
  • Demonstrable expertise with cloud platforms — particularly Microsoft Azure — including compute, networking, storage, and managed services.
  • Hands-on experience with AI/ML platforms and tooling, including Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, OpenAI APIs, or equivalent.
  • Strong proficiency in networking technologies — TCP/IP stack, DNS, HTTP/S, load balancing, VPN, SD-WAN, and cloud networking constructs.
  • Proficiency in at least two programming or scripting languages (Python, Go, Bash, PowerShell, etc.) with a portfolio of production-quality automation or tooling.
  • Deep experience with observability platforms such as Azure Monitor, Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus, or equivalent.
  • Hands-on expertise with IaC tooling (Ansible, Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates) and modern CI/CD platforms (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions).
  • Proven track record in SRE practices — SLO/SLI definition, error budgets, chaos engineering, and toil elimination.

Preferred Qualifications

• • Experience deploying and operating LLM-based workflows or agents in production environments.
  • Familiarity with FinOps principles and cloud cost optimization in large-scale environments.
  • Knowledge of healthcare, pharmaceutical, or regulated industry compliance requirements (e.g., SOC 2, HIPAA, GxP).
  • Experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration at scale.
  • Relevant certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert, CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), Google SRE, or equivalent.
• Additional Job Description

Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, information systems, engineering, business administration, or a related field, or equivalent experience required.
Master's degree in computer science, information technology, information systems, engineering, business administration, or a related field, or equivalent experience preferred.

8+ years of experience in it operations, enterprise systems engineering, infrastructure architecture, or a related field required.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Professional, Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert, VMware Certified Design Expert (VCDX), or equivalent certification preferred.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in IT Operations, infrastructure engineering, or software engineering, with at least 3 years in a dedicated SRE or platform engineering role.

• Demonstrable expertise with cloud platforms — particularly Microsoft Azure — including compute, networking, storage, and managed services.

• Hands-on experience with AI/ML platforms and tooling, including Azure AI Foundry, Azure Machine Learning, OpenAI APIs, or equivalent.

• Strong proficiency in networking technologies — TCP/IP stack, DNS, HTTP/S, load balancing, VPN, SD-WAN, and cloud networking constructs.

• Proficiency in at least two programming or scripting languages (Python, Go, Bash, PowerShell, etc.) with a portfolio of production-quality automation or tooling.

• Deep experience with observability platforms such as Azure Monitor, Datadog, Grafana, Prometheus, or equivalent.

• Hands-on expertise with IaC tooling (Ansible, Terraform, Bicep, ARM templates) and modern CI/CD platforms (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions).

• Proven track record in SRE practices — SLO/SLI definition, error budgets, chaos engineering, and toil elimination.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience deploying and operating LLM-based workflows or agents in production environments.

• Familiarity with FinOps principles and cloud cost optimization in large-scale environments.

• Knowledge of healthcare, pharmaceutical, or regulated industry compliance requirements (e.g., SOC 2, HIPAA, GxP).

• Experience with Kubernetes and container orchestration at scale.

• Relevant certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert, CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator), Google SRE, or equivalent.

Salary (annual gross): 82,576 - 117,966 EUR

What Cencora offers

We offer a competitive annual bonus, life insurance from Day 1, a best-in-class health insurance package, and up to 6 fully paid benefit days a year. As a Cencora employee, you have the benefit of our referral bonus scheme, our boundless learning opportunities and our global Employee Assistance Program. We have a wonderful office location in Quadrum, equipped with everything you need for a small break at work and fresh snacks at all times. Become part of our purpose-driven, multicultural team now and help us create healthier futures

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