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Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

azure consultants 1 - Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

Cloud computing is driven by visionary engineers, architects, and leaders who shape technologies across Azure, AWS, GCP and beyond.

Below is a curated list of globally recognized Azure experts – spanning renowned open-source creators, influential tech communicators, startup founders who still code, key figures at major cloud providers and even champions of programming competitions – all selected for their impactful contributions:

  1. Michael Levan
  2. Eric D. Boyd
  3. Mark Scholman
  4. Stephen W. Thomas
  5. Jason Haley
  6. Dominick Baier
  7. Thiago Custodio
  8. Thomas Van Laere
  9. Paul Andrew
  10. Roy Kim
  11. Jonah Andersson
  12. Donovan Brown
  13. Scott Guthrie
  14. Kelly Sommers

Now, let’s delve into their remarkable journeys and contributions:

Michael Levan

YouTube Video

Nationality: American

Michael is a New Jersey-based cloud-native consultant and 4× Azure MVP specializing in Kubernetes and platform engineering. He works with startups and enterprises worldwide to modernize applications on Azure Kubernetes Service and other cloud platforms.

Levan is also a CNCF Ambassador and was part of the Kubernetes release team (v1.28). He’s the author of multiple books and hosts tech podcasts on DevOps and Kubernetes. A frequent international speaker, Levan maintains an active blog and Twitter stream to share tutorials, open-source code samples, and guidance on Azure and Kubernetes.

Eric D. Boyd

Nationality: American

Eric is a Chicago-based independent Azure consultant and entrepreneur. He’s the founder and CEO of responsiveX (a custom cloud/web apps firm) and is a longtime Microsoft Azure MVP and Regional Director.

Boyd co-authored Step-by-Step Azure SQL Database (Microsoft Press) and speaks widely on cloud architecture, Azure SQL, and DevOps topics. He publishes blog posts and videos on Azure best practices and has worked with startups and enterprises on Azure migrations and data solutions. Boyd’s blend of leadership experience, community contributions, and hands-on consulting work makes him a highly regarded independent Azure expert.

Mark Scholman

Nationality: Dutch

Mark is a freelance Azure consultant in the Netherlands who specializes in hybrid cloud and Azure Stack solutions.

He co-founded the “#AzureStackOnTour” educational series (training engineers on Azure Stack around the world) and frequently blogs about hybrid cloud (e.g. on azurestack.blog). Scholman has been a Microsoft Azure MVP since 2015 and also works as a Microsoft Certified Trainer. He regularly speaks at global conferences (especially on Azure Stack/HCI) and publishes hands-on tutorials about Azure infrastructure.

His independent consultancy and training work make him a notable figure in the Azure community.

Stephen W. Thomas

Stephen W. Thomas - Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

Nationality: American

Stephen is an independent Azure integration consultant (specializing in Logic Apps, BizTalk, Service Bus and hybrid integration) with 20+ years of experience.

He founded BizTalkGurus.com and AzureIntegrationGurus.com to share community samples and guidance. A long-time Microsoft MVP (in BizTalk/Azure Integration) since 2005, Thomas writes technical blog posts and is a Pluralsight author on Azure Logic Apps and integration patterns. He has spoken at numerous conferences (Microsoft TechEd, etc.) on cloud integration and DevOps.

His career includes leading projects at startups and large firms before focusing fully on consulting, giving him deep practical expertise in Azure integration solutions.

Jason Haley

Nationality: American

Jason is the founder of Jason Haley Consulting LLC, an independent full-stack architect specializing in Azure, .NET, and AI/ML. He emphasizes Azure infrastructure, web applications, and emerging generative AI solutions.

Haley has been honored as a Microsoft AI MVP (after seven consecutive years as an Azure MVP). He holds numerous Microsoft certifications and leads the Virtual Boston Azure user group. Jason is a prolific blogger and course author on cloud development and GenAI use-cases, and he regularly speaks at conferences and meetups. His hands-on consulting with startups and large clients on Azure solutions, combined with his content creation and community leadership, make him a recognized influencer in Azure/AI circles.

Dominick Baier

Dominick Baier - Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

Nationality: German

Dominick is a cloud security consultant, co-creator of the open-source IdentityServer (an OAuth2/OpenID Connect framework), and author of books on identity management.

He runs his own consultancy (leastprivilege.com) and offers training on identity, authorization, and Azure security. Baier has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP and is a co-founder of Duende Software (continuing IdentityServer). He speaks at international conferences on cloud identity and security topics and maintains popular GitHub projects related to Azure authentication.

His contributions to open-source identity projects and community education are widely respected.

Thiago Custodio

Nationality: Brazilian

Thiago is a cloud solutions architect and multiple-time Azure MVP.

He specializes in Azure development (including serverless, containers, and AI apps) and has authored Azure programming books (e.g. Exemplos Livro Azure). Custodio works as an independent consultant and trainer, helping companies build cloud-native solutions on Azure. He frequently speaks at Latin American conferences, contributes samples to GitHub (e.g. Azure Blob Storage demos), and writes tutorials on advanced Azure topics.

His work as an Azure advisor and author has earned him recognition in the international Azure community.

Thomas Van Laere

Nationality: Belgian

Thomas is an independent Azure consultant from Belgium with a focus on DevOps, open-source and governance. He assists businesses in modernizing workloads on Azure (often using Kubernetes and Windows containers) while applying secure, governed practices.

Van Laere co-authored workshops on Kubernetes for Azure and regularly speaks on topics like confidential computing and Azure governance. He was named an Azure Content Hero (2020) and Azure MVP (2022) for his extensive community contributions. Thomas blogs and posts sample code on Azure topics (e.g. Kubernetes on Azure) and is active on social media and forums, where his deep practical experience and engaging presentations have made him a popular figure.

Paul Andrew

Paul Andrew - Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

Nationality: British

Paul is the founder and CTO of UK-based Cloud Formations, a specialist data and analytics consultancy. He focuses on Microsoft Azure data engineering (SQL Database, Data Factory, Synapse, etc.) and has over 20 years of experience designing Microsoft data platforms.

Paul is a Microsoft Data Platform MVP and co-organizer of the Data Relay conference. He frequently authors blog posts and tools for Azure data and analytics, and provides training on Azure data services. His technical leadership in big data projects at major companies, combined with his contributions to the community (blogging and speaking on Azure data topics), make him a recognized independent expert in Azure data engineering.

Roy Kim

Nationality: Canadian

Roy is a Toronto-based cloud architect and Azure/Office 365 consultant. He is a Microsoft MVP (Azure & Office Apps) since 2017.

Roy’s expertise spans Azure infrastructure, Kubernetes, cloud security, and hybrid SharePoint/Azure solutions. He co-leads the local Azure Meetup and frequently blogs and records videos on Azure best practices and security. Kim has consulted for large enterprises to implement Azure governance and integration, and he speaks at conferences on cloud security and identity.

His independent consulting firm and active social presence (blog, Twitter, videos) have made him one of the most well-known Azure consultants in the Canadian tech community.

Jonah Andersson

Jonah Andersson - Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

Nationality: Swedish

Jonah is a Swedish Azure cloud and DevOps engineer, Microsoft MVP, and certified trainer.

She serves as a senior consultant (Forefront Consulting) and mentors others on Azure infrastructure and DevOps automation. Jonah shares her knowledge through blog posts, a podcast, and community leadership; she co-hosts the “Learning Azure” YouTube series and has authored the book Learning Microsoft Azure. Her technical focus areas include Azure DevOps, ARM templates, and scalability patterns. She actively speaks at conferences and runs local meetups on cloud topics.

Andersson’s advocacy for diversity in tech and her engaging teaching style have earned her popularity as both a trainer and Azure influencer.

Donovan Brown

DevOps is the union of people, process, and products to enable continuous delivery of value to our end users.

Nationality: American

Donovan is a Partner Program Manager in Azure’s Office of the CTO Incubations team at Microsoft, widely known as “the man in the black shirt” who brought DevOps to the masses at Azure. A former process consultant and Scrum Master, Donovan traveled the globe helping companies adopt agile and DevOps practices with Microsoft tools.

At Microsoft, he became the face of Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS), famously demonstrating how to “rub some DevOps on it” to streamline software delivery. He has shown developers and IT pros how to integrate everything from GitHub and Jenkins to hybrid cloud deployments into a single automated pipeline. Donovan’s energetic keynotes and live demos have inspired countless teams to embrace CI/CD and Infrastructure as Code on Azure. After years of advocating DevOps best practices and even open-sourcing parts of Azure’s tooling, he’s now driving new cutting-edge projects in Azure’s incubation group.

Brown’s impact on the Azure community – making DevOps approachable and fun – has solidified his status as a cloud DevOps guru.

Scott Guthrie

Scott Guthrie - Top 14 Azure Consultants for Hire

Nationality: American

Scott is Microsoft’s Executive VP of the Cloud + AI Group, responsible for the entire Azure cloud platform and related developer tools. As one of the highest-ranking executives on this list, Guthrie brings a unique blend of technical and business leadership.

He’s a developer at heart – in the early 2000s, Scott co-invented ASP.NET and led the teams building .NET and Visual Studio. Now he spearheads Azure’s strategy, overseeing services across infrastructure, databases, AI, and enterprise applications. Under his guidance, Azure has aggressively expanded and innovated to close the gap with AWS, with Scott often appearing in his signature red polo shirt to announce new Azure features. He is also known for pushing Microsoft toward open source and cross-platform support (such as open-sourcing .NET and embracing Linux on Azure).

Scott Guthrie’s two decades of steering Microsoft’s most important developer and cloud technologies make him a pillar of the cloud industry, trusted by developers and CIOs alike.

Kelly Sommers

Nationality: American

Kelly is a US developer and four-time Windows Azure MVP known for expertise in cloud data and distributed systems.

She’s an independent consultant and writer focusing on Azure, Cassandra, and NoSQL databases. Sommers frequently blogs and tweets about emerging Azure technologies, big data, and open-source cloud tools. She also consults with enterprises on scaling Azure applications and has taught at Microsoft conferences.

Her repeated MVP awards and strong social media presence reflect her popularity in the community.

Wrap Up

These legends represent exceptional talent, making them extremely challenging to headhunt. However, there are thousands of other highly skilled IT professionals available to hire with our help. Contact us, and we will be happy to discuss your hiring needs.

Note: We’ve dedicated significant time and effort to creating and verifying this curated list of top talent. However, if you believe a correction or addition is needed, feel free to reach out. We’ll gladly review and update the page.

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